Jade Goody funeral draws thousands

Public pay tribute as Jade Goody's coffin is driven through streets of London childhood to funeral in Essex

Caroline Davies and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 4 April 2009 10.34 BST

Jade Goody's funeral procession passes through Bermondsey, London, on its way to Essex. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Thousands gathered to say farewell to Jade Goody today, carpeting the route to her funeral with flowers and celebrating her life with applause.

Fans and well-wishers travelled from across the country to stand outside the St John the Baptist Church in Buckhurst Hill, Essex, to pay tribute to the 27-year-old reality TV star who died from cervical cancer.

Her plain white coffin, borne in a flower-strewn vintage Rolls-Royce hearse, arrived shortly after midday, having first journeyed through the damp streets of Bermondsey, south east London, where the Big Brother star grew up.

The sun broke through as the cortege reached her last home, in Upshire, Essex. There, her mother, Jackiey Budden, 51, had to be helped by friends into the funeral car at the head of the 20-vehicle procession as onlookers shouted support: "Be strong, Jackiey – she's looking down on you."

Family and close friends walked behind her coffin for the last few hundred yards to the church, buoyed by a gospel choir singing some of her favourite hymns, including Amazing Grace.

Just 350 invited guests were inside the church, but outside in the sunshine, an estimated 2,000 crammed in front of two large electronic screens broadcasting the service.

Goody, who died on Mother's Day leaving two small sons, Bobby, five and Freddie, four, had planned every last detail herself, including the fact that her boys would not attend. They are on holiday in Australia with their father, Jeff Brazier, but were said to have carried out their own ceremony on a beach, placing hand-made paintings of their mother in a bottle and throwing it out to sea, addressed "To God" and with the message "Please give to our mummy". Another letter, among the floral tributes at the funeral, was signed from her "little men" and read: "To Mummy, Please speak to God and ask him to make the clouds go away on holiday because we can't see the stars."

In all an estimated 5,000 people turned out along the route. Her publicist, Max Clifford, said the public's response had been overwhelming. "She will have a big smile on her face when she sees what is going on today," he said.

Goody's widower, Jack Tweed, 21, whom she married in February after being told she had just weeks to live, fought back tears to read a poem during the service. As The Beatles' She Loves You filled the church, mourners watched a montage of still and moving images of Goody, ending with a recording of her voice saying: "That's it from me. See you around, maybe. Bye."

Tributes included one from her friend, fitness trainer Kevin Adams, who said: "Nothing, absolutely nothing in Jade's life was done by half. Love or hate her, that was the beauty of the girl."

While the funeral, like the last seven years of Goody's life, was played out in public, the burial afterwards, at an undisclosed spot believed to be in Epping Forest, was a private occasion for close family and friends.

Antony Costa, formerly of the boy band Blue, and the singer Jamelia were among guests. As he arrived at the church, Costa said he was "absolutely devastated that she's gone," and he hoped her legacy "lives on".

The service was led by the Reverend Corinne Brixton, who baptised Goody and her two sons last month, and the Reverend Dr Ian Farley.

Floral tributes were in abundance and her own wish was that they should reflect her life. Wreaths fashioned the words "East Angular" and "Minging", references to the unconsciously comical phrases that had catapulted the former dental nurse to stardom during the Channel 4 show in 2002.

Pink flowers spelled out "Jade from Bermondsey", paying tribute to her humble roots in the Dickens estate. Here the cortege had stopped briefly as funeral director Barry Albin Dyer symbolically knocked on the front door of her old flat. It stopped, too, at "The Blue" market on Southwark Park Road, where her family used to have a stall and where an impromptu shrine has been established at a nearby tree. Here, a single white dove was released as the crowds cheered.

Other wreaths reflected the 27-year-old's humorous take on her celebrity. One was in the shape of a handbag, one a high-heeled shoe, and another was shaped like a jar of Marmite. She had likened herself to the savoury spread, saying people either loved her or hated her. Signifying her life in the public eye there was a newspaper front page and a paparazzo's camera.

Goody, who was told she had cancer in August while appearing on Bigg Boss, the Indian version of Big Brother, was open about her wish to exploit media interest to raise awareness of cervical dancer.

Albin Dyer said Goody's family "wanted me to tell people today that this is just an extension of bringing further awareness to the situation".

"Had Jade been found to have cervical cancer much earlier, she'd have had such a better chance. That is the message they want to give to everybody."

He said Bermondsey was "very kind to its dead".

"What's happening with Jade here isn't uncommon to Bermondsey people. They all come out to wish people well as they go."

Fans came from all over Britain. Mother-of-seven Kirsty Brooks, 34, who travelled from Westbury, Wilts, with three of her sisters, said: "She was just a real woman who always put her kids first to the end." Brenda Morton, 61, of Canvey Island in Essex, said: "I have utmost respect for her for what she did for her boys and what she's done for other girls; she has saved a lot of lives through this.

"She was loud and funny and I think people warmed to her, either you loved Jade or you didn't. She was a bit like Canvey Island really."

Outside the church Bishop Jonathan Blake, of the Open Episcopal Church, said: "Jade was always raw and real. There was nothing superficial about her.

"When she had this diagnosis many celebrities would have hidden away at that point but she didn't, she stood out until the end."

The Rev Stewart Hartley, vicar of St James's Church, Bermondsey, who walked with the coffin, said Goody had attended the local church school and Sunday school. "Several girls have said to me, 'I've gone and had some tests done', because Jade said they should," he added.