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+--- Thread: A reflective day for me. (/showthread.php?tid=25165)
A reflective day for me. - JOK - 05-05-2022
One of the last remaining links to the reign of George V, the Depression and the Second World War, my mother, was 100 years and 8 months old when she passed away this afternoon.
She was born in Walsall Workhouse in 1921 because her father had abandoned her mom before she was born.
She was told, when young, she would probably not pass the age of 40 due to the condition of her lungs. As a child, she was sent from The Pleck into the ‘countryside’ for a week’s ‘Fresh Air’ … In Aldridge!
She was granny reared and lived with her grandparents, two half-sisters, an uncle and a married aunt and her husband in a two up two down, shared court yard, house in the Pleck, Walsall. Four families (25 people at one time), sharing two toilets and one wash/ brew house.
As a child, in the depression, she was sent to the Wharf to jump into the canal to retrieve lumps of coal the bargees had ‘accidently’ dropped over the side. Or, to the sidings at Ryecroft junction to pick up as much slack as she could find by the track side.
She married dad, a regular in the army, in December 1940 then, thanks to Mr. Hitler, only saw him for a total of three months in the next six years. (They did manage to sire my eldest brother though, before dad went to North Africa in time for El Alamein. Dad didn’t see his first born until he was almost three years old.)
For the vast part of her working life, she had heavy, metal bashing, factory jobs. (Chain making then on milling machines producing door hinges for the automotive industry) As a ‘mobile’ woman in ’40 /’42 she was conscripted to work as a bus conductress. She remembers Walsall bus depot receiving a direct bomb hit and many of the buses burning. That didn’t bother her too much it was having to work on the replacement buses, borrowed from Manchester, that annoyed her. They still had outside stairs.
She out lived her husband by over 43 years. Out lived her two younger half-sisters by over twenty years. She lost her third child in 1948 to pneumonia at just 6 months old and her eldest child this January, though, thankfully, her condition meant she was unaware.
Caught and survived Covid in April 2020. Fell and broke her wrist in May that year. Couldn’t be doing with the cast so chipped it off, (Twice) whilst isolating in her room.
She has lived through an era that has gone from ‘cat’s whisker’ radios, horse drawn carts, Gas lamps, Silent movies and bi planes and remembered seeing the R101 fly over Walsall, to a time of large, flat screen colour tellys, powerful hand held computers, mobile phones, self-driving cars, foreign travel for the masses, by fast jets and men walking on the moon.
I didn’t have too happy a home life as a child, mostly down to mom but she always made sure her four surviving children had three meals a day, had washed and ironed clothes, were polite, well behaved and clean of face. She also scrimped and saved all year to make sure we had one week in a caravan at Rhyl every Walsall ‘Industrial Fortnight’.
Her life may not have been too untypical of her generation but looking at just this snippet I think I should cut my mother’s memory some slack today.
RE: A reflective day for me. - Cunninghamismagic - 05-05-2022
Sorry for your loss. Old cliche but she had a grand innings. Amazing what that generation have lived through. Thoughts with you.
RE: A reflective day for me. - SophLad - 05-05-2022
That’s some life, mon. May she rest in peace.
RE: A reflective day for me. - HawkingsHalfpint - 05-05-2022
Quite a life. May she rest in peace, and condolences, JOK.
RE: A reflective day for me. - coxy134 - 05-05-2022
Sorry for your loss mate.
What an incredible hardworking woman!
Bet she never moaned either or thought the world owed her anything.
RE: A reflective day for me. - baggiebloke - 05-05-2022
Condolences, JOK.
RE: A reflective day for me. - wba13 - 05-05-2022
My condolences mate, lovely innings may she RIP.
RE: A reflective day for me. - MrFizz - 05-05-2022
Grand innings that. That generation are golden. Sadly not many left now. Condolences mon.
RE: A reflective day for me. - Spandaubaggie - 05-05-2022
A noble life putting into perspective the softness of now.
May she rest in peace and condolences to you.
RE: A reflective day for me. - Duffers - 05-05-2022
Condolences pal.