Mason on Monday, on Wednesday.
Apologies for the delay, It was my mums funeral on Monday, if anyone is interested, this is the Eulogy I wrote for her.
“The voice of parents is the voice of gods, for to their children, they are heaven's lieutenants.”
William Shakespeare
September 2023.
A man walked into a bar, the bar of the not quite as ‘grand’ as it once was hotel, a hotel that has stood since 1889 on the seafront of this not ever very grand, (but there’s worse place to be born or live) seaside town. The hotel is called The Grand Atlantic and the man is me, with my wife and we are sitting in the bar of the hotel where a few lifetimes ago, my mum had been swept off her feet by the former RAF pilot, aka, my dad, who she had met and fallen in love with, while she was working as a receptionist at said hotel just after she had arrived in Weston-Super-Mare in 1965.
She had left her parents, friends, and family behind her in the Midlands, packed a bag or two and relocated to Weston at the suggestion of a cabaret singer she knew from back home who was plying his trade at Knightstone Theatre that summer. That, in itself was quite an achievement in the early 60’s when most unmarried women stayed close to or in the family home. I once thought the sense of liberty and the claiming of personal freedoms in the 60’s had been overlooked by my mum, but when I think now, about her making that move, perhaps I need to acknowledge her desire to find a happier life regardless of what was considered the ‘done’ thing back then. She did the right thing, for herself and ultimately for my sister and I in leaving Coventry behind because, let’s face it, nobody really wants to be born with a midlands accent do they?
In 1965 my dad was also looking for someone with whom he could begin a happier second act of his own life with and so, when that particular man walked into that particular bar in that particular hotel, there was, a very beautiful receptionist called Pauline Elsie Sadler and soon there was marriage and two children.
So that’s the reason Becky and I stayed at the Grand Atlantic on the night my mum passed away because, to be quite frank, it’s rubbish. It’s seen better days, but to be fair, so have a lot of us in this room today.
Meanwhile, back in the 60’s…
My sister arrived in 1967, I made my debut 13 months later. I would hazard a guess that the two of us were the result of a love that would have endured as long as any such union can, were it not for the untimely passing of our dad in November 1979. Prior to that, our childhood was as happy as anyone could wish for, whatever personal sadness mum felt during those years, losing her own mother, being diagnosed with MS, and then being widowed at 47 years of age. Life is not fair, never has been, mum would say we just have to make the best of it.
As her own mother used to say to her,
“It is a long lane that has no turning.”
Oh, and keep your shoes polished, your hair cut neatly, remember to say please, and thank you and always make your bed in the morning.
Just like the Grand Atlantic Hotel, Life… can be rubbish sometimes.
My lovely mum died at 8.50 on Monday, 11th September 2023 my sister and I had been at her hospital bedside for a week after she’d had a nasty, and ultimately life-ending accident the previous week. It was one fall too many this time, Ruth had been there for years, after every other fall, of which there were many.
My mum was nearly 91 so this is not a tragedy, but the sadness feels overwhelming at times.
It will Pass, in Time which is also the title of the song by Beth Orton that you heard at the crematorium earlier, a beautiful song that will now forever reduce me to tears since hearing it on the radio as I drove to the hospital a few days before mum passed away.
Mum had suffered with multiple sclerosis for over 50 years, been widowed once, divorced twice and in the past few years had also been suffering with dementia. She was a proud lady, born in a 2 up 2 down terraced house in Foleshill, Paradise, Coventry in 1932, into a very different world. A world heading towards a war that would shape her and her generation for ever.
Nobody ever gave her something for nothing apart from the Nazis who bombed her home city almost to oblivion on the night of November 14th, 1940. She survived, many didn’t, she told me the story of that terrifying night a few years ago.
14th November 1940.
The first bombs fell at 19.10.
“The warning went off and next door had an Anderson shelter in their garden, so we (her mother and Barry her younger brother) went down into it with another family. I was 8, I don’t recall if I was feeling scared though because I was too young to understand what it all meant. I knew I was going to be ok if mummy was there though. There was nine of us in the shelter, it was pitch-black outside we had candles of course and blankets and a bucket, but it was so cold, the first bombs started to fall and suddenly we all realised, we were scared. An old man in there was chain- smoking Woodbines all night, it was horrible the smoking I mean.”
Not surprisingly, mum never smoked.
The raid finished ELEVEN HOURS LATER, the following morning, two-thirds of the city’s building (40,000) had been either, destroyed, or damaged, nearly 600 people killed and a further 900 badly injured.
“When the all-clear sounded, Mummy told me to walk up the corner shop to get some milk for our breakfast, I remember going out of the back gate and seeing piles of rubble everywhere, a lot of houses had been hit. I think I walked over a dead person lying in the street, I was crying. I got to where the shop once stood, but there was just a pile of bricks left, with smoke and a burning smell everywhere. Everything was gone but, in the rubble, I saw an undamaged bottle of HP sauce, because there was no milk and I was unsure what to do, I picked it out of the rubble and took it back to mummy. I walked back to our house, past the dead person and went to give my mother the bottle of sauce, she took one look at it, then me, then in her sternest voice said, You take that back this instant; we don’t want people thinking we are looters.”
This was, of course the ‘right’ thing to do, as far as her mother was concerned perhaps not because of what other people might have thought, but simply because it just was, the right thing to do. Unlike the Nazis who’d just tried to annihilate them all from above, my grandmother had morals that were non-negotiable, war or no war. My mum took on those same morals and never wavered with them, despite the hardships she would face in her own life.
So, she took the HP sauce back, without question or hesitation and she spent the rest of her life, trying to do the ‘right thing’, without question or hesitation. You rarely heard her complain. Only towards the end when her quality of life was reduced, almost like the rubble of her hometown all those years ago, only then would she say that she’d had enough.
Mum would always try to do the ‘right’ thing, until the very end, even as she drifted in and out of consciousness at Southmead Hospital while be cared for by the REMARKABLE staff there, she still said, please and thank you.
She never lied or stole anything, never borrowed money, or went overdrawn at the bank, rarely (never?) used strong language. Actually, she said “Oh Bugger, Oh bugger, bugger, bugger,” a LOT in those final few days. Mum was always polite, smiled often, tried to remain positive despite, or because of the hardships she had endured for so long. She was ridiculously proud of Ruth when she joined the police and was thrilled beyond measure when the first of her 5 grandchildren arrived. I think it’s fair to say becoming a grandmother gave her a whole new lease of life, Jacob, Harry, George, Ellie, and Tabitha, she adored you all equally.
I feel I should also mention Tony Hudson who mum married a few years after both she and he had lost their respective partners. There were many happy years in that marriage and despite the fact that things didn’t work out in the end, Tony cared for mum for many years. Their voyage on the QE2 (almost) mirrored her own mother’s journey in 1965, a journey that like mum’s life, was epic at times with many blue skies but also with more than her fair share of stormy seas. Whatever else we might say, her 90 years were a challenge that she endured with a dignity most of us can only admire. Fiercely independent, she starting driving at a time when most women didn’t, and she continued to drive herself on her holidays with her lifelong friend Pam, until sadly the MS caught up with her and Park House became her final destination. For a girl born into modest surroundings all those years ago in Coventry, she travelled a fair old distance. Ultimately, I think mum was happiest sat in her garden in the sun, sat in anyone’s garden actually, just as long as she was facing the sun and there was a cup of tea or glass of wine on offer.
Despite much (ok, most!) of my own life choices/circumstances making almost no sense to mum, she did understand that in 2006 I’d finally managed to overcome one of the major challenges of my own life. It was only the dementia that required me to explain to her, only a few weeks ago when she asked if I wanted to finish a glass of wine I’d brought for her over lunch, that I’ve been sober for over 17 years, she looked at me proudly, and we had a moment of understanding, she gave me one of ‘those’ smiles, she understood life’s struggles, better than most.
She spoke her mind without any filter aside from what politeness required, in fact the last words she spoke to me a few weeks ago were in keeping with her inability to tell a fib, regardless of the circumstances. When I was at her bedside in hospital, a few days before she died, I asked her if she liked my haircut, a topic of great debate going back to the early 80’s.
“No, I don’t, it’s old fashioned.”
To the very end, my mum, she just told it how she saw it, but usually with a smile.
We will all miss that smile.
If, and to be honest I’m not sure mum still had her faith after all the hardships, heaven exists, I have absolutely no doubt she will be there now, I hope God has polished his shoes though, because if he hasn’t, mum will remind him that he needs to.
With a smile on her face.
As her own mother used to say to her,
“It is a long lane that has no turning.”
It certainly was.
Pauline Elsie Sadler
20th November 1932.
11th September 2023.
Beautiful tribute, Simon, and it made me smile. She would have loved it. X
Beautiful tribute to your mum, Simon. I really enjoyed reading about her and her life. She lives on in you, Ruth and her grandchildren, and leaves a fabulous legacy.