Friends, family and showbusiness colleagues paid tearful tributes to the actress Lynda Bellingham as they said farewell to an "extraordinary force of nature".
They reminisced with jokes, verse and near-the-knuckle anecdotes as they fondly recalled the 66-year-old, who died last month after making the decision to end treatment for her cancer.
Bellingham - who in recent years had become known as a presenter of ITV's Loose Women - had asked for a lively send-off so her husband Michael Pattemore lined up a string of guests who made her funeral into a variety show-style celebration of her life.
They gathered at St Bartholomew's Church in Crewkerne, Somerset to mourn the actress, who was known for roles in shows such as Faith In The Future and All Creatures Great And Small and as the mother in a long-running series of TV adverts for Oxo.
Her screen husband from the commercials, Michael Redfern, was among those in attendance along with Loose Women presenters Coleen Nolan, Jane McDonald, Andrea McLean and Kate Thornton.
The actress had colon cancer that later spread to her lungs and liver. She was diagnosed last July but in late September disclosed that she had decided to end her treatment to limit the amount of suffering her family would witness. .
More than 100 members of the public lined the path outside the church to pay their respects.
Bellingham's widower - her third husband, whom she married on her 60th birthday - helped carry her coffin accompanied by her sons Michael, 31, and Robert, 26, as Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations played.
Among those who spoke was her friend Gyles Brandreth, the broadcaster and former MP. He said: "Lynda was an extraordinary force of nature, intelligent, gifted, generous, funny, feisty, open, honest, kind and caring."
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