Extraordinary LIVES
MUM was born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. Her mother died giving birth to her and as her father was unable to care for her and her two brothers, they were adopted by a maternal uncle and his wife. A bright pupil and avid reader, Mum won a scholarship to Westcliff High School. But she was independent minded, so left school at 16, moving to digs in London and living off baked beans. After briefly working at the British Library, she joined the Wrens, attached to the Royal Marines. Her father and grandfather had been in the Marines and she was proud to follow in the tradition. At one Remembrance Day service in Northern Ireland, she and her fellow Wrens were pelted with eggs, but it didn’t put her off. Later she worked under Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Mountbatten, whom she like and admired. Mum met my father, George Johnson, a sailor, when they were based at HMS Collingwood in Hampshire. It was love at first sight for Mum. The only complicating factor was he already had a girlfriend. As usual, Mum got her way! They married five weeks later, in February 1953. Dad was posted to Malta, where I was born in 1954. Mum had to leave the Wrens when she started a family. The following year, Dad left the Royal Navy to work as a civilian radio engineer, so we returned to live in his home town of Rainhill,
Lancs. My sister Carole came along in 1956 and brother Mark in 1961. Mum worked at the local psychiatric hospital. One day I came home from school to find her soaking wet. She calmly explained she’d been taking a patient for a stroll in the hospital grounds when, for no reason, he picked her up and threw her into a pond. Later she had an equally difficult job at what was then called Dr Barnardo’s in Liverpool. She was there during the 1981 Toxteth riots and was greatly relieved that though the surrounding buildings had been set on fire, the children’s charity was untouched. My parents bought an old farmhouse in Bickerstaffe in west Lancashire and had to live in an old caravan for a year while it was renovated. Mum vowed to never again set foot in a caravan! My parents took to country life. Mum became an active member of the community, joined the WI and started fundraising for charities. She loved gardening and grew all kinds of flowers, competing for space with Dad’s vegetables. Then in 2001 they moved to the Greek village of Metochi in Pelion. They made many friends there, though Mum never learned to speak Greek, getting by on a mixture of sign language and shouting. She always said the sunshine and local wine helped her arthritis. Dad died in 2012, after 59 years of marriage, but it was not until last year that Mum returned to Britain to spend time with her seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. She was feisty, had high standards and expected others to live up to them — a former Wren who regarded everyone as a naval rating. She’ll be greatly missed by those of us she tolerated!
■ BRENDA MAGDALENE ROSE JOHNSON, born December 24, 1931; died March 21, 2022, aged 90.