Lusia McAnna
Tuesday, January 10, 2023 at 16:15 I was very sorry to read that Lusia McAnna had died.
Most of you won’t know Lusia, and I didn’t know her that well myself, but she was a lovely lady, always friendly, with a ready smile and an engaging twinkle.
According to Tobacco Reporter she had pancreatic cancer and died shortly before Christmas.
I would generally see Lusia at the annual Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum where she would be busy helping her friend Elise Rasmussen, founder and president of GTNF.
Together they set up and ran the networking group Women in Tobacco but what I didn’t know, until I read her obituary today, is that Lusia was a businesswoman in her own right having established a textile conveyor belt company that manufactured garniture tapes (used in cigarette production), in 1995.
When she retired in 2015 she became a dedicated volunteer at The Witham, an arts centre in Barnard Castle, Northumberland, where her work was recognised in 2021 by grateful trustees (Super-volunteer hailed for her efforts at Barney arts centre).
“Volunteering here is about so much more than just The Witham,” she told the local paper. “It’s great to be part of the team – you become part of the family.”
The same is true, I imagine, of GTNF and the wider tobacco world. She became part of the team, and part of the family.
She was a good friend of Forest too, supporting many of our events in person or (during Covid) online.
Condolences then to family and friends but I’m sure she’d want this to end on a lighter note so here goes.
In June 2016, on the day of Smoke On The Water, Forest’s annual boat party, I emailed our 200+ guests as follows:
Rain or shine (OK, rain) we look forward to welcoming you to Smoke On The Water, our annual boat party on the Thames.
Lusia’s response:
See you tonight Simon - sunshine or rain.
To which I replied:
Bring your brolly!
Her retort?
I'm a "hard" Northerner :-)
“Hard” but humorous. She’ll be greatly missed.
Below: Lusia McAnna (far right) at the Forest Freedom Dinner in 2017, with Elise Rasmussen (second left)
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