(Lisa Bertoletti, Carlisle and Cambridge-educated linguist and musician aged 30)

LISA Bertoletti seemed to have everything going for her: highly intelligent, personable, exceedingly talented in languages and in music. She had been a Cambridge University high flyer who seemed destined for great things.

However, it was not to be, and her potential was stifled by the depressive illness from which she had suffered, on and off, for nine years.

Her promise was cut short by illness and her life was cut short when she was struck by a train, while crossing railway lines near the Devonshire Walk car park in Carlisle.

She was just 30 years of age.

The daughter of Carlisle restaurateur Franco Bertoletti and his former wife, Jane Thompson, Lisa was born in Carlisle and showed academic promise very early.

She went to Stanwix School, where her gift for languages shone through.

She was one of the top three A-level Latin students in the country at the time.

Winning a place at Cambridge, she was in the third year of her honours degree course in Latin and Italian when she decided on a career change to social and political science with reference to women in society.

It was while she was at Cambridge that she suffered a psychotic attack, of the sort that prevents the sufferer from knowing what is real and what is not and which put her into hospital for seven months.

Then she came home and received a great deal of help through treatment at what was then the Garlands Hospital in Carlisle. She constantly fought against her condition and some times were better – much better – than others as a result.

An all-round sportswoman, Miss Bertoletti had played football for her college at Cambridge.

She had played hockey and netball for Trinity School and had been a strong swimmer. She loved hill walking and, at the age of four, climbed High Street with her grandfather.

In music she was a rising star. She had played both recorder and cello at junior school, she played the piano and had reached grade eight distinction level – and she played keyboards with the Carlisle Big Band, travelling the country with them.

A cellist with the Carlisle Youth Orchestra, she played piano with the Eden Orchestra. Once in St Cuthbert’s Church, she played a 20-minute concerto by Shostakovich from memory!

She had been a pupil of international concert pianist Alicia Murray and while at Cambridge had formed a rock band.

At home, she often played the piano for weekend customers at Bullough’s department store.

Miss Bertoletti’s funeral took place in St Cutherbert’s Church, where she had been a worshipper, conducted by Canon Bob Grayson, who had christened her, at Stanwix, 30 years previously.

She leaves her parents, two grandparents, her sister and half sister.