When I first started school at St. Marys’s R.C in Loughborough my mother used to take me on the back of her bicycle. It was a purple ladies bike and it had a tiny seat on the back.She would ride down a road called Golgrove, that has the most amazing gardens. Most were rockeries with lots of small plants and flowers growing out of them.
It was so lovely as a child to have her take me to school and pick me up. We always got back in time before she headed off to work.
Most Saturdays we would walk into town and then head down to Towles Hosiery factory to see my dad. Dad worked on a Saturday morning so we sat in the car and waited for him to finish. He would drop us off at Ratcliffe Road and we would go and see my Auntie Eileen who is my mums sister and my cousins. They had an alleyway at the side of their house and we walked down it and opened the gate. I can still hear young Ollie my cousin shouting “Mammy Aunt Margaret’s here. My mother and Auntie were very close. We sometimes had french stick and ham there as a treat from me mam.
On a Saturday evening I went to Auntie Eileens house while my mam, Auntie, my Dad and Uncle went to the “Duke Of York Pub” in was only round the corner. I played with my older and younger cousins. We danced to music and watched football as Ollie loved it and then Parkinson was on after this. By this time in the evening we were all really tired.
Everyone came back and Aunty Eileen would make cheese and onion sandwiches for us.I didn’t eat them but my Dad and Uncle Oliver did. My mum always bought me a packet of Planters peanuts back from the pub as a treat.
When we got home we had to walk up the dark garden and I used to say to my mum you go first as I was scared of the dark, and dad always had sunflowers and other things growing in the garden that looked like monsters at night. She made me laugh because she used to say, that’s right make me go first.
She was a very friendly person and someone who you could trust and rely on. She had this amazing smile. A great sense of humor and loved to laugh. As a child she said hello and stopped to talk to people in town,when I got older I remembered them and I do the same.
One of the things I remember about her is I came downstairs once and didn’t know that my mam could sing. She was singing “Secret Love” by Doris Day. So nice to hear her. She was a very good looking woman and a very good dancer as well.
She was so house proud and loved gardening and was always busy doing something. She loved to sunbathe in the garden. She had this headscarf that she made and I would watch her putting on tons of lotion that was from Spain. It was an oil. Smelt awful, but did the job.
A few times she had to go to the school because someone was bullying me and she spoke to the school about it. I must say that she loved her family and friends and she would help you out and look after you.
When I went to secondary school on my bike she used to stand in the bedroom window looking for me coming home. As I got through the gate there was a chocolate bar on the window ledge that she had bought for me.
We had family in Coventry that came to see us and also my uncle George and my mum would do a massive spread for them all. Family was important to her. I look back and think that the one person that kept us altogether was my mam.
I have learnt alot from her. I try and be the best person I can and look after Rosie and her welfare. I do think of other people and help whenever I can.
I do spend quite a bit of time alone, but then looking back so did she. I don’t see it as a bad thing, because she got on with life, worked and looked after all of us. She had friends and so do I, but it wasn’t important to be with people all the time. I thank her really for this, because we do fear being alone, when really we shouldn’t. We all have our own agenda’s from day to day.
I only had 16 years with her, but I loved and cherished every moment. Yes we had our ups an downs like most families, but that’s life.
I miss her very much. I don’t want this to be a sad post about her, but instead a post about who she was, so that when Rosie gets older she can read a few things about her.
Love you Ann xx
