Mum

First let me say that this photo is by kind permission of brother-in-law PurbeckDave49.  Thank you Dave. It is possibly the last of my mother.


My mum Antoinette (nee Mittermaier) born 30 July 1927 in Dortmund Germany, met my father in 1953 when she came to the UK to learn English, working as an au pair for my father's sister in Norfolk. He was on leave from his job in Trinidad and was staying with his sister. Employees could only have leave every few years if they wanted to go back "home" and thus they saved up - so he probably had around 8 to 10 weeks.

Events went very fast, they married on 18th July, a "mixed" religion, mixed nationality wedding and I suspect some can imagine the paperwork that had to be completed with documents "whizzing" around between Rome, Norwich, Dortmund and Heidelberg. They married on  18th July 1953 and had a short honeymoon at Blakeney on the North Norfolk coast, I think at the Blakeney Hotel directly on the quay.

My father then returned to Trinidad, leaving his wife to complete other formalaties such as applying for British citizenship which she did in September. She also had to return home which was now near Heidelberg, to collect her possessions and then make the sea journey out to Trinidad.

Well some of the rest of the story (will) appears in my journal.

In about 1976/7 she had been diagnosed with cancer, sadly much too late due to an over-trusting friend and doctor who probably never thought she could possibly be ill and simply going through "the change". Luckily she had an excellent Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon at Norwich & Norfolk hospital John Carron Brown who managed to do a tremendous job although the cancer was already widespread.

Without this she would not have been able to attend my wedding in 1977 and indeed all the signs were that she would beat it. However eventually the wretched illness got the upper hand and she died on 5th June 1979.

The photo was taken at a family gathering at my then home in West Sussex with my 1st wife, her brother and sister-in-law, her and my parents. One can see, in retrospect, the sadness in her face. She was possibly "caught" off-guard by David, for which I am grateful now - I think this is a much more truthful image of her than that she projected. She was far more British than any Brit, in her language and in everything in her daily life but above all she had a very stiff upper lip.

My deepest sorrow is that she never got to see her grandchildren, Kate being born just 13 months after her death. She would have been a great Grandma particularly after she was not allowed to have a "normal" life with me, her son who had to go through the traditional British ex-Pat being sent off to the UK at 8 and only coming home once a year for the summer holidays. I only really got close to her again when she became ill and then I was working in London and not home every weekend. 

I am not sure on which of the Christmas days this was taken, but have opted for Christmas Eve as it is the traditional hight point of the German festivities.