Doreen Pickersgill
Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
Doreen Pickersgill is in her eighties and has been at every early service anyone can remember: second pew, good coat, handbag on her knee, eyes shut and lips moving. The parish calls her dotty, fondly, for the muddle over the buses and the stories told twice, and files her under harmless. She lives out at Wildmore End in one of the old drainage cottages by the pumping station, where she came as a bride the year of the last bad flood, and her walls are crowded with photographs of half the town. She does the graveside flowers for people she never met, because somebody ought to. She keeps a list, and goes down it every morning. Ask her who is on it and she will pat your hand. "Oh, you'd be surprised, dear."