The family of a murdered university graduate have fulfilled her dreams and published a collection of her poetry, recovered from a fire-charred laptop found near her body.
Andrea Waddell’s family, including her parents Sonia and Robin and brother Nick, released the poetry in the book Sounds of the Soul through USA-based publishing company Scribbulations (COR).
It also includes a touching message by Andrea who was 29 when she was strangled by Neil McMillan, then 42, in October 2009.
Her family revealed it was always Andrea’s ambition to have her poetry, written between 2003 and 2007, published.
Andrea’s body was found in her home in Upper Lewes Road, Brighton, by firefighters who were called to a report of a blaze.
Now her poetry has been released with a preamble from Andrea, who aspired to become a model, written in 2007- two years before her death.
The preamble reads: “Each of my poems may be thought to involve a dialectical movement.
“This may be a critical dynamic between fulfilment and despair, or more fundamentally: between grasping at a nugget of truth and watching it seep away; between upholding the very possibility of meaning and yielding to the infinite and eternal void.”
Her family, who live in Reading, Berkshire, said: “We knew Andrea wrote poetry, but it was not until after her death that her brother found this complete opus of poems on her laptop and already arranged into groups.
“We, her family, are very happy to now complete Andrea’s task and finally to publish her poems.
“Andrea was beautiful and brave, witty and clever, funny and definitely scatty.
“She was a private |person, trying to be independent in spite of all her problems, and never complaining about the hand which life had dealt her. We think that everyone she came into contact with, in whatever walk of life, went away feeling better, inspired, touched by her light.
“We are so proud of her.”
Buy Andrea’s poetry by visiting scribbulations.com/soundsofthesoul.cfm
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