A tribute to Alex: Friend, colleague and Fe-liner

Fe-line is all about the people, the people that come along to the events, the people who read the blog and the people that inspire me everyday to keep doing what I am doing. I have strong intuition and I can often tell when I meet someone if they are going to have an important influence on my life. A woman called Alex Dann was one of these people and very sadly a few days before Christmas I found out that she had died of cancer.

Alex was my friend, my work colleague for three years and she was also a Fe-liner. She came along to many events and loved the network and the Word of Mouth talks. We were the same age, we both turned 30 this year, and I never imagined in a million years that I would be sat here writing a tribute to this incredible woman.

I met Alex in 2007 when I started working at a publishing company in Oxfordshire. I don’t remember meeting Alex for the first time but about six months after I started working there I was moved and my new seat was next to Alex. This started a friendship between us that would involve some amazing fun times but also a mutual respect for each other that was incredibly strong.

Of all of the people that I have ever met, I think Alex is one of the ones that I will always hold in the highest regard. If the world was a superhero movie and it was as simple as good versus evil, Alex would have been on the good side, every single time. She was like my moral centre, I knew if Alex did something then it was OK, if she didn’t then it probably wasn’t.

At work Alex was quiet, efficient dedicated and she was an amazing marketer. She would achieve great results, but she would never ever flaunt it across the office, she kept everything very close to her chest and was incredibly private whereas I would be very open about my opinions.

We found the differences in each others personalities endearing and I would often tell Alex that I wished I could be more like her. Her self control was one of the things I found so admirable. Alex could sit right next to the cake table at work and eat nothing and I would be there stuffing the 50th cake of the day into my mouth, promising that tomorrow I would do better.

Alex’s incredibly professional approach to life did not mean that she didn’t know how to have a good time, in fact entirely the opposite. In the early days of working for the publishers we had some very fun nights out together. One of my favourite memories of Alex was in a nightclub in Oxford, she just kept stealing hats off people’s heads and putting them on her own. Alex was very tall and long limbed and I just kept seeing a long arm appearing out of nowhere (a little bit like Mr. Tickle) and taking hats of people’s heads as they were dancing. I was in creases.

When good things happened to Alex I was always so happy for her because out of anyone in the world she deserved it more than anyone. I was so pleased for her when she starting dating Matt, she had met someone who shared the same interests, passions and love for life. At the time I was having a disastrous time in my own love life but I never felt a twinge of jealousy, I never could for Alex, I just always wanted the best for her.

I was so proud of her when she got promoted to manager at work, it did mean that I lost her as my seating buddy but I was so impressed that she had got to this position at 27. I remember thinking how ballsy it was to even apply for the job, I would have never even considered it and then I realised there was so much more to this quiet girl, underneath she had a killer ambition that made me like her even more.

When Alex told me she was going to live in Argentina with Matt and would be leaving the publishing company, I literally squealed. I can remember the feeling so vividly I was so proud and so excited, the feeling of elation was so strong you would have thought it was me that was going. When she returned, she came along to various Fe-line events, including the ones about blogging and I got that proud feeling of elation again when she started her own cream tea blog. She was important member of the Fe-line community and I was really happy whenever she popped up at an event.

The last time I saw Alex, I was in Summertown and we ran into each other when I had finished doing an interview at Radio Oxford. I was so pleased to see her, it had been a while. What I have struggled with for the last few weeks is the conversation we had: she told me how proud of me she was, doing things like Radio Oxford and how she felt she hadn’t quite figured out what she wanted to be doing and I remember the words leaving my lips: “Don’t worry you have plenty of time, 30 is the new 20.”

I have gone through various emotions since hearing the news of Alex’s death, sadness, anger and just asking ‘why’. But I am a spiritual person and this has allowed me to channel these emotions. I don’t follow a religion but I don’t believe that when we die that is the end. I am not sure what happens but I pretty sure whoever is ruling the show wouldn’t go about creating someone like Alex and then just taking them away. I think it might be the opposite, she was so good that she was needed elsewhere for something bigger and better than this life.

Alex you were truly an inspirational, ambitious and courageous woman. I will miss you greatly but I feel like I am a better person for having met you and having you in my life.

Alex’s fiancé, Matt, Mum, Di and Sister Adela have set up a Justgiving page to raise money for Beating Bowel Cancer, to raise awareness of the symptoms amongst young people, as Alex wanted to ensure that other people did not suffer the same fate as her. If you have been touched by this story please make a donation.

Much love,