05 February 2024 , 09:19
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Kate Garraway shared why her daughter Darcey carried Derek Draper's coffin at his funeral.
The former political lobbyist was buried on Friday following his death last month after battling with poor health since contracting coronavirus in 2020. Kate and her two children were accompanied by family and friends as they gathered to celebrate Derek's life and send him on his final journey.
But people were left emotional after seeing their daughter Darcey, 17, acting as a pallbearer at the funeral which was attended by the likes of Sir Elton John. As Kate returned to Good Morning Britain, her co-anchor Susanna Reid praised Darcey for her courage on Friday.
Darcey Draper (right) carried the coffin of her late dad, Derek Draper (Getty Images)"That was her idea," Kate said, before adding: "That was her, I was talking with my mum and dad, I was really conscious that the funeral should be about Derek and not about ill health. He had a big chunk of his life when he was involved in the Labour party and politics but many, many other chunks of his life that were family, that were his time as a psychologist, there was somebody there who I met for the first time, whose life Derek had saved through therapy.
"He came up and said 'I've never been allowed to tell you this before because of the rules surrounding therapy but Derek stopped me from killing myself and I'm here today because of him'," Kate said before adding: "I wanted the funeral to represent everything about him and not be about me.
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Derek tragically died last month aged 56 (James Gourley/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
Darcey 'insisted' on carrying her dad's coffin according to Kate"Darcey came into the room when we were talking about it and said 'Please will you let me carry the coffin?' and I thought 'Crikey that's a practical challenge', anybody who's ever done it, it's a heavy thing. She said 'I want to do it' and basically insisted on doing it and I thought that was a beautiful thing."
Co-host Richard Madeley went on to praise Kate for reading a "beautiful" yet "funny" eulogy which was written by Darcey. "It made everybody laugh but it also finished with what you've just alluded to there," said Richard went on to disclose Darcey's final words to her late dad. He said: "I thought this was so mature as you read this out, that she basically whispered to him that he could 'stop worrying about them' now that he could stop worrying about taking care of you all."
Before Derek's death, Kate took an extended period of leave from the ITV programme to be with her husband after he suffered a cardiac arrest while in a treatment facility in Mexico. She revealed that her late husband had seemed "the furthest" from death before he died, after progressing with Derek "in a positive place".