Wednesday, November 07, 2012

An ordinary life


Thirty years ago today a woman died in a Lancashire hospital after a short illness. She was sixty-six years old, a widow with five children, all girls, and twelve grandchildren. She had lived in or near her birthplace almost all her life and to all outward appearances had led a very ordinary, quiet life. Yet those outward appearances masked  a woman of intelligence, talent and deep determination, who achieved a great deal against considerable odds. Her name was Annie, she was my mother, and in another three days I will have outlived her.

My mother was born in the middle of the First World War in the cotton town of Darwen in Lancashire. Her father, a builder’s labourer before and after the war, was serving in the army supply corps, and her mother had worked in a cotton mill before her marriage. She was their first child, and after the death of their second baby, Jack, remained an only child.

Annie
The schoolgirl

Her childhood was overshadowed by her mother’s ill-health. Money was very short and though Annie won a scholarship to the local grammar school, she was unable to take it up, because the family income wouldn’t stretch to cover both doctor’s fees and all the extra costs of secondary schooling. So she stayed on at her elementary school, where she shone at art and design, winning awards in local art examinations, until she reached the then school-leaving age of fourteen.

It was 1930 and Britain’s economy was sinking into the Great Depression. Unemployment in the industrial north was rising fast and the only job my mother could find was daily domestic service. It almost broke my grandparents’ hearts to see their beautiful, clever and artistic daughter going out charring, as it was known, but Annie’s determination and capacity for hard work meant that she did not remain in this kind of employment indefinitely. 

The young woman

As well as art, she had always had a flair for arithmetic and soon began to go to night-school classes after work to study book-keeping. My knowledge of dates here is sketchy, but certainly, before she was out of her teens, she was working as a book-keeper at the local branch of Burton’s the tailors and later was employed by Unilever, the big soap manufacturer, at their factory at Port Sunlight

The bridesmaid

Not content with this achievement, Annie continue to educate herself, taking night-school classes in art and design until she was qualified to find work in the textile industry in her home town as a fabric designer. When, in 1941, she married my father Arnold, a painter and decorator, she was actually earning more than he was, an amazing achievement for a working-class woman at that period.

The wartime bride
My parents met at a dance in November 1940. What Arnold was wearing I have no idea, but I know exactly what Annie was dressed in and it is no wonder she caught my father’s eye. Tall and slender, and a skilled seamstress who made all her own clothes, she must have been striking in a full-length dance frock of dark-brown net, with a wide flounce round the hem, over a petticoat of flame-coloured taffeta. The reason I am so sure of this is that, as children, my next sister and I spent many happy hours dressing up in this same frock. 

When they met, my father was a widower, with a three-year-old daughter. Within a short time they were planning an April wedding, but unfortunately my father became ill and the wedding had to be postponed until June. By then wartime rationing was biting severely and the wedding cake was only a single layer, carefully disguised under a three-tier cardboard shell, though my mother still managed to collect enough clothing coupons for the traditional white wedding gown.

Annie and Arnold on honeymoon

After a weekend’s honeymoon at Garstang, my parents set up home in Darwen until my father was called up for military service in 1943 and joined the navy. When he was posted to a base on the east coast of Scotland my mother moved up there with my elder sister, so that Arnold’s short and infrequent leaves could be spent with his wife and daughter, rather than on the train to and from distant Lancashire.

It was not until the year after the war ended that my mother gave birth to her first child – me - followed eighteen months later by my next sister. The others arrived at longer intervals, in 1951 and 1957, the last being the only one to be born in hospital. Call the Midwife really did reflect the primacy of home births in the after-war period.

After her marriage Annie was a stay at home wife, caring for her children, home and husband as women have traditionally done. Her workload was made heavier by the fact that I was a sickly child, often ill and needing nursing.  So it was only when I was older and stronger and her youngest daughter had reached school age, that she took the post of dinner lady at the village primary school, serving and clearing up after the mid-day meal.

The catering manager

Before long she began to train as a school cook and when qualified ran the kitchen in the same school. Later she applied for and gained the post of head cook and manager of the kitchen in the big secondary school in the neighbouring town, which my sisters and I all attended over a period of some twenty years.

Here she was in her element, using her book-keeping training and organisational skills to plan menus, order supplies and keep accounts for a large and busy catering service. Sadly, before she could retire and enjoy more leisure time with him, my father, who was nine years older than Annie, was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and died within a year.

One of the last photos of my parents together

Two years later my mother finally retired and settled down to enjoy her little house and her much-loved garden, gardening being another of her many talents. She was still very fit and well and we all looked forward to seeing her enjoy a long and active retirement, but it was not to be. After only two years of retirement, out of the blue she suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and just ten days later she died.

Thirty years is a long time, almost half my life, but my memories of my mother are still clear and strong and happy. She and my father gave unwavering support to their daughters’ education and their encouragement of our talents was life-changing. Neither of our parents was fortunate enough to have had secondary education, yet four of their five daughters went to university and the fifth trained as a nurse.

I often think of my mother and, knowing what she achieved through her own efforts from such a difficult beginning, wonder what she might have become, if she had been given the same opportunities as my sisters and me. I think the same of my father, but that is for another post.

Annie may have lived what to the onlooker seems like a very ordinary life, but to me she was an extraordinary woman. I still miss her and I owe her more than I can say.


90 comments:

  1. This brought tears to my eyes.

    Such a talented woman, so capable and so determined and, it seems, thwarted by events out of her control at every step.

    Given the opportunities of the post war world...what could have stopped her!

    You and your sisters were lucky to have her guidance and example.
    No wonder you think of her often.

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    1. I know, Fly. When I think of how much amazing talent has gone (and continues to go) unused or under-used because of lack of educational opportunities it makes me want to weep and throw things.

      I still remember her sitting with her feet up, resting before my youngest sister was born, and getting me to do 11+ papers in preparation for the exam. She and my father knew just how important education is and gave us every opportunity they could.

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  2. What a lovely woman and a beautiful expression of Love.

    I would imagine that Darwen received its fair share of Delta Cotton in those days...same fields I drive through all the time.

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    1. I wish I had inherited her looks, EF! Thankfully she and my father did at least pass on some of their intelligence to me. I loved them both dearly.

      Darwen did indeed spin and weave American cotton and during the war between the states the blockade of Southern ports led to severe unemployment and poverty - the Lancashire Cotton Famine.

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  3. What an amazing woman and such an inspiring life. In many ways she reminds me of my Mamma...they worked so hard to improve their lives and the lives of those around them. We are less because of their passing..but memories are such wonderful things.

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    1. Absolutely, Astrid. I thought of my mother when I read your posts about your Mamma. I especially value the way they opened up opportunities for their children far beyond what they had enjoyed themselves. We were offered possibilities that they had to struggle so hard for.

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  4. Oh, how you touched my heart with this warm tribute to your mother, Perpetua. What an amazing woman she was - an extraordinary one, indeed. We never stop missing them, do we? From your words here, you always feel her presence, don't you? I know I do with my mine.

    What treasures your pictures are of your mom and dad.

    Lovely, lovely post, Perpetua.

    PS I have changed my email carrier/address and show up differently on my comments and such. Just so you know, it is me, Penny at lifeonthecutoff. Ha. I'm feeling a bit cut off because of it.

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    1. Hello, stranger :-)

      Thanks, Penny, she was indeed amazing. Yes, I do miss her and feel her with me, especially when there are family happenings I know she would so much have appreciated, such as the births of her great-grandchildren.

      Thankfully we do have lots of family photos and have scanned many of them to preserve them for future generations.

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  5. An extraordinary woman, with beauty, grace and smarts! What a beautiful tribute to your mom, Perpetua.

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    1. Thank you, Rosaria. You'v summed her up in a single sentence!

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  6. Such a moving post Perpetua about a truly remarkable woman, who had she had the right opportunities could have achieved so much more. But her life was far from ordinary. She must have been so strong and determined to have achieved so much in each field she pursued. No wonder you are so proud of her.

    Thankyou for sharing this lovely story xxx

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    1. Thanks, Ayak. I've often wondered what she would have decided to do if she had been born into circumstances which had allowed her to finish her education and choose any career. As it was she had to work so much harder, but she was proud of what she did achieve. I'm not at all sure I would have had the same determination in her shoes.

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  7. First of all - Perpetua, have a happy birthday on Saturday. Thank you for sharing your mother's story. A woman with inner as well as outer beauty. I think it's so good to write these memories down for our grandchildren.

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    1. That's very kind of you, Molly, but my birthday isn't until April, I'm afraid. It's just that I was born only 3 days after my mother's 30th birthday, so I know to the day when I will have lived longer than her. It makes me realise very acutely how relatively young she was when she died.

      I've been mulling this post for a while and the thirtieth anniversary of her death seemed the right time to put my memories into words, while they are still clear. She deserves to be remembered.

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  8. Happy Birthday from me as well. She sounds a wonderful lady - thanks for sharing.

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    1. Thanks, Susan. As per my reply to Molly above, I shall save up your good wishes until my birthday next April. :-)

      Yes, my mother was a strong and talented woman and I owe her so much.

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  9. What an extraordinary ordinary life your mother lived, Perpetua! She was so bright, so hard-working and determined and prevailed over so many disadvantages and setbacks. She does, indeed, deserve to be remembered and widely known for her achievements and I'm so glad you've brought her to life once again in this lovely post!

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    1. Thanks, Kathy. It was a post that had been asking to be written for some time. I think my mother was representative of so many women of her generation and background, born into circumstances which made it difficult, if not impossible, to fulfil their potential. I have always admired just how much she achieved, not once, but over and over.

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  10. A lovely post, Perpetua. Thank you for sharing it.

    I've still got a few years to run before I outlive my mother; she died 20 years ago aged 57, so she never met my wife or any of her grandchildren. Still, I have my memories. Perhaps I should write some of them down, sooner rather than later.

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed it, Jon. Yes, do consider writing down some of your memories before too long. I wish I had done it a long time ago, when my memory was better than it is now, but better late than never. Our children were young when their grandparents died, so this is a way of filling in some of the gaps.

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  11. So special. Your mother was a very special lady, to accomplish all that she did. Remarkable, and I'm sure your family were blessed by her.

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    1. Thanks, Bonnie. I'm always amazed when I think of how wide her talents were and how hard she worked. She gave us a great example of determination and willingness to aim high. And she never stopped learning.

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  12. A very affectionate and beautiful portrait of your mother Perpetua.
    I know where you are coming from regarding her age and yours. When I arrived at the same age as my mother, which was 8 years ago now, I felt those same feelings. My mother died too young, she did not see all of her grandchildren, several were born after her death. I am sad that she missed out on having the pleasure from them that I get from mine.

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    1. Thank you, Rosemary. It's very poignant to think that we are enjoying a longer life than our parents. I agree especially about how much they missed in terms of grandchildren. My mother never saw her last two grandsons, born some years after her death, and would so have enjoyed watching them all grow up and launch themselves into adult life. I still find myself wishing I could share some item of family news with her.

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  13. What a wonderful post and a lovely tribute to your mother. She was a very special lady.

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    1. Sh was indeed, Jean. As I wrote this post I appreciated yet again just how remarkable she was and how much she achieved.

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  14. Just beautiful... lovely photos, a poignant story and oodles of love.

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    1. Thanks, Catriona. I really enjoyed going through the photos and using them as the framework on which to tell her story. Yes, I loved her very much.

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  15. What a lovely and loving description of your mother. I too have parents who value education. My love of reading, music, arts and history all come from being encouraged by my parents. I am lucky enough to still have both my parents. I dread their departure from this life.

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    1. Oh, do treasure them while you have them, Kerry. We so easily take the people dear to us for granted until suddenly they aren't there any longer. I think my parents particularly valued education as their own was cut so short. They wanted us to use all our abilities to the full and worked very hard to make that possible.

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  16. Your thoughtful and loving description of your mother and her life experiences is a beautiful tribute. I can understand why you think of her often and have been moved to share at this time. Thank you.

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    1. It's been my privilege to share something of her remarkable character and achievements, Linda. I was close to both my parents and could never forget what they meant to me and did for me.

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  17. Hello Perpetua:
    This is such a very touching tribute to your mother who clearly in no way could be described as having lived an 'ordinary life'. Indeed, far from that, and largely through her determination to meet and overcome the many challenges with which she was presented, she succeeded in living life to the full and, at the same time, undoubtedly enriching the lives of those with whom she came into contact.

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    1. Thank you, Jane and Lance. I think my mother would have thought of her life as being very ordinary, as, like many people, I don't believe she realised just how extraordinary her talents and achievements were. In her late thirties my parents inherited a piano and she then began to take the lessons she would love to have had as a child.

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  18. So, so lovely. She was a strikingly beautiful woman on the outside and, more importantly, on the inside too, wasn't she? I can feel her positive attitude through your words. And very inspiring, visible in her children.
    Axxx

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    1. Thanks, Annie. She was indeed beautiful and always full of life and energy. She encouraged us to aim high and to work hard to achieve those aims, but we also had lots of fun and it was a happy home to grow up in, despite the inevitable difficulties. We were very lucky.

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  19. Thank you Big Sis for such a moving tribute to our mother. Yesterday was also coincidentally the fifteenth anniversary of the death of my mother-in-law, then aged then 82 and suffering from dementia. I bought a lovely bouquet of flowers yesterday - white tulips & freesias & blue iris and they are here as a tribute to both of my mothers. The year after we married and my in-laws moved to their retirement home near here my mother-in-law introduced me to her new neighbour as 'my new daughter'. She never attempted to be or could be a substitute for the loss of my mother but our close proximity to and later care of my in-laws in their long old age (father-in-law dying on his 97th birthday)filled a little of the gap left by the early deaths of my parents.

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    1. I'm glad you liked it, PolkaDot. There's so much more I could have said (though my memory is a bit fuzzy about some of the details now) but I didn't want this anniversary to pass unmarked.

      I'm very glad that you were as lucky in your mother-in-law as I have been in mine. To be welcomed as a daughter, rather than seen as someone who has stolen a son, is a lovely experience and though never a substitute for our own mother, a loving relationship with a mother-in-law is a great gift in its own right.

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  20. What an extraordinary woman.

    And how much you look like her!

    Pearl

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    1. Thanks, Pearl, she was. I'd think I've come to resemble her more as I get older, but as a child I was probably the least like her in looks. They say we become our mothers over time.

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  21. Thank you for this: it brought a considerable lump to my throat. I was still really too young when Grandma died to remember her very clearly, though some things do come to mind (like the time she patiently wrapped my hair in rags because I wanted to have it ringlets, Victorian-style), so it was lovely to read and be reminded.

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    1. I'm so glad it helped to bring Grandma back for you, sweetheart. You were still so young when she died and didn't see her as often as I would have wished before then, so I'm glad there are still good memories there. You've reminded me of the way she would put our hair in rags before special occasions when we were little and how uncomfortable the sausages were to sleep on. :-)

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  22. Don't denigrate yourself, love - you do resemble your dear Mother in looks as well as inner glow, although perhaps you can't see it as well as those of us outside can! I absolutely love your tribute to her - I wish I could write so movingly about my parents (maybe I'll try to write about my Father when I get going - he had an interesting time). DD's comment about rags rings loud bells - my mother used to do that for me every week, and my hair at that time was down to my waist. Taking them out was very 'ouch'!! Some memories are best buried!

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    1. Thanks, Helva. As I said to Pearl above, I do see glimpses of my mother looking back at me from the mirror nowadays, but as a child I was told that I was the spitting image of my great-grandmother - my mother's maternal grandmother.

      Do try to get that blog going and write something about your father. I'll be doing a post about mine later on.

      DD comment about ringlet rags brought back uncomfortably vivid memories for me too. I must show you a picture of me with my curls one day. :-)

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  23. Your mother's bright spirit shines out of every photo, right from girlhood. What a touching tribute you have written to her love and her memory.

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    1. Oh yes, DB, right from that determined little girl with the long curls and the big beret. :-) I love the one of her as a teenager, not long before she left school, inches taller than the rest of the class and smiling out confidently at the world.

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  24. A lovely post rich in memory and affection. When they say on Remembrance Day - "At the going down of the sun and in the morning we shall remember them" - I'm afraid that I think more of my departed parents than of those endless lines of dead soldiers. We orphans need to stick together..... The photos reveal your mother's inner zest for life.

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    1. Thank you, Yorkshire Pudding (wonderful name!) and welcome to my blog. It may be because I'm a priest and always associate early November with All Saints and All Souls, as well as Remembrance Day, but I find myself thinking back and remembering a great deal at this time of year. And I think it's so important to remember those who have been important to us, to anchor the present in the past.

      Yes, my mother always had an energy and interest in things which I hope we sisters have all inherited.

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  25. I am caught up with all your posts. I also read A Question of Belief. In the last couple of months I think I read 11 Donna Leon books. I have one left by my bedside then I’ll get more from the library. I think I enjoyed Venice a lot more because of reading her books. I like your pictures on trees. I love trees very much too. I will stop the car to admire a tree or even turn around to go back and take a look at one. I have a folder full of tree pictures for some future post.
    Your last post is so touching. What a loving tribute to your mother. She certainly was a talented woman, gifted and good looking. I also wrote two posts about my mum - I don’t think you were reading my blog then, a short post on her childhood here: http://avagabonde.blogspot.com/2009/05/mothers-birthday-lanniversaire-de-maman.html and another on her youth: http://avagabonde.blogspot.com/2010/05/recollection-mothers-youth-and-house-of.html. I still have to write one about her wedding to my dad – that will be forthcoming.

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    1. Gosh, Vagabonde, what a valiant effort! I'm sure having read Donna Leon must have enhanced your first visit to Venice and I look forward to your post on the subject. I know from the pictures on your blog that trees mean a lot to you. It's just so sad when a whole species is threatened like this.

      I'm glad you appreciated my post about my mother and I will certainly look at the ones you did about your mother. I think it is very important to capture these memories while we can for the sake of future generations.

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  26. I have shivers running down my spine reading this. It's a beautiful tribute to your mother, and a wonderful glimpse into another life. Another life on so many levels. I am constantly fascinated in hearing the stories of what appear to be "ordinary" people, but are in face quite often very "extra-ordinary" people. Thank you for sharing her story with us. I'm sad that she didn't get to live a longer retirement after all her hard effort. But she did well by her family and was as proud of you I'm sure, as you are of her.

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    1. Thank you, Sian, Yes, she was always proud of our achievements as was my father, but it's on looking back like this that I realise afresh how proud I am of them. Like you I've always been fascinated by just how unordinary the lives of apparently ordinary people can be. I'm just sad that she, like so many others, didn't have the opportunities we have been fortunate enough to enjoy and yes, that her retirement was so short and her plans for it were unfulfilled.

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  27. Firstly Perpetua, can I endorse what many previous commenters have written & say, 'what a wonderful post'. I have to also say that the similarities between your mother & mine are considerable.

    My mother was born during WW1 in 1916 and died just over 32 years ago in April 1980. There are also some slight differences - my mother was able to go on to Secondary School and gained her School's Certificate at the age of 16. She was the only one of a family of five children to do so. However, after I went to Secondary School, she too went to work as a Dinner Lady in a local nearby Primary School.

    Unfortunately, she never got to see what would have been her two youngest grandchildren, my daughter & son, as she died ten months before the elder of them was born. And unlike you, I still have three years to go before I am older than she was when she died. But then you are just a few years older than me :-)

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    1. Thanks, Ricky, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Your mother and mine were born in the same year and died within two years of each other and, as you say, the similarities don't stop there. This really points up to me just how their generation had to struggle to get anywhere. It was such a hard world they grew up in, sandwiched between two world wars and with the Great Depression blighting so much.

      What is so touching is how they didn't let their own experiences lower their expectations for their children and how they worked to give them opportunities they had never had themselves. We are very fortunate.

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  28. She was clearly an extraordinary woman, and what a wonderful tribute to her that you have written here :)

    I'm intrigued by the honeymoon in Garstang, that's a good few miles inland. I have no idea why but I have a picture of them setting out on the bus each day with their beach picnic and a folded rug.

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    1. Thanks, Annie. She was a strong and talented woman and I loved her very much.

      Oops, you've found me out in a lapse of memory! I got my Gs mixed up - it wasn't Garstang but Grange-over-Sands (in Cumbria) where they went on their honeymoon. :-) Silly me! Sadly my accurate knowledge of Lancashire geography is limited to the east Lancs cotton towns where I grew up. The error has now been corrected.

      The photograph was snapped somewhere en route by a street photographer who caught them wonderfully off-guard and relaxed.

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    2. March 2015 I have just found, in an envelope full of old photos, a business card from the Church Inn, Garstang, with a little note in my mother's handwriting saying simply "Our honeymoon". My memory didn't play me false after all. :)

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  29. I feel richer for having known her only through your words. Pearl is right, you resemble her very closely.

    This is my first time to visit your lovely blog, and I will be back.

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    1. Hello Shelly. Welcome to my blog and thank you for your kind words. It was my hope that people would meet her through my words and I'm so glad this seems to be the case.

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  30. I'm over here from Friko's blog and am profoundly moved by your writing.

    How we can say they were only 'ordinary people', but they were far from.

    The seeds they planted continue to grow.

    XO
    WWW

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    1. Thank you, Wisewebwoman, and welcome to my blog. You are right, the world sees them as ordinary people, but we who know them are aware that they were so much more than that. Her children have gone on planting the same seeds, if the next generation is anything to go by.

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  31. If I'm following the time zones properly, Perpetua, today is your birthday! Happy birthday and blessed year to you! And this tribute to your mother is incredibly beautiful. I love the photo of her as a school girl--that bright and engaging smile is just wonderful. You were a very young woman when you lost your mom! I always grieve with friends who have had that loss, but even more so when it is early. But it's obvious to me that she's remained very close to you throughout the years and continues to bless your life. She was a very lovely woman, both inside and out! oxo

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    1. Oh Debra, I'm sorry not to have been clearer in what I wrote. As I was born only 3 days after my mother's birthday, I know exactly (to the day) how old she was when she died and today I reach that exact age. I will save your birthday greetings til April. :-)

      Yes, I was 36 when she died and my youngest sister only 25. We all think of the years we might have had with her and how much she has missed of our children's growing-up.

      I too love that schoolgirl photo, so happy and unaffected, but I love all the others too, as showing different aspects of her personality and life. I'm so glad others have now met her here.

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  32. Lovely post Perpetua. A very moving one. Thank you.

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    1. Thank you, Rosie. This was a very important post for me and it's very moving to see how many people it has touched.

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  33. Your post is so well timed - Mark (Views From the Bike Shed) and I were discussing 2 nights ago how blogging reveals just how many 'ordinary' people are leading extraordinary lives.

    And here you are proving exactly that. A lovely post, thank you.

    I've come over from Mark's to say you're very welcome to get in touch if you want to know how to put the magazine format up as an option on your blog - vegplotting at gmail dot com

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    1. Hello, VP, and thanks for coming across. One of the many things I love about blogging is the opportunity it gives to capture significant memories and offer them to others, as well as handing them on. We learn so much about people's lives and are enriched by it. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

      Many thanks for the address. I'll be in touch soon.

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  34. What a wonderful post, Perpetua! I love the photos. Your mother was a gem, no doubt, and her story a compelling one. Isn't it wonderful how blogging allows us to tell and hear such great stories?

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    1. Thanks, Penny. The photos are wonderful and almost tell her story without words. I love the opportunity blogging gives us to capture our memories before it's too late. I only wish I'd started years ago, when my memory was better than it now is.

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  35. Dear Perpetua, this is the first post I have read since I returned home from hospital. I knew as soon as I started reading that this would not be a blog I partly read and returned to later... I was engrossed. I know exactly how you feel coming to that point in life when you will be older than your mother... it is a strange feeling. I know that sometimes I dont feel properly grown up... and I wonder if my mother ever felt that.
    Your mother was certainly beautiful, and so talented, and loving. Your tribute to her is wonderful, and I am sure she would have been so proud of her fabulous girls.
    The photographs are amazing, and capture her beauty, and her strength. Thankyou so much for enhancing this, my first day "at home". It is going to take me quite a while to catch up on all I have missed this week, but I am so glad I decided to start with this.
    Fondest wishes
    Janice x

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    1. Janice, I feel very touched that you came here first. I knew you would understand exactly what I was feeling as I know from your posts that you have outlived your mother too. You're absolutely right about that feeling of wondering whether you will ever grow up completely. :-) I remember my mother as mature, but I now think she probably felt just the same inside.

      She was beautiful, wasn't she? She had so many talents, not least as a passionate and green-fingered gardener, who created a wonderful garden from a bit of field. Yes, I'm sure she would be proud of what we and our children and now even grandchildren have done and will do with our lives.

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  36. Dear Perpetua, your posting today and the photographs of your beautiful mother and your father mesmerized me. You wove their history so gracefully and so tellingly. She was indeed a woman of great talent, not the least of which was raising you as a daughter whose mind is open to all possibilities and whose benevolence shines through all your writing.

    My mother died in 1968 when she was 58. So I've outlived her now for 18 years. Although she's been gone all these years I find myself speaking to the Oneness of her each night before I fall asleep. Like you, I wonder what she could have done if she'd been born in a different time.

    You and I are so blessed in our mothers. The love they gave us lives on as love does and through us they touch all the people we meet: other family members and those who taught us and befriended us. I like to think that when I reach out to others, it's my mother's spirit that is greeting them.

    Thank you for this inspiring and touching tribute to your mother. Peace.

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    1. Thank you so much for those lovely words, Dee. I knew that you had lost your mother quite young, but however many years have passed, we never forget them, do we? She and my father are still very vividly present in my memory and my heart.

      I sometimes feel sad to think how young her grandchildren were when she died and how much of their lives she has missed. She was always interested in what they were doing and learning and would have been so proud of them now. But as you say, her love helped me to learn to love and this passes on through the generations, just as physical resemblance does.

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  37. There is always the extraordinary to be found in the apparently ordinary. Your mother sounds remarkable to me, if only in the love and inspiration she left behind.

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    1. Thanks, Mark. I think if asked she would have said that her life had been very ordinary, but I disagree. Her drive to use her talents to the full was very far from ordinary and her constant encouragement of her children made such a difference to us. And yes, I loved her very much.

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  38. What an inspiring account of a life of an 'ordinary' woman. Everyone has a tale to tell, and by your recording this your Mother, who was anything but ordinary from your telling, will live on in the minds of today's generation, be they family, friends, or interested readers:)

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    1. Thanks, Shirlwin,and welcome to my blog. You're absolutely right. We all have a tale to tell and it's important for it to be told, if possible by ourselves or by others when we are no longer here. Blogging is wonderful for enabling the telling of stories.

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  39. Thank you for sharing this story of your mother and her indomitable spirit. She certainly was able to accomplish so many interesting things in her life. I feel so sad that you lost her at such an early age. I feel sad that she did not get to garden and enjoy retirement. She truly was a remarkable role model for you and for us.

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    1. Thanks, Sally. She was never one to give up just because of difficulties or the necessity for hard work, or she would never even have contemplated renting a part of a field and a bit of scrubby hillside and turning them into really lovely gardens. In fact it's impossible to think of my mother without thinking of her gardens. Gardening was her chief form of relaxation and it was a rare day when she wasn't out in the garden at some point.

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  40. Dear Perpetua
    What a wonderful portrait, and so beautifully expressed. There is so much resemblance of Annie in both you and your DD, both physically and in how you live your lives. How I wish my own mother had felt able to seek opportunities to harness her strong intelligence for a more productive and satisfying life.

    Are you keeping these family history posts as a non-e-scrapbook for the next generations? I feel they need a more permanent existence than just on the blog, and it would be a wonderful gift to hand on.

    Spindrift51



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    1. Thanks so much Spindrift. I think the physical resemblance is much more visible now than when I was a child. DD to me seems a good mixture of me and DH, whereas DS is very like my father.

      I'm sad that you feel that your mother wasn't able to make use of her gifts as she might have wished. My mother really had to struggle, but did the very best she could with the limited opportunities of her day.

      All my blog posts are written in Word and saved on the computer before I post them to the blog. The pictures used are also saved in a separate folder and these particular ones come from a family archive compiled by DH. In a spirit of belt-and-braces, I also keep a private back-up of my blog on WordPress. I must think about your suggestion of making these posts accessible off the blog.

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  41. Just read your reply to Annie Big Sis. What a good example of collective (but not always accurate) family memories - I had always 'remembered' the story of the Garstang honeymoon. Grange-over-Sands is far more logical and it may explain why we had a camping holiday near there when I was in my teens.

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    1. LOL, PolkaDot. It's good to know that I didn't just imagine the memory of Garstang being the honeymoon destination! But Annie is right, Garstang would have been an unusual place to go with so much lovely coast nearby to choose from. :-)

      I'd completely forgotten about that camping trip as I wasn't part of it, but what more natural than to go back to the area where you spent your honeymoon, especially if it hadn't been possible to revisit in the intervening years.

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    2. March 2015 I have just found, in an envelope full of old photos, a business card from the Church Inn, Garstang, with a little note in Mummy's handwriting saying simply "Our honeymoon". Our collective memories didn't play us false after all. :)

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  42. This post has left me breathless with the joy of it Fortune really does shine upon those of us with memories of loving, extra-'ordinary' parents who gave us so much and made it seem so simple, so effortless. The pictures are perfect, too. And having actually met you, I would say that you do indeed resemble her very much and having read your blog for some time now I would also say that there is much of her within you as well. Oh, I have so enjoyed reading this! My parents were also married in 1941 -- in September. I am fortunate to still have my mother, who is now 93 and quite frail. My father died in 2005 -- so I am indeed fortunate to have had both of them for such a long time.

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    1. Broad, I'm glad you enjoyed it so much. Thank you for the great compliment of saying I resemble her. As I said in an earlier reply, I could never see it when I was young, but sometimes now I catch her looking out of the mirror or a recent photograph at me. It may be because of being the age she was when she died, so I see my last memories of her at the same age. Likenesses are so hard to pin down, internal as well as external. :-)

      Your parents were so lucky to have had 64 years together - a lifetime for many people. And I enjoy reading those posts where you write of your mother and sometimes try to imagine my mother in her nineties as she would have been now.

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  43. What a lovelypost! I haven't been on here for some time, and very glad I stopped by! You may think I fell off the planet! Have been a bit that way.
    What lovely memories of your mother. She was clearly an inspiration, and experienced much in her life. Thanks Perpetua for sharing. X

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    1. You're very welcome, SoulDragon. How very nice to see you again. It's been quite a while. :-)

      I'm glad you enjoyed this tribute to my dear mother. She was a remarkable woman in many ways and it's very satisfying to have enabled others to meet her and learn about her life.

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  44. Your mother was beautiful. You are so fortunate to have such clear and candid photos. I found this post to be very touching, but rich too, in love and reflection. I still have my mother, although at 86 she is leaving us a little at a time. I treasure my visits with her, although they are not frequent due to distance. We talk on the phone nearly every day. I don't think there'll be another generation like our parents'.

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    1. Thanks, Pondside. My box of mainly small black-and-white family photos is much treasured and browsing through it conjures up my parents and grandparents so very clearly. Digital photos are wonderful, but lack the evocativeness of old and often battered prints.

      I so agree with you about the remarkable generation that lived through the Great Depression and the Second World War and its aftermath. My dear mother-in-law, at almost 89, is its last representative in our family.

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I welcome your comments and will always try to respond to them. Thank you for reading.