MUM

She would have been 94 today, the first birthday since we lost her. I found this among scans of Dad's old transparencies, covered in dust and speckles which I've fairly roughly spotted out. I think this was taken on the way back from Australia on the SS Oronsay in 1959 when she was 30 (with four children). Those six-week trips were like a holiday cruise for my parents with the older three of us in the kindergarten all day, everything fully catered, and always someone willing to cuddle or watch the baby. I do miss her and would love to pick up the phone and chat, even the shouted conversations full of daft misunderstandings and non-sequiturs that her deafness and confusion eventually entailed.