Parents say uplifting funeral helped after son, 7, killed in car crash

Parents who lost their “extremely happy” seven-year-old son in a fatal car accident said that creating a memorial day that was “as celebratory and as uplifting as possible” helped them deal with their grief. Gemma and Dave Orton, who live in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, lost their eldest son Freddie in a car accident just five weeks after his seventh birthday in 2022.

Gemma said that Freddie “stayed with us long enough so that everybody could get to say goodbye to him”, before he passed away on July 15 2022, surrounded by his loving family. “He was an extremely happy boy…” Freddie’s mum Gemma, 42, told PA Real Life.

“He was always the one with his arm around his mates on the side of the football pitch – win or lose, Fred had a smile on his face. He was the most amazing big brother. His hobbies were Lego and football – he discovered football only eight or nine months before he died, and really got into it, he just loved it. He’s left a lasting legacy at the football club, who celebrate him all the time.”

“I know every parent is going to be a bit biased towards their own son or daughter, but he was just magic,” added Freddie’s dad Dave, 43. “So chilled, so relaxed. You could be doing the most mundane job, and he would be enthusiastic about helping.

“He was a great help at school – the teachers talked about what good help he was around tidying up and PE. Just a real energy for life, that infectious personality, a social butterfly, friends with everyone, and just loved life. Just loved it.”

In the aftermath of the accident, when Gemma and Dave rushed to the hospital to be with Freddie, Gemma said it felt “incredibly surreal”. “I remember being at the hospital, and I almost felt like I was watching this happen to us, watching it from afar,” she said.

“It doesn’t feel real, and then of course it becomes more real in the days to follow. I think the hardest thing that we had to do was tell (our younger son) Harry, who was just about to turn four.

Dave added that the family were “very lucky” to be supported by the Bodie Hodges Foundation, a Leicestershire-based charity supporting families bereaved of a child, which Gemma had been working with for two years before Freddie died. The charity was able to help them navigate their grief and how best to explain Freddie’s death to their then-three-year-old, Harry.

“One day, we’ll be able to tell Harry that he was our saviour. Because he was,” said Gemma. “We showed up for him. He gave us the strength to show up every day, and we did. We did it for him.”

However, while still in the throes of immediate grief, the Ortons needed to turn their attention to a funeral for Freddie. Gemma said she found the prospect “really, really scary”. “I just found the idea of a traditional funeral for Freddie so scary and dark, and just so final,” she said.

“I couldn’t imagine having that. Everything that I looked at online, whether it was a crematorium or a church or whatever that might be, I was just terrified of that day. Absolutely terrified.”

“We’ve always been about living life, as Fred was, and about colour, and celebration, and shorts and flip flops, very relaxed,” Dave added.