From Eleanor Hartwell

Sort code: 30-96-42 Account number: 8814 2207 Online banking username: ehartwell1952 You'll need to ring the bereavement team on 0800 096 9779 with the death certificate to release funds. Standing orders for the cleaner (Maria, £60/fortnight) and the gardener (Pavel, £45/month) should be cancelled — they don't know yet, please tell them gently. There is roughly £8,400 in this account at the time I'm writing this. The mortgage payment goes out on the 3rd of each month — there are about eleven payments left.

Login: [email protected] Two-factor codes are in the Bitwarden vault (see credentials section). The portfolio is split roughly 70/30 between VWRL (FTSE All-World) and VAGP (Global Bond). Don't touch it for at least a year. If you need to move it, speak to Andrew Pemberton at Berkshire & Co. (his card is in the top drawer of my desk). He knew your father. Beneficiary on file: Marcus Hartwell (you). The ISA wrapper transfers to your name without going through probate.

Login: ehartwell1952 Account reference: HL-447821-A I nominated you as the death benefit beneficiary in 2023 — this should sit outside the estate for inheritance tax purposes provided you claim within two years. Call HL on 0117 900 9000. There's a printed statement from the last quarter in the green folder marked "Pension" in the filing cabinet.

Email: [email protected] Master password: gardenia-october-1952-quiet Inside this vault you will find logins for everything else — utilities, shopping accounts, the BBC, the National Trust, John Lewis, the cat insurance, etc. Roughly 140 entries. If the master password ever fails, the recovery sheet is in the safe (combination 14-22-08, Dad's birthday). I rotated the password three months ago, so it should still work. Please change the master password to one of your own once you're in, and remove my email as the recovery address.

Apple ID: [email protected] Password: see Bitwarden under "Apple ID" Recovery contact: you (already configured) Photos from 1998 onwards are in iCloud — about 14,000 of them. There's a shared album called "Hartwell Family" that has the ones I most want you and Sarah to have. Apple's Digital Legacy programme should give you access using the access key in the legal documents section (see "Apple Digital Legacy key"). You have three years from the date of death to request the transfer.

This is the older account — predates the BT one. It's where most of my correspondence with the solicitor (Whitcombe & Hayes) lives, and the booking confirmations for the cottage in Salcombe. Password: see Bitwarden under "Gmail (legacy)" 2FA backup codes: printed and in the safe, marked "Google codes" Google's Inactive Account Manager is set to release this account to you after six months of inactivity. You should receive an automatic email when that triggers.

Marcus, If you're reading this, then the worst of it is behind us — at least, for me. I want you to know first, before anything else, that I have been so proud of you. Not for the obvious things, though those too. For the quieter ones. For how you handled it when your father died. For how you are with Sarah. For the way you listen. I'm sorry I wasn't always easy. I know I had a hard year after Dad, and I know I wasn't fair to you then. I want you to know I knew it at the time, and I was sorry then too. I just didn't have the words. A few practical things, because you'll want them. Don't sell the house in a hurry. Give it a season. The garden needs to be seen in spring before anyone decides anything about it. The roses by the back wall were planted by your grandmother — please don't let them be dug up. Everything else can go. You have always been kind. Stay kind. It is the only thing of mine that I'd ask you to keep. All my love, Mum

Sarah, my dear, You were the best thing that happened to my son, and the best thing that happened to me in the last ten years. I want you to know I never thought of you as a daughter-in-law. You were just my daughter. Take the pearl earrings. They were my mother's, and I always meant for them to be yours. The rest — anything you'd like, take it. Don't ask Marcus, he'll only get sentimental and say no to everything. Look after each other. And if you have children, please tell them about me sometimes. Not the sad bits. The bits where I made you laugh. With love always, Eleanor

The original Will is held by Whitcombe & Hayes Solicitors, 14 Eden Square, Salisbury SP1 2BL. Reference HW/EH/2024-117. Contact partner: Margaret Whitcombe ([email protected], 01722 411 880). A signed copy is also in the safe in the study (combination as above). I've attached the digital copy for your records — but the original held by the solicitor is the legally operative document. Executor: Marcus Hartwell (you). Margaret has been briefed and will guide you through probate.

Registered LPA for Property & Financial Affairs and for Health & Welfare. Both name you as the sole attorney. OPG reference: 7-2023-114-9908. These cease to be operative on my death — they're only relevant if you read this while I'm still alive but incapacitated. If that's the case, the certified copies are in the green folder marked "Legal" in the filing cabinet.

Access key for Apple's Digital Legacy programme: 3F9A-X42P-LQ7E-WK11-MN08-RR23 Combined with a copy of the death certificate, this allows Apple to release my iCloud data to you. The request is made through their website — search "Apple Digital Legacy request access". Process takes around three weeks.

All originals are in the safe deposit box at Lloyds Salisbury branch (the small one — sort code 30-96-42, box reference 0228). You can access it as executor with the Grant of Probate. Contents: — My birth certificate (1952) — My marriage certificate to your father (1978) — Your father's death certificate (2019) — Your birth certificate (1981) — My mother's birth and death certificates — Title deeds to the house (we own freehold, no mortgage on this property — the Lloyds mortgage I mentioned is the flat in Bath)

Cremation, not burial. Service at St Thomas's, Salisbury, if Reverend Calloway is still there — he knows what to do. If not, a short humanist service is fine. No black. Ask people to wear something I'd have liked — Sarah will know what that means. Hymns: "Be Thou My Vision", "I Vow To Thee My Country". Reading: Mary Oliver, "When Death Comes". No eulogy from a stranger; if you can manage to speak, say something short. If you can't, that is also fine — let your uncle James do it, he loves a microphone. Scatter the ashes in the rose garden with your father's. Don't make a thing of it. A quiet afternoon, a flask of tea, just family. Wake at the house. Cold cuts, wine, Spotify on the kitchen speaker — there's a playlist called "Mum's good day" already saved.

Most of these auto-renew. Please cancel within the first month: — Times (digital + paper) — 0800 018 5177 — Spotify Family (kept on your plan, I think? Check) — Audible — National Trust membership — already paid through April 2027, let it lapse — Royal Horticultural Society — Sainsbury's online (just delete the account) — Headspace (annual, renews October — cancel before then) — Calm (annual, renews January) — Two Patreon accounts — see Bitwarden, both small monthly amounts Don't cancel the BT broadband until probate is finished — Whitcombe & Hayes will need to email me occasionally and bounced mail makes their life harder.

Henry is fourteen and a half. He'll outlive me in defiance, probably. He hates the carrier and he hates car journeys and he hates being picked up by strangers. Pippa next door has agreed to take him if you can't. Don't feel guilty about that — she adores him and he adores her and he'll be fine. The vet records, microchip number, and pet insurance details are in the brown folder in the dresser. He gets one and a half pouches in the morning and one in the evening. No more, regardless of what he tells you.