On the whole, people are pleased to come across websites which pay tribute to other lives, especially to the departed.

But you have to admit there are creepy and frequently insincere, self-seeking elements to many dedications we encounter in our culture. That is to say nothing about how often experience the deification of the long-gone as cynically justifying terrible acts in the moment.

Writing as her son and constructer of this site, I feel convinced that Ellen would feel very uncomfortable with whiff of an idea of this site as ‘shrine’, because she always tuned in the fallibility of individuals as it is what makes us human.

It is not simply the old adage that ‘the older I get, the better was‘ or ‘and ‘the older the story the more glorious were those bygone days’ which would irritate her – what she would baulk at most of all, is the idea of being part of a family or cultural dynasty.

It is not hard to see that part of this was because rampant cultural dynastic imperatives were what had driven her from her childhood home – intent not just on that but killing her her too, had she remained there.. And she experienced this constantly as an indulgence of supremacists in her adopted Africa.

If one is avoid the shrine/dynastic elements into a memory of a person, one should let their lives free-stand as a tribute to themselves and also permit their failings to remain in view.

All this said – Ellen I am sure would admit to being fallible enough to appreciate that some elements of her life were deemed ‘worth remembering’ by others..

And she would appreciate the extent to which this website will be devoted to remembering others whose lives touched her.. She always expressed that at the end of the day, ‘friends are ‘the most important thing in a human’s life’.