Thanks for the memories

And Edith considers herself doubly fortunate because, except for her train fare to London, she hasn't had to part with a single penny to watch her favourite stars in action - as each performance has been at a memorial service for a fellow celebrity.

Edith took up her rather unusual "hobby" of attending memorial services for the famous 13 years ago, when she heard about a tribute to actor David Niven at St Martin-in-the-Fields Church in Trafalgar Square.

"I've always been interested in performing arts. I love to go to London - I have to see the shows as soon as they come out - and I love seeing these famous people in a natural habitat," says Edith.

"I just read in the Daily Mail that it was going to be David Niven's memorial service and thought I'd go and see if I could get in. I didn't have a clue if members of the public were allowed in to these occasions, but I'm always up for doing different things, so I thought I'd try."

Out of the 10 memorial services she's been to, Edith says her very first one - for Around the World in 80 Days star David Niven - was the best.

"If I hadn't known where the church was I would have found it quite easily because when I arrived there were masses of people outside. I just lurked around and thought, 'what shall I do?'

"Then I plucked up my courage and when it was just starting, I slipped in and they pointed me to the balcony, where I had the best view of the lot.

"I was given a lovely programme, and then the free entertainment began. I was looking down on all these famous people. To see Laurence Olivier reading the lesson was just incredible - I thought I was in heaven."

Edith, 66, says her friends at home in Ferndown think she's "potty", but she just loves to get up close to big-name personalities from the screen and stage.

"You get a show, really, it's not just a memorial service, because a lot of these theatrical people have all their friends there either reading, telling anecdotes or singing.

"At David Niven's service Evelyn Laye gave a reading and Malcolm Ball was there singing. Paul Eddington from The Good Life was there, as well as Penelope Keith, Richard Briers, Trevor Howard and Lord Snowdon."

Visibly brimming over with excitement at the memory, Edith tells me of some of the other tributes to famous names she's taken part in.

"I went to the service for film director Sir David Lean, who directed Lawrence of Arabia. It was at St Paul's Cathedral and it was great.

"All the people who'd starred in his films were there - Tom Courtenay and Sarah Miles did readings, and I walked up the aisle alongside Sir Alec Guinness. It's hard to take in the fact that all these famous people are there, right in front of you.

"Then they all came out of the cathedral afterwards and just melted away. To see Omar Sharif bowling off out of the church, his scarf waving in the wind, was just magic."

Edith says Sir Harry Secombe's memorial service at Westminster Abbey was disappointing because she didn't have a good view, although it was exciting to see Prince Charles, and the singing was "sublime".

The tribute to Dame Judi Dench's husband Michael Williams was wonderful, while "Evelyn Laye and Paul Eddington both had good send-offs".

However, it seems Edith is quite hard to please. She tells me how unimpressed she was with the "C-list movie people" at the last service she attended - a celebration of the life and work of production manager and theatre owner Sir Peter Saunders.

Among guests at the May 6 event in the Duke of York's Theatre, St Martin's Lane, were Nicholas Parsons, David Jacobs, Ronnie Barker, Anna Raeburn and Katie Boyle.

Ray Cooney, Penelope Keith and Richard Attenborough spoke to the audience of their old friend, and Dora Bryan, Anita Harris, and Jan Waters gave readings.

Edith's unusual pastime isn't just confined to big names from the world of entertainment - other highlights have been a memorial to Sunday Express columnist Sir John Junor at St Bride's in Fleet Street, and a service for politician Sir James Goldsmith.

"I prefer going to the actors' ones but I heard about Sir James Goldsmith's and thought 'I've got to go to that - he knows the whole world!' So I hot-footed it up to St John's in Smith Square, near the Houses of Parliament, and I wasn't allowed in because it was invitation only, but I still saw Jemima and Imran Khan, Jonathan Aitken and Maggie Thatcher among others."

Edith was still working in the education department at Dorset County Council when she first caught the memorial service "bug".

Now she and her husband Patrick, 74, run Stagecoach performing arts schools at weekends for children in Andover and Salisbury, but with her weekdays free, Edith now has more time to indulge in her hobby.

"I've always been a bit star-struck and, after 39 years in local govern-ment, I'm having the best time of my life running Stagecoach. I think my love of attending memorial services started because I've always been into the arts - I always did a lot of singing and acting when I was young.

"Whenever I tell anyone about going to these services they laugh - they think I'm rather eccentric.

"But I just love seeing all these famous people there together - I get such a kick out of it."

Edith prefers to travel up to London on her own, but she tends to bump into one other fellow fame-spotter at every service.

"There's always this same lady there who lives in London and goes to every one. She goes to more than I do because she's living up there. She once told me it was 'Greer Garson tomorrow' and asked if I was going. She also remarked that attending memorial services 'sure beats sitting at home staring at four walls'."

But apart from this particular memorial service devotee, Edith doesn't tend to see any other members of the general public lining the church pews.

She believes the reason is purely because few people know when the services are. "You don't always hear about them. Because I run the performing arts schools I take The Stage every week and I sometimes read about them in there.

"Nigel Dempster in the Daily Mail will occasionally mention them too, but unfortunately I miss some of them and some are invitation-only. I feel quite peeved when I don't get to hear about them."

Edith is already planning her next trip up to the capital in September - for a memorial service to Dame Thora Hird at Westminster Abbey.

She would dearly love to go to the memorials for the late screen legends Katharine Hepburn and Gregory Peck too, but she isn't quite so fanatical that she'll travel to America.

"I've got friends in New York and California but that would be too much. I'd go to other places in England for services, though, because it's always an adventure."

Edith clearly doesn't have any moral qualms about turning up at memorial services just to "gawp" at the famous people remembering departed friends.

But she admits she does worry about being challenged and packed off back to Dorset every time she attends a service.

"As I'm walking in I always worry that someone's going to say 'hold on a minute, who are you?'

"Sometimes they take all the names as you go inside and then list them in the newspaper, so I try and slip in at the last minute to avoid that. I do try to be as unobtrusive as possible, because why should people like me go? We're only gawping really and seeing what's going on."

Bursting into a fit of laughter, she adds: "People do seem to think I'm odd. But I just absolutely love it - being on the fringe.