BARRY TOBERMAN
THERE WERE no tears when my mum Audrey died, just a guilty relief. She was 90, “a good age” as people unaware of the full circumstances feel duty bound to say when offering condolences. But her latter years were blighted by dementia.
The downward spiral will be sadly familiar to many sons, daughters and grandchildren. The first evidence of something seriously amiss was a visit to her sheltered accommodation block in North London, where she came to the front entrance and eyed my wife and me suspiciously before inquiring: “Do I know you?”
As her mental state declined, the reflex response to things forgotten or no longer comprehensible was expressed in the catch-all phrase: “Everything is a bit of a blur.” If anything, she became nicer as her health deteriorated. Wherever she was in care, staff and fellow residents remarked on her pleasant nature and the fact that she was never any bother.
She still scrubbed up well and, with hair done and nails painted, cut an elegant if somewhat confused figure at family gatherings.
But seeing her frail and bedridden with barely a flicker of recognition in her final months was pitiful. There was no discernible quality of life and her death seemed merciful. Since her passing, so many people have relayed similar feelings about loved ones who died in such circumstances.
I naturally prefer to dwell on the happy memories from childhood — and also how Mum was a proud and loving grandma to our daughter Annalise, painstakingly knitting waistcoats for favourite toy animals, taking her to London attractions and counting down the days to stay-overs.
My parents were pioneers of the migration from the East End to Redbridge and set up home in what became the Gants Hill Jewish heartland.
By the standards of the age, they married relatively late and given their traditional outlook and the radically changing social landscape of the 1960s and 70s, I sometimes felt they were more like two generations removed from me.
They endured the heartbreak of a still-born daughter before I arrived (Mum never mentioned it; Dad only told me when I was in my 20s).
Mum hailed from a comparatively well-to-do background and in the current era would probably have forged a successful career in the financial world. In the event, she worked as a part-time bookkeeper, but only after my brother and I were well into our teens as she didn’t want us to come back to an empty house.
Her financial nous helped keep things afloat as Dad’s tailoring business struggled and she was de facto head of the house, albeit always deferring to him in our presence.
As a couple they were utterly devoted and their rare arguments tended to be over directions when we were in the car. But Dad only learned to drive in middle age and there was hardly much travelling.
Though I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, luxuries were scarce and my first family holiday beyond kosher hotels in Bournemouth and other South Coast resorts was a trip to Ostend when I was 16.
They didn’t share my interests, paternal relatives from Forest Gate fostering my love of football and uncles on the maternal side introducing me to cricket.
Mum did, to her credit, take me to my first West Ham game and would go to the bookies to place (small) bets on my behalf during my teenage fascination with horse racing.