Anthea, how nice to hear from you! I have had so many comments, here, by email and on Facebook, from friends and contacts with colonial and other overseas backgrounds. Our life experiences, and your mother’s, were so very different from anything the next generations can possibly understand. (Or even suspect – I find most people are amazed when they find I didn’t have a conventional English childhood!). Could you be tempted to do a guest blog post about your mother’s life? I would love you to, and I know many others would be equally intrigued.
No pressure, message me privately!

Thank you Shelley. Do ask your mother more questions, and write down the answers, when you are next with her. Our parents will all have had interesting lives anyway, but conditions and lifestyles have changed out of recognition as well. It’s good to have some sort of a record, however flimsy.

James, you probably don’t know how much she loved you, Rosemary and Anthony staying, and the Whitlock cousins, and of course the grandchildren. Early morning treats in the kitchen were very special for her as well as for you all. My parents made Barnford such a happy haven for us all.

Pips, how lovely. You can tell your two, that their great granny loved all her children and grandchildren to bits, and would have loved the great grandchildren just as much. As I say, she loved all her children and grandchildren, but she and Tim did have a special link. He would often find his way into the kitchen with his granny, who loved making his favourite Treasure Troves, and made sure that when he was around Hog’s Pudding was on the menu as often as possible.

Marlous, I am so glad. One takes everything so for granted as a child, but it is only afterwards that you realise that sometimes ‘normal’ is actually quite unusual, and never to be recreated.