Tai chi and dancing in her 90s . . . there was NOTHING our mum couldn’t do
BRITAIN is full of unsung heroes and heroines who deserve recognition. Here, in our weekly obituary column, the moving and inspirational stories of ordinary people who have lived extraordinary lives, and who died recently, are told by their loved ones . . .
Mum was born just over 100 years ago in London, within the sound of Bow Bells. She lived beside Queenstown Road station. Long before the film The Railway Children, she and her three elder brothers used to wave to passengers from the end of their garden.
By the time she was born, all the beds in their terrace house were full, so she slept in a chest on the landing, with a little curtain pulled around it for privacy.
She adored her milkman father, Harry, and when very young would ride with him on his horse and cart as he delivered milk from churns.
The family lived a hand- to- mouth existence. There were very few treats and sometimes no food.
One particularly lean week, when both food and money had run out, her mother was about to take her father’s only suit to the pawnbroker, when she found a shilling in the pocket.
That week they ate so well there were tears of joy.
The only chocolate she and her brothers ever had was just one piece on Christmas Day. Her mother had saved all year to give them that single treat.
mum left school at 14, started as a cleaner and, by 16, was housekeeper to a surgeon. She ran his home and organised his social events, prepared and cooked for formal dinner parties.
How many 16-year-olds could do that today?
At 20, she met and married my dad, Alfred Hugh Hinton. Hugh, as he preferred to be called, was a regular soldier in the Army.
Their honeymoon, in a hotel in London, lasted just one night, because our dad had to return to duty the following day.
He was at Dunkirk and fought in the desert with Field marshal montgomery’s Eighth Army.
But he came back regularly on leave — and mum and dad used to love the exhilaration of walking the streets during bombing raids.
meanwhile, their family grew. I was born on December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour. my sisters followed in 1944 and 1946. Somehow, when World War II ended, Dad came back to us unscathed. He worked as a postman while mum joined the GPO (now BT) becoming a trainer and supervisor of telephonists.
There was nothing mum couldn’t do: decorating, upholstery, dressmaking, knitting and crochet. Plus, for every special occasion in the family, she would bake the most amazing celebration cakes.
Her swansong was a magnificent three- tier wedding cake with intricate sugar icing for one of her many grandchildren. She was 93 then and danced at the wedding with her stick for support. She was still doing tai chi in her 90s, for goodness’ sake!
She had no formal education after the age of 14, and every one of her skills was self-taught.
A truly remarkable and determined lady and a wonderful mum, she was always helping family, friends and those in need.
After retiring she made beautiful soft toys to raise money for the NSPCC, which she supported for 30 years, and also helped ‘old people’ at the hospital when she herself was in her 80s. She didn’t know how to be idle.
mum’s was a hard life, but fulfilling — a life well lived.
She gave generously and was loved by everyone, but particularly dad, who died in 1986. On their 41st wedding anniversary, he was still writing her the most beautiful love letters.
MAUD MARY HINTON, born October 14, 1917, died August 27, 2017, aged 99.