A Tale Of Two Mothers

1961:   When I was 9 my mum was very ill. I remember someone asking about her and my Nan saying "Trom-bone!" I knew what a trombone was and was puzzled. She was trying to secretly say TB.

That year must have bee difficult for my Nan, looking after me on her own for 6 months, with my mum in hospital in Seaham Hall and Homewood, Whitehaven and also my granddad dying of cancer, being in Newcastle and West Cumberland hospitals at the same time as my mum. A friend took her to the North East for visiting once or twice, but the local visiting my lame Nan had to do using the bus.

I only saw my mum a couple of times in those 6 months, children weren't allowed to visit in those days. I played on the hospital lawn and if she was well enough my mum came outside to see me.

So! While my mum was convalescing in Homewood, she would be visited by the Occupational Therapist who would encourage patients to do craftwork. One day she saw my mum painting and the next day she arrived with a lily from her garden.. On this day 56 years ago my mum signed and dated the painting. I wasn't there to see it.


1975:   I started going out with a teacher from the boys' school adjacent to the girls' school where I worked as a lab tech. When his mum and dad came over to visit her introduced me to them. "You'll be Freda's daughter, then? I knew her when I worked in Whitehaven. She worked in the office and then she was in hospital for a while."


When The Boyfriend and I went to visit his parents she took this painting off the wall to show me. She had kept a patient's gift to her all these years!

1977:   I married that boyfriend!

1982:   Here are the two mums! Proud grandparents at the Christening of their first grandchild, Rachel.

2017:   I was looking through albums for a photo of Grandma to scan when I found this rather poor photo of our 2 mums together so it seemed appropriate to put it with the painting which we now have in our home and remember them both by.

Sorry for a long story! I'ts been a long day, waiting 12 hours at the lodge for a mattress that never got delivered!