Mum was destined to be special — she was born on February 29!

TRAVELLING to Argentina in 1954 took two days, a terrifying flight in a rickety DC6 — and a lot of courage. But my mother did it, despite speaking no Spanish, having little money and her three young sons, Malcolm, Tim and me, to consider.

But she was following our father Robert who’d moved to Buenos Aires to take up his dream job of becoming an international football referee with the Argentine Football Association.

And within a few years, she had created a wonderful life for us all there, establishing a very successful English language school.

Born in Halifax, Yorkshire, in 1920, Mum won a scholarship to attend Princess Mary High School. Her father died before she was born so she and my grandmother were very close, and boyfriends were discouraged. But one Saturday in 1938 when she was 18, Mum met my father at the Alexandra Dance Hall.

As my father, an engineer, was in a reserved occupation in wartime Britain, they were able to get to know one another before marrying in March 1940 and settling in Illingworth — until that move to South America.

When my father’s two-year contract came to an end, they decided to stay. He began teaching at a private English school and mother set up the Liceo Britanico teaching English as a foreign language. By the Sixties, it had four branches, 35 teachers and 2,500 pupils.

But my brothers and I were growing up and moving away. So in 1976, my parents sold their beautiful home and left a thriving business to return to the UK, and settled in Surrey, where they ran a small boarding school.

Dad died at the age of 92, after 71 years of marriage and she lived another six years. She would have been proud to have notched up 98 birthdays. She’d been born in a leap year, on February 29, and always said it was very unfair — so every four years, the family gave her an extra special day!

Hazel Turner, born February 29, 1920, died March 18, 2018, aged 98.