I was saddened this week, as I’m sure many of you were, to learn of the untimely death of veteran Financial Planner Carolyn Gowen at the relatively young age of 58, just a few months after she retired.

I did not know Carolyn, one of the founders of Bloomsbury Wealth, very well but we did speak several times over the years and she wrote for us a number of times.

She was always friendly, helpful and professional. Her writing was clear, concise and to the point - a bit like her.

Sometimes her directness did not always go down too well with some but she always struck me as the consummate and model Financial Planner; fiercely intelligent, proactive, focused and utterly dedicated to her clients. From a journalist’s point of view she understood the value of coverage and never missed a deadline. She was a blessing.

In our coverage we include several tributes to her and naturally these are personal comments of happier times tinged with sadness at her loss. 

Carolyn, after all, died after a short battle with cancer only a few months after retiring to her beloved small holding in France where she lived with her husband Eddie and a menagerie of goats, sheep, horses and other animals. She was ready for a permanent move to la vie Francais.

One of the comments she made on LinkedIn a few months ago, announcing her decision to retire, struck me. She said: “After more than 30 years helping others reach financial independence I am now enjoying FI (financial independence) myself.”

I am sure this is something that will resonate with many Financial Planners. Many spend their lives encouraging clients and others to strive for a day when they are independent enough financially to decide whether to work or not. Sometimes Financial Planners do not always take the advice they dispense but Carolyn did, she had a clear idea of where she was going until she was unfortunately struck down. She was a wise head.

All this suggests Carolyn never got to enjoy much of her ‘financial independence’ but I think it is more positive to look at her life as one “well lived.” She got to live many of her dreams when she moved to France in 2007, not to retire but to work on both her small holding and her passion for Financial Planning. She continued to run her Financial Bodyguard blog site, work for Bloomsbury clients and to help as many people as she could as recently at this summer.

Not many people could run a Financial Planning business and run a small farm in France but Carolyn could. She could sometimes fall out with people and would be the first to admit she was far from perfect but she was one of a kind, an independent spirit, and will be missed.

Kevin O’Donnell is editor of Financial Planning Today and a journalist with 40 years of experience in finance, business and mainstream news. This topical comment on the Financial Planning news appears most weeks, usually on Fridays but occasionally other days. Follow @FPT_Kevin