CHRISTA ACKROYD Happiness at a stroke is Mum’s legacy with yappy Spenceley

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IAM writing this week in a happy mood as the sun finally makes an appearance with one of my two little dogs resting his head on my foot. And I daren’t move. Spenceley, like his owner, enjoys his sleep and has even been known to give a grumpy little growl if you dare to disturb him. Again like his owner.

What Spenceley wants Spenceley gets. His adopted sister, rescued from a lockdown puppy farm, I cannot imagine my world without them.

They make me laugh every day, and yes, they do sleep at the bottom of the bed. Disgusting to some but strangely heart-warming to me. No judgement. Of course they have their own beds. Of course they are not really allowed to jump up on mine but who can resist their little sad-eyed pleading stares? Not me. And they are not exactly huge, despite their big personalities.

I have always had lhasa apsos. Their quirky nature is not for everyone. But even our late Queen, known more for her love of corgis, grew up with them. Originally Tibetan temple dogs used by the monks to warn them of approaching strangers, it is their nature to potentially be yappy things (the similarities continue).

Think Jack Russell with cuteness overload. They are also fiercely loyal, can sleep all day or go for eight-mile hikes, and are pretty obsessed with food. Small wonder I was drawn to them as a breed 30 years ago. They are me in dog form.

They also cost me more each month for their grooming than I spend on myself, which is why so many of them end up for rehoming. But each one I have had down the years has been special. And none more so than Spenceley.

When my mum died, she left what to her was a huge amount of money which had been severely depleted by the cost of her care. Thankfully she never knew that.

It had been hard earned and carefully saved. Her and Dad always planned for a rainy day and for retirement, which sadly they never got to share due to his ill health.

They lived in the same house for more than 50 years. Mum still used the same cookware and utensils she had been gifted as a wedding present 60 years before and the most she ever spent on her home was a replacement for the coloured bathroom suite and a fitted kitchen. Apart from that, the three-piece suite was at least 30 years old and re-covered three times.

The carpet in the best room was cut up and repurposed in the back bedroom. The Eighties stone fireplace still bore her favourite ornaments and photographs. And the bulky ancient television was only replaced when it finally went pooof. That was the way she was brought up and that was her choice. Mum would give anyone her last penny. But she never spent much on herself. A weekly shampoo and set was her one luxury.

In her will was £1,000 for each of her five grandchildren with an instruction to spend it on whatever made them happy. Happy was my mum’s middle name. The rest, including her little Bradford semi, was shared by my brother and me.

So what to do with it? It was modest by comparison but too much to fritter away. She would have been mortified by the thought of that.

But the one thing

I did buy, apart from a new boiler (she would have enjoyed the practicality of that decision) was Spenceley, now six years old. It was a little frivolous, especially as mum was never a dog lover, though she did enjoy visits from my previous little lhasa, Toast, as her dementia took hold. Toast, like so many of her breed, instinctively knew how to give comfort and Mum enjoyed the calming benefits of stroking an obliging animal, as did the residents at the care home where she sadly ended her days instead of in her own home as she had always anticipated. Little Toast passed away just a few months after my mum. They say you can never replace a pet, you certainly can never replace a parent, but I immediately knew a house without a dog would be an even sadder place. Spenceley cost £700 from Mum’s legacy. In her honour, he was named after her, using her maiden name which died with her having had three sisters and no living relatives bearing my granddad’s name. And so he is doubly precious to me.

Recently Hollywood actor Jeff Goldblum announced he was joining a long list of celebrities who would not be leaving his estimated £40m to his two young boys, saying that financially children have to learn to “stand on their own two feet”. And of course they should, or life would be pretty appalling as any child would be if they ambled along in life wasting it while waiting for a parent to die.

But leaving money to our children is a part of growing older and if you are lucky enough to have anything left, a gift to remind them that you remembered them and all they had given you in return until your dying day, is something that most of us would gladly do.

Of course life should not be handed to our children on a plate but most of us won’t have millions or billions to leave. It is entirely understandable that Jeff, or Mick Jagger or Bill Gates have decided that their children won’t automatically inherit their vast fortunes. The world is littered with people who have had too much too soon and that makes for a spoilt brat mentality, producing young people who have no need to strive, even work, to fulfil their own potential.

But giving what you have within reason, or helping your offspring even while you are living if you can to get a foot on the ladder, can never be seem as anything other than an act of love. And certainly discussion about what you will or won’t be leaving anyone while still alive is not only in bad taste, it can be totally misconstrued when you are no longer here to discuss why. Some decisions should not be shared, and certainly not by people who are in the fortunate position where money and all they have accrued is a topic they present as a burden to others.

There is a reason another word for all we might leave in a will is called a legacy. It is a reminder of the legacy of love and friendships we have shared. Spenceley is all the more precious to me because he is named after and bought with mum’s money.

But I would give away every penny she left me, indeed every penny I have, just to be able to have one more conversation with her, to pick up the phone and enjoy one more inconsequential chat. Or sit with a cup of coffee reminiscing about times we have enjoyed together. But I can’t.

Legacy isn’t about the money we have or what we have left when we die to leave to others. It is about the simple common threads that bind us together and how we spent it along the way.