Bolivian flute farewell for Lidia – the woman who lived in a makeshift shelter in Kentish Town Road
White roses thrown on coffin at cemetery after council organises burial
Thursday, 9th February 2023 — By Frankie Lister-Fell
Musicians Raúl Alcaron and Janet Rojas play the ‘zampoñas’ (panpipes)
LIDIA Venegas was given a Bolivian goodbye on Tuesday morning as she was put to rest in a heart-warming funeral.
The council organised a service for Ms Venegas, 63 – who was found dead in a Kentish Town street after several years of homelessness – at the St Pancras and Islington Cemetery in East Finchley.
Maritza Venegas Lagos, Ms Venegas’s next door neighbour in Bolivia, told the gathering of around 30 people how “Lidia brought the community together” in Camden.
People threw white roses, Ms Venegas’s “favourite flower”, on top of her coffin.
SEE ALSO FOR LIDA: SHE WAS ‘ONE OF US’ SAYS PRIEST AT OUR MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR WOMAN WHO DIED IN THE COLD
Musician Janet Rojas played a song on the “quena”, an Andean wooden flute. The song is usually played in Bolivia “when something tragic happens like when you lose a mother or someone close to you”.
Ms Venegas had spent most of last year in a shelter outside the old Barclays in Kentish Town Road. The New Journal hosted a memorial service at St Michael’s Church in Camden Town last month.
