A woman visited her boyfriend’s favourite holiday spot to spread his ashes.
Kathy Reilly and her boyfriend, Alan Jones, who lived in Birkenhead together, loved to travel and had ticked off locations such as South East Asia, America and the Caribbean on their bucket list. However, a place the couple were always drawn back to every year was one of Spain’s Canary Islands.
The 58-year-old carer, originally from Fazakerley, told the ECHO : “I’ve been all over the world with Alan. I travelled everywhere with him, we had a good life together. Since his passing, it’s been hard for me, horrendous actually. We’ve got a property in Tenerife and we went every year. I wasn’t going to go this year, but my family thought it would be a good idea for me to go myself for six weeks.
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“I took Alan’s ashes over and scattered some of them over our favourite places in Tenerife. The friends we made from visiting over the years helped me have a charity day raising money while I was over there.”
Alan, who owned his own company, was diagnosed with lung cancer two years ago and over the following 15 months it "spread rapidly”. Alan was initially on chemotherapy tablets but after they “stopped working”, he went through one treatment of chemotherapy in March 2022, but from there his condition “went downhill”.
Wanting to “cherish the precious time” they had left together, Kathy made the decision to care for Alan in their home for several months before he died in June of this year. The two had been together for 18 years.
She said: “Alan never smoked, wasn’t a drinker, he went to the gym five days a week, had done marathons for charities over the years, and in lockdown, he was cycling every day. He was just a keep-fit fanatic. Alan was a health freak, so it was the shock of his life and mine as well.”
“Alan never understood he was dying. When he got diagnosed he was suffering from depression, had a breakdown and his anxiety was too much. So, when I brought him home, he thought and believed he only had a chest infection. He could never handle or accept having cancer.”
LGBTQ+ venues in the city’s Pride Quarter, including On Point, The Poste House, Kitty’s Show Bar and The Libson, came together to raise funds for Cancer Research UK in Alan’s name. Justin Quine, the owner of On Point, said it was the perfect opportunity to give back to Kathy, someone who has been an ally of Liverpool’s LGBTQ+ community for some time now.
He told the ECHO : “I’ve been drinking in the gay scene for a while and Kathy has always been that one person that’s just friends with everybody. She always makes the effort with events and things the bars put on. I think now it’s lovely to see how much she’s done for everyone else and now people are giving back to her.”
Kathy added: “The generosity of the gay scene has been absolutely outstanding. It’s overwhelming to see everyone come together. Everything is appreciated. On the day of my Alan’s funeral, half of the community came to my apartment and made sure I was ok. They have supported not just me but my family. I couldn’t thank them enough.”
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