Extraordinary

MY MOTHER was the seventh of ten children brought up in the back streets of Aston, Birmingham, in a two-up, two-down with shared amenities. She was confirmed as a Catholic at St Chad’s Cathedral. It was a difficult childhood. She spent two years in a sanatorium with rheumatic fever and, when she was 12, the world went to war. Three of her brothers served: one in the RAF and two in the Royal Navy. My grandmother didn’t want the younger children to be evacuated to the countryside, so the family stayed in Birmingham for the duration of the war. During night-time bombing raids, they squeezed into a cramped, damp, unlit air-raid shelter. Mom came from a line of strong, incredible women — she needed to be. She met the love of her life, my father John, on a blind date. They spent the early years of their marriage living with her in-laws, only moving into their own home a month before I was born. When Dad died at the age of 35, my elder brother was 12 and we three younger ones were under five. We all caught measles and then chicken pox. Poor Mom had to deal with her grief at the same