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Wednesday 18 July 2007

Funeral of Malawi air crash victims

THE parents of a Dereham woman who died in a sightseeing plane crash in Malawi spoke about their “bubbly” daughter, who always lived life to the full.

Dawn Rollins and her husband Colin Smith, both 45 and chartered accountants, were among five British tourists who died when their sightseeing plane went down in a river valley in June. The plane had been travelling from the capital Lilongwe to the north of Malawi.

The Malawi trip was just one of the many cycling adventures the keen travellers had been on together, including holidays in New Zealand, Costa Rica, Norway, Canada and Japan. They had already planned their next trip, which was to be to Bhutan.

“Dawn and Colin thought the world of each other and did everything together. They visited more than 30 countries together. They had gone to Malawi because they had wanted to explore the scenery and wildlife,” said Ms Rollins' mum Linda Rollins, from Dereham, who described her daughter as bubbly and outgoing.

She added that when she saw the couple off at Norwich Airport a week before the tragedy they had been “so happy.”

Ms Rollins' dad Victor Rollins said: “Dawn lived her life to the full. I could not do in two lifetimes what Dawn did in hers. She just loved adventure.

“She was brilliant, always organising everybody, and a bit of a daddy's girl. We shall miss her a lot.”

Ms Rollins, who has a brother, Stuart, was brought up in Dereham, and was a pupil at Dereham Infant and Junior Schools, Dereham High School for Girls, and Dereham Sixth Form.

She developed a love of music as a child and she began learning the piano from the age of six until she went to university. When she was about 15 years old she began playing the cornet for the Dereham Band and in 2001 she became the band's chairman.

After she graduated from Hull University she met Mr Smith, from Salisbury, in the early 1980s at a seminar in Newcastle. Mr Smith, who had graduated from Bristol University, then moved to Norfolk to be with Ms Rollins.

Ms Rollins and Mr Smith, who lived in Brundall, were together for about 20 years before they decided to get married in April 2004 at the Ice Chapel in Sweden.

Ms Rollins, who loved cats, cookery and flower-arranging, worked as a senior manager at the Norwich office of chartered accountants Lovewell Blake, specialising in agricultural accountancy, and Mr Smith worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers, in Norwich.

More than 400 people attended the joint funeral of Ms Rollins and Mr Smith at St Nicholas' Church, Dereham.

They included members of Dereham Band and other musicians who played at the funeral in tribute to the couple. Items included a tribute piece, The Old Rugged Cross one of Dawn's favourites and recently obtained by her for the band to perform at future events.

The band was supplemented by band members from across the country, including Black Dyke, Delph, and others from bands in Cawston, King's Lynn, Aylsham, Fakenham and Wherry, Cromer and Sheringham. There were 51 musicians in total.

Fiona Joisce, from Dereham Band, said it was one of the hardest jobs the band had ever undertaken.

“As the tragic news of their deaths first spread across the banding fraternity we started to receive letters, phone calls and emails from not only the many bands and players across Norfolk that Dawn had helped, but also from some of the big Yorkshire bands as well.

“Dawn was held in high regard by all who had the pleasure to know her and this was reflected in the number of guests who joined with Dereham Band to honour her memory.”

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