9:25am Friday 29th June 2007
By Lucy Clapham
A FUND to help disabled children is being set up in memory of a vet who was killed in a head-on train crash in Sardinia.
Elizabeth Beever's family have started the trust to buy equipment for the autistic unit at a special needs school, after the 27-year-old befriended a severely disabled boy.
Lillie, as she was known, who was a former Wycombe High School pupil, was killed while on holiday after a passenger train collided head on with a freight train. She was among three people killed in the smash and a further seven were injured. Authorities are now investigating the crash, which was caused when the passenger train did not wait for the other locomotive to pass it on the single track line.
Lillie grew up in Mundaydean Lane, Marlow but moved out to a new house in New-bury, Berks last Novem-ber when she start-ed working for an equine veterinary practice in the town.
Before buying her house she stayed with her employers Andrew and Sarah McGonnell and got on well with the couple's three children. She struck up a strong friendship with their five-year-old son Ben, who suffers from Autism and Williams Syndrome -- a rare disorder similar to Down's Syndrome. In recognition of this Lillie's family are setting up the fund to provide equipment for the autistic unit at special needs school The Castle School in Newbury.
Her sister, Alex, 33, said: "I don't know how she packed so much into her day. She did her job, she was a sister to me and a friend to so many other people. She'd make sure everyone was alright."
And since the accident two weeks ago the family home has been flooded with cards of condolence.
Alex added: "It's completely overwhelming the number of cards we have got. You know it's going to affect you and your family, but the word spread.
"Lillie's such a modest understated person, she didn't ever recognise her talents and great personality.
"All the cards have said she brought vitality into the room and she had this energy that she just brought with her."
Lillie was a pupil at Spinfield School in Terrington Hill and then went on to take her GCSEs and A-levels at Wycombe High in Marlow Road.
After leaving the school with two As and a B in her A-levels she took a year out to work and live in Australia.
When she returned she went on to study veterinary science at Liverpool University. She graduated in 2003 and then worked for a year as an intern at O'Gorman Slater and Main vets in Donnington and as a locum at practices in Cheshire and Brighton.
Lillie had been a keen horse rider from the age of three and even competed against Zara Phillips when she was younger. As well as being a member of the South Oxfordshire branch of the Pony Club, Lillie also hunted with the Vale of Aylesbury Hunt.
When she started university her eventing career was put on hold and she developed a passion for skiing and other sports.
In 2002 while on a trip to Whistler, Canada she met her boyfriend Mark who was with her in Sardinia.
He said: "This last winter she got her first level as a ski instructor, she was really quite excited about that because she was going to go back this year to Whistler. She was going to get her second level and teach."
Lillie also leaves dad David, a former professor of animal science at Reading University, and older brother Robert, 31.
Her funeral is tomorrow at All Saints Church in The Causeway, Marlow at 11am, followed by a cremation.
If anyone would like to donate to her memorial fund money should be sent to Surman and Horwood Funeral Service, 25-27 High Street, Princes Risborough, HP27 0AE.
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