Happy Mothers Day

My mum, Karin Judith, was born in 1919, the year after the Great War ended. She and her elder sister Ann were mainly brought up by their nanny, Daisy. My grandparents, Karin and Adrian lived in Gordon Square, Bloomsbury and were on the fringe of the Bloomsbury Group. They trained as psychoanalysts but, in order to do that, were required to qualify first as doctors. Mum only saw her parents for a few minutes before bedtime.

I was born in Bethnal Green in the East End and I think the picture of me on my mother's knee after a bath must have been taken there. Mum was a community worker in the days before the term had been invented and my Dad was just starting to make his way as a photographer and artist.
I don't remember a lot about Bethnal Green though I do recall mum telling me about a boy drowning in the canal behind the house and warning me not to go there on my own.
Mum inherited a large ramshackle old house on the Essex marshes when I was a young baby and my family moved there when I was about two years old.
Mum was a gifted intellectual; she had a double first in social anthropology from Newnham College, Cambridge. I think she probably must have also longed for a more ordinary family life though; she was very much a family person. 
She was a kind and very principled woman who had strong feelings about civil rights and equality. She also loved animals and during my childhood we had a variety of animals living with us at different times including a heron called Hank. From time to time she would take us to the pub in the village, The Maid's Head, where they had a donkey. The donkey would take a long dustbath, rolling on its back with great gusto. Afterwards, as it got to its feet, my mum would feed it a carrot and enjoy listening to the crunching sound its teeth made.

Anyway I didn't intend to write that much. I hope you have had a Happy Mothers Day, however you may have spent it...