These are just some of my memories of Aileen, they mean a lot to me. I first met her in 2000 when I came to work in the lab with her. I liked her from day one. She was funny, intelligent and I felt that she was a person it would be good to know, work would never dull with Aileen around. Her laugh was big and genuine and totally infectious. I will always remember her laughing. Coffee times at work would be something to look forward to because she could talk about any subject easily and with a big dollop originality and fun. Over the years I always looked forward to seeing her, particularly at home at the Avenues. I remember every single time going in and seeing Aileen and being made to feel comfortable, she made her house a home, she was happy there and her happiness was infectious. I also remember her feistiness and her well thought out and insightful opinions about everything..she was flipping clever at everything from science to a deeper understanding about what was important, truly important. We went to Brussels once to an E.U. meeting/PR event. We had to sit in a huge hall promoting the project I was working on in the lab on and she was managing in her E.U. Admin days. I was terrified of the channel tunnel, she was glad we weren't going over a bridge (which she hated). We had huge fun at the meeting. The days would have seemed long, just hanging around at our stand but we had such good fun they passed in a flash. We learnt quickly that if we gave the catering team lots of the chocolates we had on our stand they would look after us when we went for meals and, more importantly, at the big evening do at the Brussels Comic Strip Museum. We were given more than the curtesy one glass of champagne and we chatted and laughed until suddenly all the lights went out. We nearly got locked in, we had not noticed but everyone had gone home except us. By then we were so jolly we tried to walk back to the hotel but got totally lost in the back streets of Brussels. We finally managed to flag a taxi and were saved. Aileen and I were both diagnosed with cancer at the same time. We never spoke about that, we met for coffee now and then and I was grateful, as I think she was, that we didn't talk about it. For me it was enough to know that we both understood the need to talk about positive things and things that mattered. We spoke a lot about our children and our memories of them as babies. When Aileen did talk about her treatment it was as if it was nothing other than an irritating aside, not, as Dylan has said, something that defined her. She is the strongest person I have ever known. There is no good way to deal with illness like that but it seemed to me as if she kept sense of who she was and what mattered in life. That is no easy thing in the face of treatments and NHS appointments etc. The last time I saw Aileen was in her garden, we had a cup of tea and a laugh about things. She seemed tired but otherwise not too ill. As I left she went indoors to Lucy and Michael. That is how I will remember her, happy with her family in her home and laughing.