Remembering my Mother

It's 'Mother's Day' and, while I don't like the whole commercial hype, I can't help thinking about my own mother - particularly as it's quite close to her birthday.  She was such a wonderful person - one of the generation who lost their chances because of the second world war.  Without it she would have become a teacher, or librarian.  But instead she became a 'landgirl' in the Land Army and afterwards married a young man she met on one of the farms.

The beautiful, part Italian girl, born and brought up in a city, became a farmer's wife.

She had a hard life, losing her first love in the war, to become a war widow at the age of 21.  Later, she discovered she had an inherited heart condition which meant there was a great deal she couldn't do and she was often in hospital.  One of my last memories of her was dashing over to a Newcastle hospital in the middle of the night to find her sitting on the bed in A & E, her heart describing horrific loops on the screen, but she was still smiling at me.  I knew, all my life, that whatever I did, she would still love me.

One of mum's last photographs - still smiling!

Mum was a book addict and I still have her 60 year record of the books she read, scribbled into little notebooks. She passed on her love of books to me.  Thank you Mum!!