Devoted husband and father

Victor Wray (right), PRO for the City Grand Orange Lodge, with Mr and Mrs Ann and Wilson Sherrard, making UK City of Culture collarettes at a City Grand Lodge workshop in the Playhouse. INLS 1324-502MT.

At the private funeral service at the home of the late Mr Wilson Sherrard, Minister of First Derry Presbyterian Church, Rev Dr David Latimer spoke of Wilson and his wife, Ann's great love for each other.

“Most of us have a favourite song, but how many of us can say we were sung to waking up every morning, but so it was with Wilson who sang ‘I love you because’ every morning to Ann.

“They were a couple who had a great relationship that stretched back over 41 years of marriage. Wilson and Ann met in the shirt factory on Carlisle Road when they were just 16 and a few years later on March 15, 1975, they were married in First Derry Presbyterian Church.

“Theirs was a love story deeply embedded in appreciation for each other; they had a mutual understanding and a great respect for one another,” he said.

Using text from Ecclesiastes 3:12, Rev Dr Latimer said Wilson’s life epitomised what it was to live happily and to do good during his lifetime, saying: “Wilson lived as we all ought to do. He was doing good in his life and he was loved.

“He was never a person to push himself forward and his was a life of building up rather than tearing things down, and he served others rather than being one of those people that other people served,” Rev Dr Latimer said.

The Presbyterian Minister said that Londonderry had lost “a lovely man”.

“Wilson’s wife, Ann and their two sons, Christopher and Ryan, have been robbed of a totally wonderful husband and loving and devoted father. He was also adored by his daughter-in-law Rachel and by his grandchildren Anna-Jane, Kate and Chrissy, who were his whole world.”

Following the religious service the Apprentice Boys of Derry, who attended the family home, also marked the loss of their esteemed Brother, and offered prayers and performed an official salute in tribute to him, marking his loyal and unstinting membership and service to the Browning Parent Club.