My Ma

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it! Mark Twain

It's twenty years ago today that I lost my lovely Ma - impossible to believe. She was only 66 when she died and really could and should still be going strong. Here she is looking angelic, aged about 5 or 6 I imagine. She was brought up in Jersey but was evacuated with her mother and brother before the German Occupation in 1940. She trained to be a nurse at Barts hospital in London but after a bit of a whirlwind romance, married my father before completing her training and went out to India to be a tea planter's wife . She hated India, being confined to an ex-pat life, and after I was born they returned to England. How lucky I was. She was funny, kind, generous, selfless, glamorous, occasionally very strict; a non-interested cook but a masterful gardener, expert sewer, fiendish bridge player, merciless badminton opponent and a rather good skier.

Actually she didn't have too much trouble with me, just the odd hoohaa, and the adoration was mutual. Anne Josephine - much missed.