A MEMORIAL service of former government minister Mo Mowlam will be held at Westminster Abbey on Sunday, November 20.

Derek Wyatt, MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, who was a close friend of the former Northern Ireland Secretary, said any local people wishing to attend the service should contact him via the House of Commons because it will be an invitation-only event.

Miss Mowlam, 55, who lived with her artist husband Jon Norton at Conyer, lost her fight for life on August 19 at the Pilgrim’s Hospice in Canterbury.

The former Northern Ireland Secretary was successfully treated for a brain tumour in 1997 but her health had deteriorated after a fall in which she injured the back of her head.

According to reports she never regained consciousness in the following three weeks.

Her husband maintained a bedside vigil after life support was withdrawn in accordance with the wish she had made earlier in a living will not to be resuscitated.