I buried my mother last week. Have you ever felt full of sadness and overwhelmed with pride at the same time? I did.

Iris was 84 - would have been 85 if she'd lived 'til the weekend. She'd not been well for some time, but not the "long illness" that many have to endure towards the end of their lives. She took a sudden turn for the worse and, inside a fortnight, she was gone. Typical Iris, that's all I can say. Always in a rush.

When I turned up to see her in the Leeds hospital she said: "I want to be buried in your dad's grave". I said, "What does dad say about this, mother?" She started on about her illness being "the beginning of the end" and I had to tell her to stop talking like Winston Churchill.

Ah, but Winston Churchill - he figured big in her life and dad's. Jim was in the Battle of Britain. Aged 19, he went to see my granddad the formidable newsagent in Armley, Leeds, and asked for permission to marry Iris, aged 18 at the time. Quite astonishingly, the old devil agreed. Iris and Jim went courting on their bikes through the Yorkshire countryside. I can see the little towns and villages now: Tadcaster, Otley, Ilkley, Grassington. Aysgarth with its waterfalls. Then he was off to the war.

When you think of romantic love, you don't naturally think about your mum and dad. But romantic love it was and they were in it. Always were. For all the tumult and uncertainty of the war and the grinding austerity that followed it, they lived in a world so secure it belonged in a sepia photograph. He used to open the door for her to go through first. He cleaned her shoes. And he took her arm when they were out walking - Jim always on the outside. He did get rattled with her at least once though - when they'd gone on a picnic and she'd forgotten the flask of tea.

Iris did crochet and made her own curtains. She also had a sewing machine, the sort with a treadle and it was under the window. You could sit beside it in the winter and watch the snow gather on the chapel roof. She had a tub and posser. Dolly Blue. And a Co-op "divi" number - 137966 - which you dare not forget. She loved gadgets and welcomed her first electric cooker with the sort of delight and wonder you might show if someone had made you a present of the Tardis. She had a knitting machine, too, and it made a horrible noise as she scraped the shuttle, or whatever you call it, from one side to the other.

She learnt the piano - but I only ever heard her play one tune: Stephanie Gavotte. Her great passion was the pictures once a week - every Thursday night, either with Jim or her friend Ruth. Black and white murder mysteries, the bloodier the better. When Psycho came out, she went to see it and pronounced it "tame". She loved melted cheese and fried tomatoes. Cinder toffee. Advocaat.

When Jim died she found her talent for painting on pottery. Marvellously delicate. I never knew she had such patience. Finally she left Leeds and went to live in her beloved Otley - not far from the river where, as a girl, she had played with her cousin Annie, as later she had spent hours in the rowing boats with Jim. Life was harder in Iris's day. She was tender without sentimentality. I mean, she only had one text: "A bit of help's worth a lot of pity".

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.