My Life

INTRODUCTION

How quickly time goes by, even more so when you get older. I still can’t believe I am now retired. It is a couple of years ago since I reached the age of 60 and retired as I had promised myself I would. I am the eldest of eleven children (one child was still born, Denise died in her forties, Andrew died whilst I was writing this and eight of us are still living) and, like so many people, I have worked and raised a family since my teens. But my promise to myself to retire was based on two main things – one was the fact that my mother – after giving birth to her eleventh child and then deciding to pursue a career as a nurse – worked until she was sixty three, immediately got bowel cancer and died at sixty six, and the second was that I had cancer myself when I was fifty two, but was lucky enough to survive it. It sealed the deal for me. I was going to retire at sixty and do everything I wanted to do whilst I had the health and energy to do them.

Deciding when to retire years in advance is fine, but when the time comes, it’s then about getting your head around the fact that you have actually reached retirement age. I know I don’t look my age, I certainly don’t feel it, but it’s knowing that you have arrived at the age when you thought of your parent as being old and being a pensioner that I found quite strange.

My Mother died in August 1994, my sister Denise in March 1998, Dad in February 2005, and Andrew in June 2011 which leaves me as head of a very large family. Mum would have loved seeing how much her family had grown. From just my Mum and Dad there are their ten children, twenty grandchildren, and twenty five great grandchildren.

Getting to the ripe old age of sixty two I was also very much aware of how much experience, skills and knowledge I had gained along the way. Life’s experiences have always fascinated me and recording my own has become a bit of an obsession since I retired. I would have loved to know what my maternal grandmother’s life was like when she was growing up. She was born in Holyhead in 1905, one of a family of six girls. Recent family history research has shown us that her husband (my grandfather) was brought up with her for many years but that he was also a distant cousin, (they shared the same great grandparents). They had quite a few family tragedies and I would have liked to have her account of them. Instead I am using what knowledge and research we have at our disposal.

My brothers Robert and Geoffrey have been compiling our family history for a number of years now – Robert has actually gone as far back as the 1700s with Dad’s side of our ancestors, but I thought that for this account of our family I will give some brief details of our grandparents, our parents and then concentrate on my own life history. I have decided to structure my story into five-year blocks, and include a very brief overview of the political and economic climate and the world events of each five year period. So this is going to be my record, for my kids, my grandchildren and my great grandchildren.

The Events that happened in 1948 – the year I was born

UK – Nationalisation of UK railways to form British Railways
India – Indian pacifist and leader Mahatma Gandhi is murdered on 26th January by a Hindu extremist
Israel – Israel is declared as an independent state.
Netherlands – The Land Rover Series I is shown for the first time at the Amsterdam Car Show
UK – Western European Treaty is signed
USA – The Foreign Assistance Act ( The Marshall Plan ) is agreed to provide more than $13 billion in aid to war torn Europe between 1948 and 1951
UN – The UN creates the WHO World Health Organization
UN – The UN General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration on Human Rights
UK – British National Health Service Act creating the NHS Created
Pakistan – India attacks the Pakistan City of Hyderabad
World – Instances of Polio ( Infantile Paralysis ) increase around the world.
Germany – The United States and Great Britain begins a massive airlift of food, water, and medicine on June 26th to the citizens of West Berlin following the Soviet Blockade.
Burma – Burma Gains Independence
Australia – Holden cars starts manufacture in Australian
USA – NASCAR holds its first race for modified stock cars at Daytona Beach
Russia – Earthquakein Turkmenistan USSR Kills 110,000
Ecuador – 6.7 magnitude earthquakehits Ecuador in the Andes creating landslides burying 100,000 homes
Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka Gains Independence From Great Britain
South Africa – The National Party of the Dutch Afrikaners begins the policy of apartheid in South Africa
UK – The Summer Olympics are held in London, England
Switzerland – The Winter Olympic Games are held in St. Moritz, Switzerland
France – Porsche is founded
UK – 1 million households own Televisions was 5,000 just 3 years earlier
UK – Random Access Storage Device For Computer created by Freddie William’s team
USA – Long Playing Record produced made of vinyl and played at 33 rpm
Switzerland – Velcro invented by George deMestral
USA – Transistor Radio from Bell Laboratories

Years 1948 to 1953

I was born on the 6^th of October 1948, which meant that I was one of the Labour Government’s NHS babies. Part of their “From Cradle to Grave” Flagship Policy. I clearly didn’t have much time to be enjoyed as a new baby (not that I remember it anyway) because my mum had another baby a year after – Robert on 11^th October 1949; another a year later – Geoffrey on 1^st February 1951; and another the following year – Patricia on 4^th August 1952. I always think of the four of us as the first family, mainly because we were so close in age. Most of my memories of growing up were of being happy, especially at Christmas time. Mum and Dad went out of their way to give us a good Christmas.

I can remember hearing bells ringing very loudly one Christmas eve and running into mum and dad’s bedroom and said that Father Christmas was on the roof and that I could hear him. On Christmas morning they would take us downstairs and let us have a peep into the front room to see if Father Christmas had been. We then would have to go into the kitchen/dining room, have a good wash and eat our breakfast – which we were really too excited to swallow. We would all only be allowed into the front room when dad had finished lighting the fire and was ready to take us in. Dad was always different and really good fun at Christmas time.

My very first conscious memory was when I was about three years old and we were all in Holyhead. I was being introduced to my Great Grandmother (my Mum’s grandmother). I just remember her being very old and not takingto her very much, so much so that I was trying to kick her walking stick from under her when she bent down to give me a kiss.

I also remember some flashes of us living in the Prefab houses in Wynstay Avenue. I can picture Mum having got us all dressed in our Sunday best to go to Sunday School and Robert escaping only to be caught by his pants on some barbed wire hanging upside down.

Rob was a naughty little boy and got into so many scrapes that Dad often took his belt to him. I can still picture the story of him on his little trike at the age four, peddling off to town all by himself to buy some new pots and pans for Mum. The police were called by some concerned shopkeeper who was able to get some basic information out of him – enough anyway to get him home! Geoff used to get into bother as well but he was much cleverer about not getting caught. I will never forget one particular day – it was the day after bonfire night. Robert had made a hole in the side of the armchair in the front room, stuffed it full of paper, sat Geoffrey on the chair and set fire to it. Luckily the fire engine arrived in time to prevent too much damage, but Robert was really in trouble that time.

I was only five when we first moved to Conway Drive and I clearly remember being asked to go to the shops for some bread and milk. To get to the shops you had to go to the end of the street, turn left and walk down to the end of that street (Churchill Drive) and the shops were situated by the roundabout in Kingsley Circle.. Sounds easy, but I was only a five-year old and it was very hard. Mum had given me written instructions (written in case I needed to ask someone) about what to get and where to get it from and how to get there, she spent some time explaining it all to me. But on my journey, I got lost and had asked so many people to show me the way. When I eventually got to the shops I obtained my groceries and attempted to make my way back home, only to get lost again. Mum was so worried, she said I had been gone for over an hour and was about to send for a search party for me. Believe it or not I have had the same problem of getting lost all my life. I am convinced it all started with the fact that I was sent out on a very difficult errand and much too young to cope with it!! I have coped better in later life since the introduction of satellite technology, but in those days there was nothing but good instincts and I was not equipped with them.

I mainly remember our house in Conway Drive. It was number seventeen and comprised of three bedrooms, upstairs bathroom, one living room, one kitchen/dining room, one downstairs toilet, hall and cubby hole by the front door. It had both back and front gardens and a shed with a tin boiler and clothes mangle. Mum and Dad had the large bedroom, Robert and Geoffrey the back bedroom room and Pat and myself were in the front bedroom. Each room had a double bed. In the winter we four all doubled up in the front bedroom. Pat and myself were at the top of the bed and Rob and Geoff at the bottom. Mum would put some heavy coats on top of our blankets to keep us extra warm. I used to make up stories about a girl called Gracie until we all fell asleep. Rob, Geoff and Pat still remember me telling them Gracie stories to this day.

I remember the radio being on all the while. I used to love the “Listen with Mother” programme during the week. And if I stop to think about a childhood mealtime then my memory goes straight to the lovely smells of a Sunday dinner together with the sounds of Billy Cotton’s Band Show in the background.

I started school at Hafod Y Wern Infants Primary in 1953. The school was situated near the shops and so I eventually developed a homing instinct of how to get from home to school and back again, and from home to the shops and back again – I was very proud of myself. One of the teachers I remember so well from this school was Miss Davies. The reason I remember her was because she was one of identical twins. They are both still alive today and remember us Gardners very well indeed.

Years 1954 to 1959

Years 1960 to 1965

I sat the Eleven Plus and failed very badly. The only thing that I was good at in school was Art and English. I remember when I was in my last year of Primary School – Hafod y Wern, and I was drawing a picture of a lady and I was really proud of it. The teacher said it was pretty good but he thought that I should not have drawn a closed mouth and took my paintbrush off me, drew a line to split the lips apart, and then drew some teeth on to my lovely picture. I was so angry and threw the picture into the bin. How could a teacher do that to a child?

When I went to St David’s Secondary Comprehensive School I was put into the remedial class. This was in 1960, the school was relatively new and had only opened two years previously. I liked my Maths teacher Mr Meredith, but didn’t understand maths at all. Also extra maths was used as punishment for everyone who was put into detention. I liked English but couldn’t spell brilliantly. I remember that my Religious Education teacher was always dressed well and had very long red nails on her hands and feet. I also remember that she was having an affair and that she and her lover were in a car one night when it went up in flames with both of them trapped inside. They died a horrific death. I disliked Welsh and my Welsh teacher. He used to throw books, chalks and board dusters at anyone who was talking in class or even if they got their answers wrong. I kept my mouth shut whenever I was in his class.

I was not good in school – at anything. I also took a lot of time off school to help mum with the younger children. I was ten when Cathy was born and she was quite a fractious child so she was given to me to look after. I loved having her as my responsibility. I would take her upstairs to her cot at night and hold her hand, stroke her face and sing softly to her. No one else liked my singing except for Cathy. I could be upstairs with her for any amount of time trying to get her to sleep. I would creep away thinking she had dropped off only to see her turn and smile at me when she heard the floor boards creak.

I remember the School Authorities had a School Inspector called Mr Warn and he was always at our house reading the riot act to my mum about my attendance. I also remember the Council had a Welfare Officer who used to come around all council-rented properties to check to see that homes were clean and tidy. Despite Mum and Dad having a very large family with babies always on the go, the house was very clean and we all had to take turns at cleaning and washing up.

Mam and Taid lived just a couple of streets away from us. They had a Council house – number 6 Bryn Eglyws Road – and I loved it there. Their house was actually bigger than ours. Uncle Cliff had got married and so it was just the two of them living there. They helped Mum out as much as they could by giving her extra food and feeding any of us when we went there. I loved her egg and chips – and we would help them out by trying to tidy the garden and clean their house. They had a budgie and Taid had trained it to speak a few words in Welsh. Welsh was their first language and they only spoke in English when we were around. Taid also used to mend all of our shoes – he had a Cobblers Last in his shed and he was very good at using it.

Apart from the daily milk delivery Mam used to have two main deliveries to her house twice a week. One was the “Pop Man” – the Corona Van. The Pop Man would drop six large bottles of pop off on a Saturday and six on a Wednesday. They were mixed bottles but I loved the Dandelion and Burdock one the best. Next was Mr and Mrs Lewis’s Grocery Van. They arrived with their van full of groceries and Mam would not only get her own order, but also provisions for my Mum. They were on tick (credit) and Mum would pay when she could.

Mam and Taid took me to Holyhead on the train with them. It was my first real holiday and we stayed for a week and I loved it. They took me everywhere and everyone made such a fuss of me. One of my Mum’s cousins worked in a beauty store and she gave me my very first lipstick, powder and perfume.

I was about eleven when St Marks Church was being built on the patch of green land by Mam and Taid’s house. All the kids in the street including Rob, Geoff, Pat and myself, would gather at he site after the workmen had gone home and we would use the bricks to do our building work – it was really good fun and amazingly no-one got hurt in the process.

It was about this time too that building work was going on in the houses in our street. The council were planning on doing some work which involved bricking up all of our fireplaces and replacing them with gas fires. I remember that we played with those bricks – building chairs and tables to sit on. What was significant about it was that Pat had trapped her fingers quite badly under the bricks and Robert had lifted Cathy – who was only about eighteen months old – onto the window sill and let her fall. She still has the scar on her chin to show for her brother’s tender care of her.

Dad left the pit in 1959 and went to work in the Plastics Division at British Celanese where he was a process worker. Instead of coming home covered in coal dust he was now covered in white plastic dust – another dire health hazard. British Celanese was seen as one of the better employers in the town and had almost 2,000 workers at peak production. They manufactured yarns from raw materials, had a Preparation Department, a Spinning Department, a Knitting Department a Weaving Department and a Department that concentrated on Quality Control. They also had a Plastics Division; a Paints Division; a Transport Division and also manufactured Lego Bricks. The housing estate at Pentre Maelor was originally established by Celanese for some of their workers. They preferred to employ family members and hosted a family festival for their workers and families once a year. It was wonderful.

I was about twelve when Mum and Dad drove to Lincoln to pick up his mother during one summer holiday. They were going to stay overnight and start back early the next day. They were taking Cathy with them since she was only two years old. Denise was in hospital and so I was left in charge of Robert who was then eleven, Geoff was ten and Pat who was nine. As soon as they had gone I sat us down and said that we would give mum and dad a lovely surprise for when they got back. We would take most of the downstairs furniture outside in the back yard. We would then scrub the whole house from top to bottom. We also took the stair carpet down. How well we did I do not remember. I know we worked very hard indeed and were very tired. Imagine our surprise and horror when our mum, dad and grandmother turned up later that evening. Mum was worried about us and so they had decided to drive straight back. Problem was that much of the furniture was still outside and we could not put the stair carpet back properly. They didn’t shout at us, my grandmother kept saying that she wished her children would have helped her like that when they were younger. But the surprise had all been spoilt for me.

I can still picture Gran’s visit’s. Despite the fact that we only had a three-bedroomed house and the Gardner family was growing year by year, Gran still paid us her yearly visit. The boys would be vacated into the girls bedroom and I would share the boy’s double bed with Gran. I remember she used to snore and fart very loudly. Her clothes smelt of mothballs and she used to smoke in bed – leaving new fag burns on the blankets every time she left. I will never forget the time that Mum decided to dye and curl Cathy’s hair so that Gran would see that at least one of her grandchildren was following in her footsteps. Gran had this mop of beautiful, thick red curly hair and none of us had anything like it, so Mum improvised – Gran was chuffed to bits. She used to chain smoke untipped Woodbines, had nicotine on her fingers and all around her mouth, and she always had her daily paper “The Racing Pink”.

I can remember one of her visits in particular. Dad had been ill and was sent to British Celanese’s Convalescent Home in Conway for a week, but that did not stop her coming to visit us. When she arrived she was keen to get in touch with Dad whilst he was in Conway. Mum said she could telephone him but she would have to go to the Telephone Booth which was by the Kingsley Circle shops. Mum asked her if she knew how to use the telephone and did she want one of us to go with her. She said that she was fine going on her own and that she had used a telephone before. She looked quite uncertain so Rob and I followed her without her knowing. We hid behind some bushes and watched her. She went into the Telephone Booth and started dialling the number that Mum had given her – the only problem was that she had not lifted the receiver up. She dialled the full number and had a one-sided conversation with Dad. Rob and I were wetting ourselves with suppressed laughter. Gran went to the shops to get her cigarettes and Racing Pink and returned home. She told Mum that she got through to Dad and had a chat with him, but that he didn’t have much to say! Bless her she was so funny.

Rob was next to sit his Eleven Plus Exam. He failed and was so gutted and had to go to St Davids Secondary School with me. I know how hard he worked for that exam. Geoff sat it one year later and passed. He went to Grove Park Boys Grammar School. I knew from first hand experience just how divisive that exam was. Geoff was elevated as the brainy one in the family and I felt so sorry for Robert. They were both clever lads but in different ways. Robert eventually became an Electrical Engineer and was a shift supervisor at Point of Air Colliery. Geoff’s career was in the Police Force where he eventually became an Inspector. But that exam was a dreadful way to test eleven year olds.

I don’t have that many happy memories of school. I know that I liked going there but I also knew that I was way out of my depth. I wasn’t stupid but I missed out on so much that school work never really registered with me. I also didn’t make friends that easily, you needed to fit in with the gangs and I wasn’t in school that much to make my mark on any gang – I was not a gang sort of person anyway. But I do remember befriending one girl by the name of Ruth. She lived on a farm with her mother and aunt. She was extremely shy and no one seemed to bother with her at all. When asked about her parents she told kids at school that she had never had a dad, and she was teased a lot. I went to her home quite a lot and her mum and aunt were very nice to me and so pleased that Ruth was hanging around with someone. They were aghast when they knew how many brothers and sisters I had at home and always made me go back with eggs, milk and butter.

I do remember one significant event in 1963 when my school had a very special person come and speak to us all. The school hall was absolutely crowded and complete silence descended when our guest speaker climbed on to the stage. She was so small and yet had us all spell bound with her story. Her name was Gladys Aylward and she was a Protestant Missionary to China. The film “The Inn of Sixth Happiness” starring Ingrid Birgman was the story of her life.

Gladys Aylward was a housemaid born in London in 1902. She went to China as an independent missionary. She was not educated, had no specific abilities in missionary work, and was unable to do very well in her mission studies. Based on this she was turned down in her application to become a missionary worker in China. But despite this disappointment and with no financial support, she travelled to China on the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1930. She learned to speak Mandarin, identified herself with China and its people and became a Chinese citizen in 1936. She gained the favour of the Mandarin of the city who appointed her as his inspector to help enforce the local government’s law against binding the feet of young girls.

The late 1930’s in China were days of war and strife as government forces fought against the Japanese and the Communists. It was during this time that Gladys gathered many orphans into a home and then in 1940 led them on a perilous 240 mile journey to safety. She returned to England during World War Two, but went back to China in the late 1940s. She died in 1970. I felt very privileged to have been in that audience listening to her speak, it was inspirational and has remained with me to this day.

I know that my school life certainly did not prepare me for the world of work, but my home life was a continuous lesson in domestic science and parenting. I was thirteen when mum gave birth to twins Jane and Andrew in January 1962. They were seven weeks premature and weighed less than six pounds between the two of them. They had to stay in hospital for a further two months until they weighed more than five pounds each. They were so cute. Jane had a shock of black hair and blue eyes and Andrew was bald with blue green eyes. There had to be a change of sleeping arrangements. The big bedroom was assigned to the girls and mum and dad had the girl’s room. Only Rob and Geoff slept in the boy’s room at this time, but the girl’s room had bunk beds for myself and Pat, a single bed for Denise, a single bed for Cathy and a cot for Jane. Andrew had a cot in mum and dad’s room until he could be moved to the boy’s room.

I also recall that at the time my mum was in hospital with Jane and Andrew, a woman – Marion, from another street near us was in hospital too giving birth to her first child. The reason I can recall this event was that she was a single mother and that she had given birth to a black baby. I cannot ever recall seeing a black person in Wrexham and I know that both my parents were sort of racist, as were a lot of people at that time. My mum used to say to us kids that if we were naughty “a black man would come and take you away”. I remember how everyone was talking about Marion and that her own mum was telling people that there were some black ancestors in their family and the child was most probably a “throwback”. I always liked Marion, she was never one to judge and I felt so desperately sorry for her. She went on to have another two children – both black but no father ever in sight. When I moved from my council house to my private house in 1977 Marion had been allocated my council house. Her youngest daughter and my daughter were both called Sharon and went to school together.

I was just thirteen years of age when I met my first boyfriend. Apart from babysitting for my mum, I used to babysit for neighbours. I had been recommended as a babysitter to a Mr and Mrs Mathias. She remarried in her forties and had two children aged three weeks and one year old. I did not know then that she also had two grown up children. I had been babysitting for her for several weeks before I met her eldest son Mike who was twenty years old. He used to stay in and babysit with me. Apparently he was completely smitten by me and I ended up being flattered that an older guy fancied me. I was quite grown up regarding many things, but a baby when it came to boys. I was over fourteen before I started my periods and was as thin as a beanpole. But Mike was completely honourable and never laid a finger on me. On my 15^th birthday Mike bought me a huge engagement ring whilst I was still in school. My mum and dad were not at all happy about it but thought he was quite harmless and they had word with him about how young I was and what would happen to him if he took advantage of me. Mike would pass by our house late at night after he had finished work (he worked in the Wrexham Leather Works) and throw stones at the window to let me know that he had pushed a letter through the front door and I was to go and get it.

Taid used to travel to Monsanto, the chemical factory where he worked on his bike every day. It was about ten miles each way. I remember he had his plastic butty box which always had processed cheese sandwiches in and smelt awful But in 1962 when Taid was fifty six years old he was rushed into hospital with a coronary thrombosis. He was gravely ill for quite some time but eventually recovered. He had to give up work, smoking and cheese as well as lots of other things. I remember he always had a tin of boiled sweets by the side of his chair and brought them out whenever any of us turned up. Taid became depressed and I remember, about a year after his heart attack, he just got on his bike and disappeared. The police were called but could not find him. Dad found him the next day. Dad brought him back to our house since Taid did not want to go back home. He said he had felt so trapped and his job at Monsanto was his escape. Dad was very fond of Taid, he said that he was more like a father to him. Taid did eventually go back home and nothing else was said about it.

When I was fifteen Mum had given birth to another baby. It was a girl but she did not live. Mum had gone almost ten months and had been complaining to the doctor that she was well overdue but they said she most probably had her dates wrong. She was devastated. She said that the worst thing about it all was feeling the baby move and kick for so long and then all of a sudden it stopping. She said she could almost hear the silence inside her and the awful cold around her stomach. She knew the baby was dead. Mum took to her bed for two weeks and was very distressed. Dad was not very sympathetic to her tears. He said she could always have more kids if she wanted them but he thought they already had enough. I remember trying to cheer her up by doing her hair up with ribbon and putting make up on her but she cried when I showed her my efforts in the mirror and I had to start all over again.

Exactly a year later in September of 1965 mum had Kim. I don’t know how many of their children were planned. I can only imagine what it must have been like being pregnant for all those years. But I loved every single one of those lovely brothers and sisters and have always been so proud of being part of such a large family.

During all this time that my mother was giving birth to so many more additions to the family, my sister Denise had been in and out of hospitals, mostly in Liverpool. Because the hospital was so far away, it meant that she did not often get visitors. She had also missed out on so much schooling and was fairly illiterate, a home tutor was tried but it didn’t work out.

I was fifteen and a half when I left school. I did not sit any exams at all. My mocks were dreadful and I knew I did not stand a chance of passing anything.

My first job was on the Wrexham Industrial Estate in a factory called Johnsons. It lasted two weeks. I was put on a two shift system working at a conveyer belt packing tissues into boxes. I was doing really well, and then towards the end of the second week I was called into the manager’s office. The manager said that he was very pleased with my work but that he had not realised that I was only fifteen and therefore could not keep me working on shifts because it was against the law. He offered me a job in another department. I was very upset, but more upset when I saw what job he had given me. It was sweeping floors. I walked out and lost a week’s wages which they wouldn’t give me.

One thing I do remember is making a promise to myself about what I would buy with my first weeks wages. I suppose you would think that any young girl would choose make-up, or clothes or a new hair style – but no not me. My promise was to buy half a pound of boiled ham – all for myself! When my mum bought boiled ham it was always only enough for her and dad. There were too many of us and she could not give one without the other so we got none! So I bought it. I did enjoy eating it, but it was not as good as I imagined it tasting. I gave most of it to mum.

I found another job the following week. In a factory called Eire Electronics. They produced components for televisions. The department I worked in had rows of tables with benches to sit on. Each bench had six women sitting on them. On the table in front of each woman there was a pot of hot solder, a rag and a box with small round transmitters. Each transmitter had a wire sticking out of each end and we had to tip one end in the pot of solder, wipe it with the rag and then do the same with the other end. Once we had a basket full of completed transmitters we then had to take the basket to a large drum with Acetone in it (which smelt like strong nail polish remover), dip our basket in and move on to the next lot. When I think back to the work practices in that factory I shudder. The fumes were really bad and sitting on wooden benches, hunched over wooden tables, breathing fumes from the solder and the Acetone for eight hours each day was dreadful – thank goodness for technology today is all I can say. I stayed in that job for six months until I became sixteen and was eligible to work at British Celanese where dad had managed to get a job for me.

By this time I was getting fed up with Mike, I think I loved him like he was one of my brothers – he fitted in with the family in that way and I just wanted to have some fun and spend time with someone my own age. I split up with him and he was devastated. I promised him it would be for a trial period only.

And so on 6^th October 1964 I started at British Celanese. It was my sixteenth birthday. I was put into the Training School for several weeks learning the theory of the job and also on to the shop floor to put into practice what I was learning. I absolutely loved it. My job involved filling a creel (large frame) with bobbins full of yarn and following a specific pattern so that when all this yarn was rolled onto a very large drum it would have a multi coloured stripe on it ready to be knitted or woven into cloth for shirts. You needed very nimble fingers for this type of work and I found that I was really good at it. The rest of the workers were good fun and the atmosphere there was wonderful. I worked shifts and was so happy to go to work each day. I made friends very quickly, Beryl Steen – I already knew – and Rose Rogers – who was my favourite. Rose was a couple of years older than me and took me under her wing. Rose lived near Mam and Beryl Steen lived next door to Mam, so when my Dad and I worked the same shifts he would give Rose, Beryl and myself a lift to work.

I had been there just three months when there was a very serious accident in my department. One of the women – she was only twenty at the time – had started her machine and it was spinning very fast. She dropped something and tried to stop the machine but her hand got caught and then her whole arm was just ripped from her body. There was no emergency stop near her. Someone managed to stop the machine before she lost her life. She was rushed to hospital and I remember my supervisor Lynn grabbing up the arm off the floor and someone taking her to hospital with it. Her arm was sewn back on but the operation was not a success and she lost her arm.

Working at Celanese made my whole life so different and I just loved it. I fitted in completely, I loved everyone, and I loved my job. I was asked out by the foreman’s son. I thought of it as my first real date. He came to pick me up at my house, we were going to watch a film and then go on and get a bite to eat. I took a lot of care dressing up. I was blonde with my hair done up in a beehive. Although I was only seven stone I had developed shapes in the right places. I know I looked nice. I sat in the front room waiting for my date. But I was horrified when I saw him. He was dressed in a dark suit with a spotted dicky bow and his hair parted in the middle and greased down with some type of brylcream. How awful, I went off him immediately. We went to see the film but then I said I had to go straight home. I never accepted another date off him.

I went out with girl friends for the first time ever and really enjoyed myself. We even went on a works trip to Liverpool to see Ken Dodd in Concert. It was hilarious and I felt so much part of this wonderful atmosphere. There was another guy that I worked with and I fancied him lots. His name was Mervyn and he reminded me of Paul McCartney, the eyes especially. But he was going out with someone else, but I could dream. A few months later he did ask me out and we went on several dates especially to the Milk Bar in Acton Park. They had a Juke Box and sold snacks and soft drinks. I loved going there and there was a song I loved called “When You Walk In The Room” by “The Searchers” which always brings back memories of that Milk Bar whenever I hear it. Mervyn was always with a gang of teenagers, which I didn’t mind because they were all good fun but it meant we hardly ever got to be alone together.

The Equal Pay Act came into force whilst I was working at British Celanese, and I remember the reaction very well indeed. The management were saying that they may as well employ men and let the women go since they would now have to pay the full rate to everyone – they never did let the women go. But the men were the worst, even those that had female family members working at the place. They were furious saying that women go to work for pin money not as the breadwinner and that it just wasn’t right. They refused to help the women with any heavy lifting saying that if they were getting the full pay then they could do the full job. It took the Company two years to phase it in and it caused a lot of strife amongst the whole workforce.

I had been working in Celanese for about six months when it was Robert’s turn to leave school. Rob left school in the Easter aged fifteen and was not allowed to stay on school to sit his “O” Level exams. Which was such a shame – he was particularly good with maths and always had the highest grades in this subject. He was employed as a trainee television engineer with a firm in Wrexham. He was only there for about six months though since he was sacked for dropping a television down the stairs of the shop. He wasn’t out of work for long since got taken on by the British Coal Board as a trainee electrical engineer.

Three major events that I remember very clearly about this period of my life are the televised showing in 1961 of Yuri Gagarin as the first man in Space and the assassination of John Kennedy (JFK) – the President of the USA in 1963. One event was stunning and the other horrific, but the television coverage of both events were mesmerising. I remember watching the shooting of JFK with tears streaming down my face. They played in slow motion over and over again and it felt like you were feeling the shock and horror over and over again.

The third event was the television coverage of the news that Britain had abolished the Death Penalty. The abolition of capital punishment was a major priority of the incoming Labour government of Harold Wilson in 1964. So on the 9th of November 1965, the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act suspended the death penalty for murder in the United Kingdom for a period of five years. The last executions were two carried out simultaneously at 8.00 a.m. on the 13th of August 1964 in Walton and Strangeways prisons. Two men were hanged for the murder of John West, a laundry man, in the course of robbing him. The last death sentence was passed, over a year later, on the 1st of November 1965, upon David Stephen Chapman, for a murder committed during the course of a robbery. He was automatically reprieved, as were the other 16 men sentenced in late 1964 and in 1965

Other TV programmes that I became addicted to were Top of the Pops – which I loved, Ready, Steady Go, Emergency Ward Ten and Coronation Street. I was also glued to Radio Caroline – broadcast illegally from a ship out at sea – but played stunning music. We were so lucky to have such brilliant singers and groups around at this time – many of them British too – The Beatles; Cilla Black; The Searchers; The Rolling Stones; Elvis Presley; The Beach Boys to name just a few. It was such a magic period to live in. I used to backcomb my blonde hair up into a Beehive, and put on so much eye makeup I think I looked as though I had two black eyes! I would wear tight fitting skirts, dresses and shorts – I was a very small size and so could get away with wearing anything. Mum did gave me a warning about boys – she said “You get yourself into trouble, then you will have to live with it – you make your bed, you lie on it”. I really didn’t know what on earth she was on about and just laughed at her, but I had no more sex education than that for all it was worth.

Throughout his life Lewis was a keen and active natural historian. From 1933 until his death he was a fellow of the Linnean Society, which awards its John Spedan Lewis Medal for contributions to conservation. In retirement, Spedan Lewis lived at Longstock Park, near the village of Longstock in Hampshire. Upon his death, in accordance with his wishes he was buried at sea.

Years 1966 to 1971

I remember with such fondness my one wonderful year of being a young teenager and enjoying myself. Then just a few weeks before my seventeenth birthday, I had a visit from Mike. He was desperate for us to get back together, reminded me that our separation was for a trial period. He said that he could not work properly and felt suicidal without me. I felt obliged to go back to him, I did after all make a promise, and so I agreed to give it another go and we went to speak to my mum. Mike still had my engagement ring and it was agreed that we throw an engagement party on my birthday and that we would hire the works club house.

Lots of people turned up and I remember some of the guys from work gave me a real grilling saying that I was throwing myself away and that I could do much better. I just giggled thinking that they were giving me compliments.

A few months later I was pregnant. I really didn’t have a clue. I went to the doctor telling him that I felt sick and really unwell. He did some tests and asked me to return in a few days. When I went back he told me I was pregnant. “I can’t be, I am still a virgin” I replied. “You most certainly are pregnant and you most certainly are not a virgin” said the doctor. “You are three months pregnant”. I burst into tears. “You must have realised what you were doing”, he said. When I think back on that episode I cringe. Dr Wallace was our family doctor and I remember looking up at him, my face burning with embarrassment and actually said “I thought you had to do something special to get pregnant”. He covered up a smile with his hand. “I don’t know about that” he said. I stumbled out of his office in a trance. What on earth was I going to say to my mum and dad. I just wanted to die. I was so ashamed. I walked around the streets for hours I was just too terrified to go home. My dad was working nights and would be leaving home at half past nine, so I stayed out until then.

When I eventually arrived home most of the kids were in bed. I walked in to the front room and my Mum took one look at my face and thought I had been attacked. I started sobbing again I thought my heart was going to break. My mum was so worried and could not get any sense out of me. I calmed down a bit when she said she was going to get the police. I managed to tell her what had happened. By now some of my brothers and sisters were all sitting on the stairs listening to the drama going on in the front room. The silence from them was deafening.

After talking things through with my mum, she arranged for one of my brothers to go and collect Mike. When he arrived he said straight away that we would get married and that he would look after me and that no one was to worry. He went back home and I went to bed completely exhausted. Mum said that she would sort everything out with my dad when he got home from work in the morning.

Apparently mum could not sort things out with dad. He was absolutely livid. He told mum that I was to get rid of the baby and that I was not to see Mike ever again. The only words he said to me were “you are no better than a slut”. Dad had never, ever laid a finger on any of us girls. He used to give the Rob a good hiding when he thought he deserved it. But he may as well of given me a beating when he said that to me. The hatred in his voice was terrible. After that day he completely blanked me out. It was as if I just did not exist for him. I was the eldest child and supposed to set an example for all the others. I had let him down so badly.

Mum sat me down and dictated a letter that I had to write to Mike. I was to tell him that I could no longer see him, that I had made a mistake, that I was no longer pregnant and that he was no longer welcome at our house. Geoff and Robert hand delivered the letter.

That was all in 1966. The Abortion Act did not come into force until 1967. This meant that if I was to have any chance of getting an abortion then I would have to see a psychiatrist. The law that existed at that time was The Infant Life Preservation Act 1929. This law allowed a doctor to perform an abortion legally only if he or she was “satisfied that the continuance of the pregnancy was liable to endanger the health of the expectant mother”.

Arrangements were made for me to see a psychiatrist the following week. When we arrived at the hospital he would not let my mother in the room with us and said that our consultation was confidential, and that he would call my mother back in when he had made his decision. I can’t remember any of the questions he asked me. The only thing that stayed in my head was what he told my mother when he finally called her into his room. He said that I was a perfectly healthy and well balanced individual. That I had extremely strong maternal instincts and he believed that if he was to agree to my undergoing an abortion then that act alone would damage my health. My mother was so angry. She said that she had nine children at home and we were all living in a three bed-roomed house, she just could not cope with any more. The doctor suggested that if I really did not want the baby then there were many childless couples only too willing to take the baby. My mum grabbed my arm and dragged me out of there. She was shaking with anger and I was shaking with dread.

We did not go home. Instead my mum took me straight to her mother’s house. They decided to take matters into their own hands. An extremely hot bath was run and I had to climb in it. I stayed there for an hour and they were both topping it up with hot water from buckets and bowls. Whilst I was in the water I also had to drink a large glass of gin and take Beecham’s pills. They told me it would bring on a miscarriage. It didn’t. It just made me so ill and frightened. I went home and I was so conscious of the damage I had caused all around me. My mum and dad seemed to row more about me than anything else. My brothers and sisters were keeping out of my way. For those of them that could understand what was going on I think they were ashamed of me. To this day I have never asked them what they thought about that episode in our family life.

I couldn’t go to work. I went on the sick and stayed out of sight. My mum knew that she could not keep things quiet for long and came up with a story that she told our neighbours. I was horrified when I heard about it. She put the story around that Mike had raped me and that I was pregnant as a result. I only found out when Mam told me. The next thing we had Mike’s mum and sister knocking on our door. They were furious and demanded to see me. I hid away in the bedroom and my mum talked to them. They left with a request that Mike’s sister be allowed to adopt the baby since she couldn’t have children herself. There was no way at all was I going to agree to such a request.

Not far from where we lived there was a large house which was home to unmarried girls who were giving their baby’s up for adoption. My mum took me there to book me in. I was told that I was to arrive several weeks before the baby was born. I would give birth and the child would be taken away as soon as it was born. They would try to match the adoptive parents to the birth parents as much as possible. I met a social worker who wanted to be satisfied that I really wanted to go through with it. The baby was not real to me then and I just needed to get my life back together, and to put things right with my family again, to see if they would ever forgive me.

The next few months were strange. There were a few things that stood out for me. First I went to Conway where British Celanese had a Convalescent Home. I stayed there for two weeks and I remember feeling a semblance of calm for the first time since all this mess had happened to me. During the second week that I was there, my friend from work, Beryl Steen had joined me since she too had been off work sick. One day her boyfriend Derek (who also worked in the same department as us) had ridden over on his motorbike to visit her. I had already confided in Beryl what was wrong with me – no one in work knew and she promised to keep my confidence. But Beryl had told Derek and he went back to work and told everyone. I did not know all of this until a couple of weeks later when I had a visit from Rose. I was so ashamed and knew I could never go back to work there again. I really sank into depression.

The second thing I remember about this period was that I tried to kill myself. We had a gas fire in the front room so I locked myself in and turned the gas on. I lay down on the carpet and closed my eyes. I don’t know how long I had been in there but I suddenly heard banging and yelling on the door. My dad’s threats did no good. Gran had come over from Lincoln for her yearly visit with us, but it was Mam who eventually coaxed me out. I couldn’t cope with her crying and pleading, she sounded so heartbroken for me. She gathered me up in her arms and said that she would take me to her house to stay for a while, that she would build me up with lots of her eggs and chips and lots of love and rest. This I did do for four weeks and I did not realise just how much I needed it. During this stay at my grandparent’s home, my family had moved to a four bed-roomed house in Montrose Gardens. It was away from the neighbours and the house was slightly bigger.

The last thing that I remember mostly about this period in my life was the time, exactly nine weeks before the birth of my baby, when my mum said she wanted to have a chat with me. She said that she had met Mike in town and she had been to a cafe to have a cup of tea with him. He told her he wanted to marry me and to keep the baby. She said that he had been suicidal, had not worked and was beside himself with grief. Mum said that she had been thinking about it all the way home and that if I did want to do as Mike was suggesting then she would square it with my dad. She said that the baby would be legitimate and no longer referred to as a “bastard”, and that I could always divorce him if it didn’t work out. At least the child would have a name and I could keep it.

This made me so confused. I had been feeling the baby kick and move for quite some time now and I didn’t know how I was going to cope giving my child away. I kept pushing the whole thing to the back of my mind to be dealt with when the time comes. I was due to go into the Home in two weeks time to prepare for giving birth and handing my baby over to someone else. Now I had a way out, but was it what I wanted, and would it really make things right at home, would it make me respectable again. I told my mum I would think about it, but she went ahead and discussed it with my dad. He said it was for the best and so arrangements were made for Mike to come around to our house the next day.

It had been five months since I had last seen him and I will never forget that reunion and the feelings it awakened in me. I can picture it now and feel it as though it happened yesterday. As I am writing this story, I am amazed at how much of this part of my life is coming back to me. It is almost as though I had put up a shield to protect myself and writing about it is making the shield disappear. I find I am crying often as I recall with such clarity the events and, in particular the feelings, that I had previously shut out.

Mum opened the door to let Mike in and everyone left us alone in the front room to talk. I was still only seventeen and he was twenty three. He looked years older. I was horrified when I saw him. He was so thin and looked dreadful and I felt quite repulsed by him. I could feel this awful panic rising up inside me and just wanted to run far away. It was him who did all this to me. He was responsible for all the shame and trouble I had been in and I just wanted to lash out at him. I don’t remember a word of what he said and I don’t remember saying a word to him. I had a baby to think about. I know that Mike loved me very much indeed, in fact he idolised me, but I just felt numb. I know that I did not want to marry him and felt so trapped. But I agreed to go through with it because it meant that I could keep my baby.

We were married three weeks later in the local registry office. I do remember that event even though there were no photographs taken and only the marriage certificate to record the service actually taking place. I wore a pink crimpoline suit and peach coloured coat. In attendance were my mum and dad, Mike’s mum and stepdad and his sister and her husband. I remember my ex-work colleagues had collected fifty pounds for me and I had to use this to pay for a meal in a restaurant for us all after the wedding. I also remember my mother-in-law offering to let us have a room in her house since she had much more room than my mum had. But mum refused saying she would manage and that she needed me close by since I only had six weeks to go before the baby was due to be born.

We moved into the small box room which could only fit a single bed and a cot. We stayed there in that room for fourteen months. It was difficult. I was used to living in such cramped conditions, Mike wasn’t, but we now had thirteen of us living under the same roof – four bedrooms, two living rooms, one kitchen and one bathroom. My youngest sister was still a baby and here I was bringing another baby into this so very crowded house. I kept faithful to my mum’s advice to me on my wedding night though (no hardship). She said that I should not let Mike touch me at all until after I had the baby, that to let him “have sex” would mean that I could damage the baby’s head given that I was so near to giving birth, and my mum should know since she had given birth to ten children.

My daughter was born two weeks after my eighteenth birthday. I went into hospital early in the morning and was in labour for most of the day. I gave birth to her at five a clock in the afternoon of the twenty first of October 1966.

I remember being wheeled back to the ward and there was a television nearby my bed. Everyone was aghast at the news that was dominating the screen. It was the Aberfan Disaster. At 9.15 that morning coal waste from the mountain above the village had rushed down the mountain. It took just five minutes for the coal tip to engulf a farm, several houses and a school. Pupils at the Pantglas Junior School were just beginning their first lessons of the day when the rushing landslide of mud and debris flooded into their classrooms. Some children were able to escape, but 116 were killed. Twenty eight adults were also killed. It was a nightmare. I was in the hospital for over a week and that was all anyone could talk about. Giving birth to a child made the horror so much more personal. It made you put yourself in the shoes of those parents and the nightmare that they must be going through.

My daughter was just over seven pounds in weight, had a little snub nose and pale red curly hair. I fell in love with her as soon as I held her. I called her Sharon Rosemary (Rosemary after my friend Rose, but Sharon has always hated that name). Mike came to see us at visiting time. In those days the father was not allowed to be present at the birth. I also remember the awful procedure they made you go through – on the grounds that it was much more sterile and safe. They shaved off all of your pubic hair and gave you an enema. I actually thanked the nurse after she gave me mine and she said to give it another twenty minutes and I definitely would not be thanking anyone.

During 1966 and 1967 Geoff and Pat had both left school. Geoff did extremely well at his Grammar School but never got a chance to sit his “O” level exams, and what a waste. After doing so well at Grammar School, Geoff wasn’t allowed to go on to College. He had to start earning money. Geoff recalls Mum and Dad taking him to the job centre and Dad telling the interviewer that Geoff would “do anything”. There were two vacant posts that they said Geoff could go and try. One was at a butcher’s in town and the other was as a trainee clerk. Geoff said he felt like crying and said he definitely did not want to work in a butchers shop. He went for an interview at British Steel as clerk and got taken on in the administration department.

Pat never sat her “O” Level exams either. She was fifteen on 1^st August and her teachers actually talked Mum into letting her go back to school for one more year to sit her exams. Mum agreed and Pat went back, but not for long. During the October half term Pat was in town and found herself an office job and did not go back to school. She left that job and started in the wages office at British Celanese. Pat eventually applied to train as a nurse with Mum.

Twins Jane and Andrew were four years old and had started in Hafod Y Wern Primary School. What was so significant about their starting school was that in their classroom Jane and Andrew were just one pair of five sets of twins. Their Form teacher and Head teacher were also twins. These five sets of twins remained in the same class throughout their primary school years.

In 1967 Mike and I moved out of my mum’s house fourteen months after we got married, when the council gave us a two bed-roomed house. We went into debt to buy some furniture and I got pregnant again. My mum was also pregnant with my youngest brother and we used to go to the Maternity Clinic together. Mum gave birth to David on the first of May 1968, just one month after her thirty-ninth birthday. She had an extremely difficult birth and was very poorly for some time. She said definitely no more children!

I have mentioned that Mum used to work in between each of her pregnancies. She worked as a cleaner in St David’s School with Jess Hurford and as a door-to-door saleswoman selling products made by disabled people. I remember that she wanted to travel a bit further with her wares and Dad offered to take her provided she put petrol in the car. She also wanted a bike, but Dad said that he would fix the one in the shed for her. Unfortunately it was a man’s bike, and even more unfortunately for Mum, Dad’s “fixing it up for her” involved sawing off the centre bar. She only got as far as the hill on Cefn Road when the bike completely folded in two! She was so lucky she was not seriously hurt. I also remember a door-to-door salesman knocking on Mum’s front door. There was only Dad in, but the guy managed to sell him three mock fur coats for the price of two. Dad sold one of them to Mum, and the other two to some other duped women – but he had made a profit!

My muscles had gone back into shape as soon as Sharon was born. I was a slim seven and half stone, had no fat on me whatsoever and could eat what I wanted. I had a very easy second pregnancy. My waters broke as I was cutting my brother Geoff’s hair and I eventually went into hospital a few hours later. Then just one minute after midnight on the first of September 1968 I had given birth to a six pound baby boy. I called him David Antony (Tony for short) and he was a lovely little boy, blond with very blue eyes and was an extremely good, contented baby. Eleven months later I had given birth to my third child, another boy whom I called Paul Michael. He was a huge baby – ten pounds in weight with lots of lovely dark hair and blue eyes. I had Paul at home with just the Midwife – Joan Britton and Mum present. I remember Mum looking absolutely horrified when Paul came out and I wondered what I had given birth to! But the umbilical cord was trapped around his neck and he was quite blue – she said she was remembering her own still born child and thought the same thing was happening again. I was still only twenty years old and I had three small children all under the age of three. Mum was only forty one and was a grandmother three times over!

It was about this time that Denise had to go into hospital for another operation. She was twelve and the doctors had to create a vagina for her. She would soon start her periods and the doctors had planned many years ago that they would have to perform this operation as soon as Denise became a teenager. She recovered pretty good and, like all of her other medical trials, just took it in her stride.

Four weeks after Paul was born in 1969, we moved to a three bed-roomed house at number 7 Montrose Gardens just two doors away from my mum’s house. In just over three years I had gone from being a slim seven stone teenager to an over-weight twelve stone twenty year old mother of three. To make matters worse I had a gum infection that the dentist called pyorrhoea. Just five weeks after my youngest son was born I went on my own to the dentist’s. He said that my gum infection was so bad that he would have to remove several teeth. He put a gas mask on my face and gave me a dose of gas and air. It was awful, but not as bad as when I came out from under the anaesthetic.

I woke up and there was so much blood everywhere. I was terrified. What on earth was wrong with me? It took me so long to come back to my senses. The dentist was very concerned about the fact that I was on my own and that I was not listening to the instructions he was giving me. He left me in a room to recover and then he bound my face up and said that I was not to let the air into my mouth. He then dropped the bombshell that my gum infection was worse than he thought and that he had to remove most of my teeth. In fact the only teeth that he had left me were the eight bottom front teeth. I made my way home on my own completely numb in mind and body. I was gummy and had to stay gummy for three months so that my gums could heal. I was still only twenty one years old and I was fat, gummy, was a mother of three and felt so ugly that I just cried and felt so depressed.

Still fat, but no longer gummy, I got myself a part-time job in The Egerton in King Street in 1970. I worked three evenings a week but I only stayed there for six months. I enjoyed bar work, and it got me out of the house. Two things stand out in my mind about working in the Egerton. The first is that it was here that Robert first met Lorraine, who later became his wife. Rob was with some of his mates and Lorraine was with her friend Jen and she said that she fancied him as soon as she saw him. Lorraine was a trainee nurse and very pretty with shoulder length blonde hair and wore a black velvet hairband. Rob was indeed a very good looking guy. The second thing that stayed in my mind, was that Mum was in the pub that same night and she was still quite overweight after having David. She was wearing her mock fur coat which actually made her look even bigger. She came to the bar to order some drinks. After I had served her and she had gone back to her table, this guy standing at the bar asked me did I know who I had just served. I asked him why was he asking and he replied that he was certain she was one of those female wrestlers he had seen on television, he definitely knew her face. I laughed so much, but did not let on she was my mum.

Geoff was also dating a very pretty girl by the name of Genny, he was crazy about her. Genny was also training to be a nurse. Mum had decided she too wanted to be a nurse, and so, after giving birth to all of those children, she decided she wanted to do something with her life. In between each of those pregnancies, she took part-time jobs as a school cleaner, a petrol pump attendant, a door-to-door saleswoman, and now she wanted to train to be a nurse. Between us all we looked after the kids, the cooking, cleaning and the washing. Since I lived next door but one, my kids and my younger brothers and sisters all grew up together anyway. Denise had officially left school at this time and she was the link pin to all of this being possible. The main thing was that between us all we were able to make it happen for Mum. So in 1971 Mum, Pat, Lorraine and Genny were all trainee nurses. It was also whilst Pat was a trainee nurse, she met her future husband Elvin. He was a patient of hers undergoing a thyroid operation.

Although I admired mum I did not want to be like her. I didn’t want to have baby after baby. In less than twenty years she had given birth to eleven babies. If I carried on the way that I was going then I could very well take after mum. I decided to do something about it. Mike refused to go and have a vasectomy and so it was left to me to go and be sterilised. When I went to see the doctor about arranging it he said that I would have to get my husband’s permission and signature before the procedure could be carried out. I was furious. It was my body, my decision so why would I need his permission and signature. The doctor said he was sorry but that was the law. I was so, so angry. If Mike was to get a vasectomy then he would not need my permission, but I had to get his if I wanted to be sterilised. I had no option. I took the form off the doctor, went home and forged Mike’s name on it – silly and petty but it made me feel a bit more in control. I was sterilised a month later.

It was 1971 when we had a phone call from Dad’s uncle Les in Lincoln to say that Gran had passed away. My mum and dad were going to the funeral and they told me I could go in the car with them. I had never been to Lincoln before, even though I thought I knew 10 Cromwell Street since I used to write so many letters to Gran and she often wrote back. A few of her other relatives lived in other houses in the same street. One of her sisters looked and sounded exactly like her. When we got there they took us into a small front room where they had the small coffin on a table. It was open and I saw a dead person for the first time in my life. She looked like a little china doll. I don’t know what I expected, but I can remember thinking that was not my Gran in that body. It just seemed as though it was like an empty shell.

We went back into the other room where everyone was drinking tea. About ten minutes later the front room door started to open and my Gran’s voice spoke. I jumped a mile and started to get very upset. It was only her sister who sounded so like her. Everyone then started to get their coats on to go to the funeral. No-one seemed very upset, they were laughing and teasing each other. Then a couple of them turned to me and said that I had better stay in the house and wait until they came back. I said that I would be OK, but I was confused. But apparently, the reason that I couldn’t go was because I was the thirteenth family member to attend and that would be unlucky so they wanted me to stay away. I never found out whether that was real superstition or just their way. They did tell me that the local supermarket had been built on an old cemetery and it served them right because their business was very poor. I would have loved for Gran to have seen her first great grandchild. Out of all her children and eventually her great grandchildren, Sharon was the only one to carry her red hair and freckles genes.

I started work in another pub in 1971. It was called The Hand and was in walking distance from where I lived. I loved working there and the landlord – Tom Fellows, was a good guy to work for. I remember that the actor Ricky Tomlinson used to come to the pub with his brother-in-law. He used to bring his banjo and had a real sing-song going as soon as he sat down. I had been working there for about a year when I was given some really tragic news about my friend Rose’s brother Terry Rogers. I remember meeting Terry for the first time when I was sixteen when I used to go to Rose’s house. Terry was about ten years older than me and I had a bit of a crush on him. He was married and had two small children. He had been involved in a fatal accident at work. He had fallen into a vat of acid. There was nothing left of him. I was so distraught for him, for his family and for the horrible thoughts that kept going on in my head about the whole incident. It made me so depressed.

Just a few months later I learnt that a school classmate of mine Pam Biddle, who also had three children almost the same ages as my three, had died. Her husband had died in a motorbike accident a several months earlier and she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. I was not a close friend of Pam’s in school, in fact I remember her as a bit of a bully, but she died leaving her children to be farmed out amongst relatives. I just could not get her out of my mind, she haunted me. I kept putting myself in her shoes all the while and felt so desperately sad about it all, especially for those poor children.

This five year period was certainly a mixture of ups and downs and consisted in huge changes in my life. I had gotten married, became a mother of three, had my own home to run, went from a slim teenager to a very overweight twenty year old, and lost most of my teeth. I had experienced death not once but three times during this period with the loss of my lovely grandmother and Terry and Pam. I was asked recently what did I do with my teenage life during the 1960’s given the fact that out of all the decades of the twentieth century that was one of the best times ever to be young – I replied “not much because I was pregnant during most of it!”

Years 1972 to 1977

From November 1972 to July 1973 Mum and Dad were faced with three weddings in the family. First to get hitched were Geoff and Genny. After their honeymoon they came to live with Mike and me. It was good fun having them stay with us, but it did not last for long because we were struck by a dreadful tragedy just one month later.

Since the tragedy of Terry and Pam I began to feel quite depressed and could not shake myself out of it. For the past few months I had been having the most oddest of dreams. I say oddest because these dreams were at night when I was sleeping and sometimes when I was sort of daydreaming in work. It was almost like visions, because they were the same visions over and over again. In these dreams I would see an ambulance racing past the pub with its blue lights flashing and I would be inside the ambulance with Taid as the patient. We were all trying to save his life. It was heartbreaking and had me in tears every time I thought about it.

Taid had just told me that he kept having a dream that Mam had died and that he was left all alone. He said that he had been having the same dream for about four weeks. He hadn’t told Mam about it because he did not want to worry her, but he was really concerned for her. He thought that because he had had the dream so often that it must be a message for him. He was really distressed about it.

His dream message was wrong. He was the one who died and Mam was the one who was left alone. It was such a sad way to die as well. He had been sucking one of his boiled sweets and he choked on it and it brought on a heart attack. His next door neighbour had heard Mam’s screams. He went in to help and also sent one of his kids to go and get my mother because she was a nurse. Mum was at work, but I was home and so was Genny. We ran to Mam and Taid’s house. The ambulance had just arrived and they had been working on Taid. They put him in the ambulance and Genny and I jumped in as well. Genny was working on his chest and the ambulance guy was giving him mouth-to-mouth. I was just stroking his hand. It was only when we were driving past the pub where I worked, with the siren going and the blue lights flashing that I remembered my dreams and waking visions. I was really, really spooked.

We got to the hospital and they took him into emergency. Genny and I knew that he was already dead. We went to look for Mum. None of it is a blur for me. I can remember it all so clearly. I know that I cried for days and days. I was convinced that I could see the future. At his funeral I behaved appallingly I know but I just could not stop myself. I cried loudly throughout the service and at the graveside I became hysterical and tried to throw myself into Taid’s grave with him. I wouldn’t eat and became so ill that I was put on medication. I was told that I was anaemic but I was convinced I was suffering from leukaemia and that everyone was keeping it from me. I was an extremely sad and depressed person for many months.

Geoff and Genny moved out of my house and moved in with Mam, thinking that she needed someone with her. But Mam liked her own company, was not used to having a young married couple with her and so they did not stay too long.

But life goes on and Rob and Lorraine were next to get married. Lorraine was expecting a baby in June and so they got married on 27^th January 1973. In June, Mark, Mum and Dad’s fourth grandchild was born and he was the spitting image of Rob.

It was February 1973 and I had started working back in British Celanese, only it was now called Courtaulds. There had been major changes since I last worked there and the workforce was now down to about 700. I was put in a small department called Beaming, but doing very similar work as I did before. I was working an eight-hour two shift pattern – days and afternoons. Mike was working in Courtaulds as well, but in the Plastics Division with Dad. I was twenty three. The Department had a manager – Cyril Davies, a supervisor Esther Wright and five other workers – Anne, Christine, DylIis, Edith, David and myself. I had only been back at work for one month when I was asked to take on the union representative’s role. I declined. I had a very young family, a house to run and no interest in the union. My protests went unheeded and I eventually allowed myself to be talked into being a shop steward for the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU). There were forty five shop stewards for the whole factory but only one woman. Me joining the team meant that they now were making progress and had two female union representatives.

It changed my life. I can remember my very first meeting with my manager over an issue someone had raised with me. I could feel my knees knocking and I was so nervous. I didn’t think I could hack this. I think the manager walked all over me. I know I never got what I went in there for. So the full-time union convenor, a guy called Bob Savage, sent me on a union training course.

The course was so different from anything I had done before. There were some lectures but most of it was group work doing practical exercises about what your responses would be with various case studies. There were a dozen people on the course from different workplaces and I know that I learnt as much from listening to their experiences as I did from the tutor. I found myself in a very friendly learning environment for the first time in my life and I thrived on it.

Next to get married was Pat and Elvin on 14^th July 1973. Pat had her sisters as bridesmaids and it was a wonderful day. Pat is so pretty and she looked absolutely stunning in her bridal outfit. Elvin had also joined the health service as an ambulance driver. They moved into a flat in Eaton Drive. Mum and Dad’s house was emptying quickly now – four of us married and settled, only six left at home.

Cathy left school after doing so very well in her “O” levels and GCSE’s. She was the only one of us so far to actually sit the exam. But she didn’t go to college. Instead she started to work in Tesco so that she too could bring in a wage. It was whilst she was working in Tesco that Cathy met her future husband Kevin.

My married life went on. Both Mike and I were hard workers and we both loved our kids. I didn’t even know if something was missing in my life. I had nothing to compare it to and therefore was relatively content.

I went on union course after union course soaking it all up like a sponge and it did wonders for my confidence. After a year I also took on the role of departmental health and safety representative. Two years later and I became one of the senior shop stewards, which is something in a workplace that had 700 workers and only ten percent of them were women. I became involved in local politics and was the Constituency Secretary for the Wrexham Labour Party. I was a delegate to the North Wales Trades Union Council; a delegate to the TGWU’s District Committee; Delegate to the General Workers National Committee; Delegate to the National Textile Committee (where I became Chairperson for a short while), Delegate to the Regional and National Women’s Committees, Delegate to the Courtaulds Joint Negotiating Committee. The list just went on and on. As I am writing this I can’t believe that I took so much on and still managed a full-time job, running a home and family. But I was happy and I think you cope with whatever you want to cope with if you are happy.

I bought a car and Dad tried to teach me how to drive, but gave up pretty quickly because he thought I was useless – but he was not very patient with me. So I went for lessons. It took me two years and four attempts before I passed my test. I should have passed on the third attempt but made a couple of silly mistakes, but it did not stop me driving around in my lovely old banger. I remember passing my test on Cathy’s wedding day. I was to be her bridesmaid and my test was in the morning. I passed and was so happy. So now I could drive officially – Mike was too nervous to learn, in fact he hated travelling and was a wreck if we went on holiday. I remember a crowd of us went to Tenby in 1976. We had booked several caravans and all travelled in a car convoy. I had to stop so many times for Mike to be sick, then the kids would also start. I dreaded the return journey. We didn’t go on holiday that often, and if we did it would not be very far afield.

I remember being elected to attend my first Women’s Conference in 1976. Since I had now passed my driving test, I felt confident enough to travel by myself in my car. Dad checked the car over for me to make sure it was alright and Mike drew a map for me on how to get there. It was to be held in Folkestone and should take me about six hours to get there. I should have known better, after getting lost on my way to the shops when I was five years old. It took me fourteen hours with no stops for a comfort break, but I got there in one piece – good job I left a day earlier than I needed to.

Mike and I didn’t row that much and I know that I meant the world to him. I just couldn’t feel the same about him. He meant a lot to me but more as an older brother than as a husband. After ten years of married life we had saved enough money to put a deposit on our own house. The previous owners of the house had lived there for three years before their marriage broke up, hence the quick sale. We moved in and I hated it. I cried on our first night there. It was such a big mistake. The house was so much smaller than our old council home. It had no character and was not a house that you could love. I think we rushed into the dream of being house owners.

In 1976, Mum has another wedding on her hands – Cathy’s. It was a lovely event and Cathy looked so pretty. She too had her sisters as bridesmaids. Mum and Dad also become grandparents again. Rob and Lorraine give birth to their second child, a girl named Sarah. Sarah was Mum and Dad’s fifth grandchild.

Geoff and Genny had previously moved to live in Colwyn Bay when Geoff joined the Police Force. In 1976 Genny gave birth to their first child. They named her Donna and she was really beautiful with extremely large eyes. Donna was Mum and Dad’s sixth grandchild.

Cathy gave birth to Lee a few months later making him Mum and Dad’s seventh grandchild.

Denise had got engaged when she was eighteen to a guy I used to work with in Courtaulds. His name was Jack and Denise really loved him. However, when she was nineteen her kidney gave up functioning altogether. She was rushed into the Liverpool Royal Hospital where they performed major surgery on her. I remember being with Mum when she came out of surgery. Denise and Jack were to be married in a few weeks and here she was so very ill. Denise was one of the strongest willed persons I have ever come across. She was dreadfully upset, especially when the doctors told her that she would now have to go on kidney dialysis three times a week and she would have to stay in hospital until they had stabilised her. Her main concern was her wedding. But even more shock was still to come her way. Jack said that he wanted to call the wedding off and that he really could not cope with Denise and her illness. Everyone was devastated for her, including Jack’s family who all adored her. But she took it all in her stride, said she understood Jack’s concern and she would just have to accept it. But I don’t think Denise ever really got over Jack.

Within the next twelve months Denise was to undergo two kidney transplant operations – both of which failed. She had been travelling to hospital three times a week to undergo kidney dialysis when the hospital said she could have a outdoor cabin with her own dialysis machine and equipment at home. The biggest problem was that Mum and Dad’s house was not suitable and so everyone would have to move. A house was found in Pentre Maelor on the Industrial Estate for them.

Whilst living in Pentre Maelor, Denise had a dreadful accident one day. She caught her foot in a pothole on the road outside their house and went flying. She badly damaged both of her knees. It would seem that the drugs she was required to take make her bones quite brittle, and therefore she was more damaged by this fall than normal. The bones in her knees were pretty broken up and she had to have surgery to have them both wired up internally. She must have been in agony.

It was while Denise was living in Pentre Maelor that she met Barry Hughes. Barry was good for Denise and his family fell in love with her too.

Living in Pentre Maelor was not good for the family, mainly because it was so far out of town and so the Council found another house in Acton which had a big enough back garden to accommodate Denise’s portacabin. This house was in easy distance of everywhere and suited everyone. The only problem was that it only had three bedrooms. Still living at home was Denise, Twins Andrew and Jane, Kim and David – it was a pretty tight squash since one of the rooms was so small, but as Mum said they had lived in much tighter conditions before and they could do it again. This five year period had big changes for Mum and Dad. From November 1972 to July 1973 they had three weddings on their hands, and then a further wedding when Cathy got married in 1976. They also became grandparents to an additional four grandchildren – three of them in the same year –1976. Seven grandchildren and Mum still only in her forties.

Years 1978 to 1983

Emma becomes grandchild number eight in August of 1979 and then Cathy adds to it by giving birth to the ninth grandchild two months later. His name was Carl and was the image of his Dad Kevin.

Jane also gets married in 1979. She married Richard Jones. Both were really good looking individuals and they made a lovely couple.

By this time Mike and I were having serious problems. As far as I was concerned we had drifted so far apart, but he did not seem to notice. Mike was obsessed with football, films and music. Not normally a problem but when it is to the exclusion of everything else it matters a lot. I turned completely to my union activities and let them dominate a big chunk of my life.

I was twenty eight when I was elected to sit on all of the national negotiating committees of Courtaulds and that is where I met Dave. He worked in the Courtaulds factory in Liverpool. I had known him for about three years before I became romantically involved with him. Our friendship just grew and grew. I so admired and respected him. Everyone called him the “Professor” because he was brainy and could speak fluent Spanish and French. I didn’t know anyone who could speak another language (apart from Welsh) and I was so impressed. Neither of us was looking for a romantic involvement, we were just friends who genuinely liked each other, so when it happened it took us both by surprise.

I will never forget that first evening in February of 1980. There were about fifteen of us delegates on the Courtaulds National Joint Negotiating Committee and we were in London for a two day meeting. We were all booked into a Hotel and then arranged to meet in the foyer so that we could go for a meal. I was the only female on the delegation and they all looked after me. We decided to go to a Chinese Restaurant for our meal. I had never eaten Chinese food before and did not know what to expect. Dave sat next to me and helped me decide what to order and showed me how to use the chopsticks. The talk around the table was buzzing, the food was lovely and I really enjoyed myself.

Someone had the bright idea of going on to the Empire Ballroom in Leicester Square where a Valentine’s Ball was being held. So the fifteen of us took taxis and ended up in this beautiful old ballroom. Since I was the only female I had to share my dances with my colleague delegates. Dave was the last one I danced with and it was while we were in each other’s arms dancing a slow close number that I felt a spark like nothing I had ever experienced before. I did not expect it and was astounded that Dave felt it too. He kissed me and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. I knew then that I was in love with him. This is what it felt like to be in love. I couldn’t stop myself even if I wanted to and I certainly didn’t want to. I went into this affair with my eyes wide open.

Dave was married with a son one year younger than my daughter. He said he felt exactly the same. I slept with Dave for the first time that night. He was on my mind constantly for days, weeks and months. I hate lying, and have never been any good at it. I had made arrangements to see Dave whenever I could. I didn’t actually lie on those occasions, I just didn’t give any reason for my disappearances. What is so awful about situations like this is that when someone trusts you they don’t think to question what you are up to. And I was the last person anyone would think of to be having an affair.

In the early 1980’s a strike ballot had been called for in Courtaulds, after our failure to secure an acceptable wage increase. The strike lasted for two weeks and I was heavily involved in the organisation of the dispute. I have always tried to avoid actually walking out on the job in this way. I think everyone loses out and my experience in this particular dispute made me more determined than ever to see that withdrawing your labour had to be the absolute ultimate resort. In that two weeks I think we lost more than the actual increase would have been over a twelve month period. Some workers disagreed with the final outcome of the ballot and so carried on working, indeed allowed themselves to be exploited by Courtaulds for extra bonuses. Anger and frustration was then directed at these people, and carried on for years after the strike was long over. Courtaulds lost so much in terms of production and credibility and had a very unhappy workforce on their hands. Flexibility and goodwill went right out the window and workers did just what they had to do in order to get paid.

In July of 1980 I was elected to go on a TGWU International Training Course based in Geneva. It was so amazing. I had never been out of the country before and it was my first time on an airplane. There were ten of us on the course and we were placed in a lovely hotel right by Lake Geneva. The course was to ensure that we understood the issues workers faced on a global basis. We were given lectures by people such as Charles Levinson who wrote a book called Vodka Cola and we were given a copy of his book. We also listened to discussions and talks aimed at helping us to gain an understanding of the Third World Countries and the struggles people faced to just live. But the course finished and I had to go home and deal with my own domestic problems.

After months of deceit, I decided to come clean with Mike. I hated hurting him. When I told him about Dave and myself he cried. He asked me only one question. He wanted to know if this man was younger than he was. I said that he was and Mike just seemed to crumble. There is no doubt in my mind that Dave was the something that was missing in my life. I had what I never had before, something to compare my life with. I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that even if things did not work out between Dave and myself that I did not want what I had with Mike. I was fond of him, I did not love him but I so hated hurting him like this. Mike slept on the couch for the next few months, the atmosphere at home was awful and the kids must have really felt it. Mike wasn’t speaking to me, and my whole family were shocked at me.

In early 1981 the trade unions had organised a month-long National People’s March for Jobs, starting in Liverpool and ending in London. Dave was doing the whole month and, despite my problems at home, Throughout the month I managed to complete two weeks of it. It was a an amazing experience. The unemployment levels had reached an all time high in the United Kingdom with over four million people out of work. The People’s March for Jobs had brought it to national attention on a daily basis, and I was proud to be associated with it. But I also had to face my problems at home and deal with my relationships with both Mike and Dave.

But when I got back from the March, Mike had moved out and I had a visit from my mum and Mike’s mum. They ranted and raved at me. My mum said that if I did not come to my senses and patch things up with Mike that she would not have anything further to do with me. I was no longer a malleable teenager ashamed of what I had done. I told my mum that I was sorry that she felt that way but that it was my life to live how I wanted, and that Mike was not going to be in that equation.

My kids were upset and angry with me too and they felt pity and sorrow for their dad. Kids always suffer when their parents split up. They love both parents and should never be made to take sides no matter what. The problems lay with the parents not the children. Mike refused to talk about me to anyone and the kids were never allowed to mention my name in front of him ever again. We have been split up for decades now. He never remarried and still won’t allow the kids or grandchildren to talk about me. I obviously hurt him so very badly and for that I will always be sorry, but you can’t force someone to love you and you can’t live peoples lives for them.

Dave told his wife and son Steve about us and said that he was going to leave home but that he would make sure that he saw his son several times a week. Dave and his wife had been having problems for a number of years but his son was devastated. Dave rang me up to say that he wanted to meet me because he had something important to tell me. I knew he was going to break the news and I thought he wanted to talk about what happens next. But I was in for a shock. He said that he loved me so very much but that he just could not leave Steve. He said he did not expect the reaction that he got from him and that Steve was much too important to him to put him through this. He said that we would have to break off our relationship. We both cried in each other’s arms. It was awful. I left him and drove back home with tears running down my face. I was so heartbroken and just could not imagine my life without Dave in it.

I couldn’t go home. Mum and I had patched things up somewhat but I still found myself sitting outside her house. I felt like a little girl again. Why on earth had I come here, they would only tell me “I told you so”. But there was only Dad in the house. He could see that I was upset and he made me a cup of tea. He asked me if I wanted to tell him about it. Although Dad had become much more mellow over the years I just could not see myself confiding in him, he just wasn’t the sort. Nevertheless I found myself telling him about the problems that Dave was having making the break away from his son and that he had no alternative but to end our relationship. My dad actually stayed quiet while I told him and he did seem concerned for me, but I was not prepared for his pep talk and I could not believe that I was about to hear Dad confess his own sins to me.

Dad told me that in all the years that he had been with my mum he was faithful to her despite the many accusations that she frequently threw in his face about fancying her friends. He said he was faithful but for one girl when he was stationed in Greece in 1946. He was only twenty one at the time and said that he had had a long affair with a farmer’s daughter and that the farmer desperately wanted him to marry her. Dad said that there was even a possibility that I had a Greek brother or sister somewhere. But I was not to breathe a word because he had never told anyone else. He said he got over the relationship and loved my mum and that life does moves on. I don’t know what I expected him to say but it most certainly was not this revelation. It shocked me so much that it definitely stopped me from dwelling on my own situation. It’s hard to think of one of your parents having an affair and I suppose that is what my kids must think about me. I also had to remind myself that my dad was only twenty one at the time, not this fifty five year old talking to me now.

I went home and decided to pull myself together. I knew I had made the right decision for myself when I split up with Mike. It was being tested now and I knew I did not want him back in my life under any circumstance.

Dave and I remained apart for two weeks. I did not fold up. I missed him dreadfully, but I got on with my life. He rang me up two weeks later and said that he wanted to meet up with me. We fell into each other’s arms as soon as we saw each other. Dave said that he had made a big mistake. He realised during those two weeks apart just how much I meant to him, and that he could have me and his son too. He would make it work out no matter what problems we encountered

Dave had started a new job as a full-time trade union official based in Liverpool. A few months later he moved in with us. He travelled from Wrexham to Liverpool each day. Moving in with someone else and their three children was not easy and we all found it unnerving for quite a few months. But it eventually settled down and Dave’s son Steve came to stay at weekends. We worked as a family and once everyone got to know each other better it became so much easier.

Sharon was now sixteen years old, had left school and enrolled on a two-year Nursery Nurses Course in our local college. Sharon is actually a very good artist, and could easily have carved out a career for herself. But she lacked confidence and was an extremely shy girl. She had a good gang of mates who were always at our house.

Whilst Dave and I had both got our divorces, I wanted us to get married again. Dave was reluctant. We had been living together for almost two years and he thought we were happy as we were and that getting married would spoil it. I went down on my knees and asked him to marry me – he said no!!! I let him be for a few days and then asked him again – he relented.

We got married on the seventeenth of June 1983 (his birthday so he wouldn’t forget). At the registry office there was only Dave, myself, our four kids and our friends Rory and Alison in attendance. Then we had an evening function booked in Liverpool. It was a wonderful night. We put a bus on from Wrexham for family and friends and Dave’s work colleagues paid for the food and the band. Mum and Dad never came. I think it was because Mum wanted to come to the Registry Office as well and I wouldn’t let her. That night our house was absolutely full of the kids friends and our friends. Every spare bit of floor space was taken up with a sleeping individual. We went to Paris for our honeymoon. Later on in November of that same year Kim got married. She had only just turned nineteen and was pregnant. She had a lovely wedding and looked beautiful. She gave birth to Natalie a few months later making her grandchild number ten.

Years 1984 to 1989

In the summer of 1984 Dave and I had been invited to go to Spain on an International Training Course. We were both part of the Editorial Board for a magazine called International Labour Reports (ILR). I was so excited, this was to be my second trip abroad. I came home that evening and told Dave. He wanted to know where about in Spain we were going. I said I did not know much about it at all apart from the fact that there will be a large group of us and that we would be met by someone called Ali Cante. He burst out laughing. It was to the region of Alicante we were going!

That week was one of the most enjoyable I have ever had. I learnt so much about international trade unions, workplaces and people. We visited factories and spoke to the workers. I remember one of the factories we all called “Super Globbo” and they produced sweets and chewing gum. The workers wore white jumpsuits and caps but were covered in blue, pink and yellow dust – it was like a scene from Charlie’s Chocolate Factory. It was also where we first met Chamorro. Chamorro, his wife Angela and their children are still very dear to us and remain our Spanish Family.

Mam died in 1984. I had been pretty involved in supporting the Miners Strike since I was totally opposed to the obscene political attack on the Miners by the Thatcher Government. I remember that one of my brothers Robert – who was a miner at the time – had joined the alternative miners union the UDM because he disagreed with the NUM not holding a national ballot, and one of my other brothers Geoff was a policeman policing the picket lines. I remember feeling quite fraught about the situation. I have never tried to inflict my political beliefs on anyone, but I remember having to stop myself many times from letting family discussions on it become as divisive as it had in other families. It was during this time that my maternal Grandmother had been taken into hospital. She was now seventy nine and we had all been taking it in turns to help look after her since Taid died.

Mam died alone in hospital. She had a blood clot and a heart attack. I was very upset about her death, but the two things that played on my mind was the fact that I had been planning to get a four-generation photograph of Mam, my mum, myself and my daughter and it would never happen now; and that she had died alone. I think that was so, so sad, and now I had no more grandparents at all.

Family life was so important to Dave and his family too. They welcomed me into the family right from the start. His dad – Reg was a little sweetie. He lived on his own since Dave’s parents had been divorced for many years. When we used to go visit him he would throw his arms open wide and say “you have made my day, you have made my day”. Dave’s sister Joan, her husband Tony and their three children Heidi, Lorna and Keith also made me feel at home. Dave’s brother Jake lived with his wife Marilyn in Canada but came home to Joan’s on a regular basis. Joan and Tony would organise many family parties and games at their lovely home and we have many photos to record the fun we had. Dave and Tony would often organise Family Day Events, where we would all go on mountain walks, bike rides, canoe trips to name but a few.

It was in June of 1984 that Dave and I went on our own canoe trip. We had a large Canadian Canoe and we decided to drive up to Inverness in Scotland and canoe through the Lochs to Fort William. It took us a week and was thrilling. It certainly tested my skills to their limit.

In July of 1984 I was elected to attend our Union’s Bi-Annual Conference. I was also expected to give a speech highlighting the problems of textile workers who work for very little pay. There was no minimum wage and textile workers were one of the worst paid group of workers throughout the country. There were over two thousand Conference Delegates and I remember being extremely nervous giving my speech. After the debate our Textile Resolution calling for a Minimum Wage was rejected. There were too many people there from major industries where the Minimum Wage would have little or no effect and they just did not care. Not too many years later, however, it became our Union’s Policy to have a Minimum Wage for all those workers who needed such protection. One year later I attended the TUC’s Annual Conference and made a further Speech on the same topic. This time I did much better.

I had been elected as the full-time union convenor at Courtaulds back in 1982. I had my own office and dealt with problems, grievances, discipline issues, welfare issues and wage negotiations as the lead negotiator. I felt an immense sense of achievement. I had stood against a couple of male senior shop stewards for the post of convenor and won the ballot – the first time a female had held the job. I remember that whilst the personnel manager congratulated me, the works manager flatly refused to have anything to do with me. He did not agree with women holding such a senior position as chief negotiator. His reasoning was that men cannot shout, blaspheme or get angry with a woman and therefore no meaningful negotiations could ever take place. I don’t swear and I was conscious that when I was in meetings that the language and behaviour was curbed. I thought it was so funny. I have yet to see what advantage swearing gives to any discussion. I just had a different style. When I did get angry, which was not all that often, everyone knew it was for real.

I remember one case in particular that tested my skills as a negotiator. It was in late 1984. Three men from one department had been caught red-handed committing a sackable offence. One guy was a supervisor, one was the department’s shop steward and the other was a team leader. The personnel department had had a tip off that these men were taking it in turns to clock each other off. The men worked a rota that included Sundays when there were very few staff on. One guy would take the day off and the other two would clock him in work and clock out at home time. The security guards had been watching them for several weeks.

These men were all long serving workers and between the three of them had over 98 years service. The Company sacked all three immediately and used them as an example to others. The men were devastated. They were stupid and should have known better, especially given their positions. My pleas for clemency went on deaf ears. However, I was able to use the fact that one of the men in particular was a key worker and his experience was something they could ill afford to do without. I played around with this for a while, knowing that they could not relent for one without the other two being given the same treatment. In the end we reached a compromise that the men were not happy with but it meant that they were back in work. They were reinstated as new employees, which meant that they lost all of their service entitlement and it would affect their pension pay.

Six months later, Courtaulds announced the closure of two of their factories, ours at Wrexham and the Greenfield Plant in Flint with the loss of over 1,000 jobs. We were all devastated. There was no way at all that these plants should be shut, they were still productive and profit making. This was the one time that all the local management at both plants and the workers were in complete unison on the campaign to prevent the closures.

The management were in the same boat as the rest of us – they were going to lose their jobs and positions. They fed us so much helpful information to try to save the factories. The firm had planned to export all the work to India where it was cheaper to produce and their profits and shares would increase.

I remember very clearly going to Deeside where Margaret Thatcher was officially opening a new factory. We were going to demonstrate against the loss of our factories and over a 1,000 jobs. We would demand to see the Prime Minister, on the assumption that she would refuse, and exploit our losses with the national unemployment statistics which, at that time, were over four million. In fact since the period when Dave and I had been part of the National March for Jobs – from Liverpool to London in 1981 – unemployment had gotten worse year by year.

I was shocked when she agreed to see a couple of us. We were led by her body guards to a room set aside for her to talk with us. I was totally unprepared for this and did not know how best to tackle it. She was much smaller than I realised and she asked us to tell her what the demonstration was all about. So I told her. She said that she was most sympathetic and would do all in her power to try to convince Courtaulds to change their mind. I didn’t hold out much hope. But when we were escorted back outside we were swamped by the press who wanted to know what she said. The factory closures had dominated the local press for weeks and this was manna to them. The next day the whole event was splashed across the pages of our local papers.

Our local management were absolutely delighted. I took advantage of their pleasure. Just in case we did close down I wanted one big favour from them. I asked that they re-instate the three workers long term service so that they would be entitled to the maximum redundancy pay and their pension rights. If things stayed as they were they would not be entitled to anything and that was not acceptable as far as I was concerned. After some deliberation they eventually agreed.

We were not successful in preventing the closure. The factory closed down in July 1985. It was a nightmare. Most people had relatives working in the plant which meant that there was going to be the loss of more than just one income per family, and given the current high unemployment levels not much chance of getting another job. I was asked to stay on until the end of August to continue overseeing any worker-related issue. I left after thirteen years of work that I loved with a redundancy payment of £3,000.

May of 1985 saw my mum and me standing as local councillors. Mum stood as the Acton Parish Councillor and I stood as the local Councillor for the Acton Ward. It was so funny. I had always been a card carrying Labour Party Member, whilst mum voted for whoever and whatever Party she liked at the time. This time however, she decided she wanted to join the Labour Party and came to the Ward meetings with me. They talked her into standing for the Parish Council. On the day of the election Mum actually won her seat much to her shock and bewilderment – she asked “what should I do now?”. I lost my seat by only four votes. I was quite relieved actually because there is a lot of work involved in being a councillor and I was not sure that I could give up the time and make a good job of it. Mum really enjoyed her stint on the Parish Council.

I really did not want to go back to working in a factory and I was delighted when I got encouragement from Dave and my kids to go back to school. So I enrolled in our local college to take four “O” Levels in English, History, Sociology and British Constitution. I was to start college at the end of October because Dave and I were going to backpack around China for a month. We used some of my redundancy money to pay for the holiday in China. Dave had been learning some basic Chinese language and we had to get visa permits from the Chinese Embassy in London. We intended to back-pack for about four weeks covering as much of the country as possible. It was an experience that I will never forget. But I won’t go into any detail for this record since Dave kept a day-to-day diary account of where we went, what we did and how much it cost. It makes fascinating reading still after all of these years. Ever since I have known Dave he has been a diary keeper and I think it keeps memories so much more alive.

Dave, Steve and our friend Rory had set themselves up as a Folk Group. Dave sang and played banjo, Steve on drums and Rory on guitar and penny whistle. I thought they were very good. They did not earn a living from it but did lots of charity shows. Sharon and I were their “groupie followers”. They called themselves “The Red Elastic Band”. Dave also set up the Folk Club at the Flying Picket (the pub at Hardman Street in Liverpool).

One lovely memory that I have of our family is when my mum and dad were coming up to their fortieth wedding anniversary. We kids decided that we would organise a sort of “This is Your Life” surprise party for them. We contacted all our relatives from Cornwall, Holyhead, Yorkshire and Lincoln and they all said they would come. The prize, however, was America. In 1945 Dad’s sister, Irene (Rene) married an American soldier – John Hoogerhyde – and emigrated to America with him. Mum and dad got married the same year and they had never seen or spoken to each other since – forty years and no contact. When I was a child my dad’s mum had given me my aunt Rene’s address so that I could write to my cousin Penny. Penny and I became pen pals for a few years and that was really good. But then we lost contact. Fortunately they were still living at the same address. I ended up speaking to my aunt for the first time ever. They agreed to come to the party since they had been celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary during 1985 as well and they could make it a joint party.

Arrangements were made. Rene and her John would be arriving three days before the party and would stay in our house under cover. Rene and dad’s only other sibling, Jean lived in Cornwall, and would be arriving at my house two days before the party. Jean was much younger than her brother and sister, and whilst she used to come and see us when we were growing up, she too hadn’t seen her sister for forty years. I knew what Jean looked like, but I didn’t have a clue what Rene looked like, no one had any photographs of her. Dave and I were going to drive to Gatwick airport to meet them and drive them back.

That meeting was so funny. I always wanted to meet someone at the Arrivals Lounge with a sign and see who turned up. So Dave and I wrote the name “Hoogerhyde” in big letters on a large piece of cardboard, and stood waiting. Eventually passengers from the American Airlines came through arrivals and a good number of them came over to look at our sign. Dave hid the sign behind his back a few times when some guys walked over, all wearing Stetsons and Crimpoline shirts and trousers.

Then a very small women tapped me on my arm and said she was Rene Hoogerhyde and she hoped we were waiting for her. When I looked closely at her she was so like my dad and their mother. She was wearing a crimpoline camel coloured trouser suit and white blouse, and had short strawberry blonde hair. I hugged her and we both had tears in our eyes. She introduced me to John and I introduced Dave. We had a long journey home and much to catch up on.

The following day, Jean joined us and it was so lovely to see the long lost sisters together. We were in for a very emotional few days. The party preparations were all in hand and mum and dad none the wiser. Relatives from other parts of the country were arriving and farmed out to various brothers and sisters. The night of the big party was upon us.

Geoff was Master of Ceremonies and Rob was to bring mum and dad to the venue for seven o’clock, they thought they were going for a meal. The place was all in darkness when they arrived and balloons, streamers and confetti flew down from the ceiling when they walked in. The lights went up and they could see the room was absolutely packed. We didn’t want to keep our star guests hidden for too long so Geoff went into the “This is Your Life” straight away.

Mum and dad were taken on to the stage with Geoff, and he welcomed all those relatives who had come to celebrate our mum and dad’s wedding anniversary, bringing on stage all aunts, uncles, and cousins from around the country. Mum and dad were so overwhelmed. Then Geoff welcomed dad’s sister Jean on to the stage. It was over twenty years since dad and Jean had seen each other and very emotional to watch it now. Then the big surprise. The whole room was so quiet with anticipation. Geoff asked mum and dad to close their eyes, then Rene and John were brought in. I think everyone in the room had a smile pasted on their face and tears in their eyes. When Geoff told mum and dad to open their eyes, they came face to face with Rene and John. It was a moment in time that none of us will ever forget. The complete and utter shock on mum and dad’s faces and then the tears, hugs and kisses. It was so wonderful and then the celebrations began. I have never been to a family event that meant so much to me as this one did.

The next two weeks were a whirl. Mum and dad took Rene and John everywhere including to Lincoln to meet their family members. I remember John asking about the hospital that he stayed in when he was injured in 1944. The hospital was in Penley near Wrexham and so we all took him there to see if he could remember it. He said he went all cold and got goosebumps as soon as he saw the building. It just had not changed. It was now a Polish War Veterans’ hospital. John knocked on the door and spoke to the Matron there. She let him visit inside the building and they had some photos taken. He said he was so moved by the experience. They spent two weeks with us and left with Dave and I promising to visit them in Michigan.

By the end of October of 1985 I started in college. I was with 16 and 17 year old students and I was 37!. It took me straight back to my school days with the teacher sitting on the desk and reading out of books and writing with chalk on the blackboard. There was not much interaction, just questions fired at random to various students. I just find it an awful way to learn. It took me from the October to April to finally get to grips with the subjects and the essays that were required on a regular basis.

No leeway or support was given for any reading and writing difficulties people may have. I had to work extremely hard and had a lot of help from Dave and the kids, including help with my homework. Taking exams was a revelation to me, it was my first real experience and I was so nervous. Going for my results was unbelievable, and I found myself shaking trying to open the envelope. I had passed every one and got two “A”s and two “B”s. I was so thrilled and we all went out to celebrate. It gave me the courage to carry on.

Andy was the next one of my siblings to get married. It was 1986 and he was marrying the love of his life Annette. Andy had brought Annette to meet the family at one of mum and dad’s famous New Year’s Eve Party. Just five months later they were married. They were both so suited to each other and had a lovely wedding.

A few months later during the same year, Kim gave birth to Simon making him grandchild number eleven.

In the summer of 1986 Dave and I made the promised trip to Michigan in America. We went to stay with Rene and John. They took us to meet many of my American cousins and we had a really wonderful time. But Gaylord – where they lived – was such a strange place. It was only very small and looked just like a cowboy town like you see on the movies. They took us to the one museum that they had in the town – it was called “Call of the Wild”. In this museum they had stuffed animals like mongooses and you had to press a button and the animal would make a noise like a mongoose. It was so funny. Dave and I were also vegetarians at the time and poor Rene had real problems trying to work out what to give us to eat. We stayed with John and Rene’s for a few days and then went across the border to Canada and spent some time with Dave’s brother Jake and his wife Marilyn. They had recently become parents and had a beautiful little girl named Megan. We had a wonderful time in Canada.

In the summer of 25^th June 1988 until Friday 1^st I was to travel to East Berlin on a TGWU sponsored International Course. There were ten of us on the trip and we visited factories, met workers,walked on the Berlin Wall, the Palace at Potsdam where the Potsdam Treaty was drawn up in 1945, and visited museums that had films and pictures of how destroyed East Berlin became. We also visited the heartbreaking Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp where so many people had been imprisoned and lost their lives. It is estimated that more than 200,000 people were imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp between 1936 and 1945.

At first the prisoners were mostly political opponents of the Nazi regime. However, increasing numbers of people and members of groups defined by the National Socialists as racially or biologically inferior were later included. There were many notable prisoners in this camp including members of the “Old Guard” of the Nazi party, such as Dr Martin Luther; the former Austrian chancellor Dr Kurt Schuschnigg; Dr Niemoller; and George Elser who supposedly made and placed the bomb in the Munich beer cellar, aiming to assassinate Hitler. One of the most famous names from this particular Camp was that of Anne Frank.

The first group of Soviet prisoners of war sent to Sachsenhausen arrived at the camp at the end of August 1941. By mid-November 1941, the SS deported about 18,000 Soviet prisoners of war to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In all, more than 13,000 Soviet prisoners of war were shot at Sachsenhausen. As of mid-January 1945 there were more than 65,000 prisoners in Sachsenhausen, including more than 13,000 women. During the war, forced labour using concentration camp prisoners became increasingly important in German armaments production. As a result, the Sachsenhausen camp system expanded to include more than 30 sub-camps concentrated mainly around armaments industries in the greater Berlin area in northern Germany. Prisoners in the Sachsenhausen camp were also subjected to medical experiments.

When we met up with a team of managers and workers representatives in one factory I really could not tell who was who. The workers seemed to be giving the orders and the management carrying them out. I don’t know if it was for our benefit but it was a very strange environment indeed. I also remember very clearly stepping onto a Paternoster Lift. I had not even heard of one before let alone seen one. It had no door and just went up and down constantly. When it arrived at your floor you had to jump on it very quickly and jump off just as quick when it reached the floor you wanted to get to. I thought it was unbelievably dangerous and only went on it when I had to! The whole trip was an amazing experience and one that I will never forget.

I continued my education by enrolling for two “A” level courses to be completed in one year. The subjects were English and History and I got both of these with a “B” and “C” Grade. I was now on a roll and got signed up for a four year course in the Teacher Training College. They were very keen to sign up mature students with experience of the world of work. I did the first two years of the theory and came out of it with a Diploma of Higher Education, (it took me ages to pass the college’s internal maths exam since I had such a mental blockage when it came to maths).

It was during this time that Sharon decided to go to Canada for a year as a qualified nanny. Since Dave’s brother Jake lived in Toronto, we knew that if she needed any help he was on hand. But Sharon made all the arrangements herself and off she went. I was so proud of her. We kept in touch by phone and letter and I missed her so much indeed.

After my first year in Teacher Training College Dave and I went to France on holiday during the summer holidays. On our way home I felt a lot of pain in my chest. I could hardly breathe and went to hospital when we got back. I had a scan and they found that I had a blood clot in my lung. I was in hospital for two weeks and put on warfarin for the next nine months – I was lucky! However, I had another such incident five years later and was lucky enough to come through it again.

I remember that Tony and I had fallen out over something really stupid, but he decided that he wanted to go and live with his Dad. He was eighteen, in a job that wasn’t paying much money and smoking. It’s not easy being a parent – I was so upset when he moved out. He stayed away for two weeks and then came back to talk with me. We patched things up but he said he wanted to live with his dad. Our house now seemed quite empty without Sharon and Tony.

Only Paul remained, he had started in college on a computer technicians course and loved it.

Our Spanish friend Chamorro’s daughter Moni and her cousin Vanessa had arrived and were staying with us for three weeks. It was July and, being a student, I had all the time in the world to look after them. I took them to London (where I got them lost), and to various other places where they said they wanted to go. Dave and Paul came with us on a few of our trips. But Paul was the real winner since both girls fancied him. He was really good looking and the fights these that these two girls had over him was so funny. Moni won and a romance was started. Moni and Vanessa were also invited to our Steve’s wedding and they loved dressing up for it.

And so in July 1989 we had the first of our own weddings. Steve was getting married to his girlfriend Alison. They had been together since they were sixteen and had been planning their wedding for the past two years. It was a really big elaborate affair and they both looked lovely.

My youngest brother David married his girlfriend Karen just one month later. They were such a handsome couple and had a really beautiful wedding. Karen had six bridesmaids in yellow and all of the flowers were in white and yellow. It was really lovely. One funny thing I remember, though about this wedding was when David and Karen knelt down in the Parish Church. Rob, Geoff and Andrew had taken the time to write on the soles of David’s shoes. One shoe said HE and the other one said LP. (HELP). The giggling that went on in that church was so hilarious. Dave also took the time to take some photos of all twelve of us together. They are not brilliant photos but they are the only ones we have of all of us together.

I was two years into my four-year Teacher Training Course when I was contacted by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and told that there was a two year teaching secondment available based in Liverpool and that I stood a good chance of getting it if I applied. This was the first time ever that I was having to go through a formal interview. Interviews for my previous jobs were just a medical process and signing of documents. This interview was different. I had a lot of experience and qualifications under my belt now and I sailed through it. I started work in Liverpool at the end of August.

I remember my first day with embarrassment. There was no teaching for a few weeks and there was only myself and my new boss in the office. I was wearing a long skirt and knee length boots and I had just been to the toilet. I came back into the room completely unaware that the back of my skirt was tucked up into my knickers showing my bum. I cringe now when I think about it. My boss was gagging himself, from trying not to laugh and wondering how he was going to tell me. The times that I must have swung my backside around to his face, even bending over to pick up my bag! – the memories of that day went on in my head for ages after. When my boss eventually plucked up the courage to tell me I ran from the room and had to go for a walk to calm down. What a first day impression. In October and November of 1989, Dave left us to go to Nicaragua on a trade union sponsored Building Brigade. He was the Group Leader and their task was to build six houses over a six week period. I had no communication with him for the first three weeks and even when we did it was very limited. When he came home he was a shadow of his former self. He had lost so much weight and was very affected by what he saw and the suffering that people had to go through. They built their six houses and he said it was wonderful to see how just their small effort of building some houses had on people there. I missed him so much during this time and so hated being apart, but this trip was something that Dave had to do.

Years 1990 to 1995

Having started my new job with the TUC in 1989 I can honestly say that the next two years was the fastest learning curve I have ever experienced. One day I was shadowing an experienced tutor and the next day I was teaching it to my own group of learners. I made lots of mistakes, but I was working with a very supportive team of tutors and I learnt so much from them. I eventually taught all levels of shop stewards courses, health and safety courses, equal opportunities, employment law and computer training. I taught all the stewards from Vauxhall Motors and built up a good relationship with them which has lasted throughout the years.. The two year secondment became a permanent position.

Also during this five year period there would be the biggest population growth so far in our family with EIGHT children being born. We started it off with the first of our own grandchildren and the first great grandchild to be born. It was March 1990 and Sharon was due to give birth. Her boyfriend Nigel Maddocks had let her down badly and we were determined to give Sharon all the support she needed. Dave and I took her to the hospital. Dave stayed in the waiting room and I was with Sharon whilst she gave birth to Abigail. Sharon had a real bad time and I held Abi in one arm and also held Sharon’s hand whilst they stitched her up. Abi was a big beautiful baby. We took them both home a couple of days later. Sharon was still very weak and low in spirits. Dave and I took Abi out a lot, even to union meetings (her first when she was just three weeks old) so that Sharon could recover her strength. Sharon was a lovely mum and so good with Abi, it was a pleasure to see them together. Sharon and Abi lived with us for fifteen months until she got her own flat just around the corner from us. So I became a grandma at the age of forty two and my mum was a great grandma at the ripe old age of sixty two.

David and Karen were next to add to the family with the birth of their baby daughter Lauren who was born in 1991. Lauren was grandchild number eleven. Six months later Kim gave birth to her third child Josh, who made it to grandchild number twelve.

In 1991, I was asked by the TUC to spend three weeks in London with six South African women trade unionists. I was to take them to meet various trade union leaders (I got them so lost around London and they had extremely sore feet, but we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves), and to support them during the TUC’s National Women’s Summer School. The TUC’s National Training Centre was based in Crouch End in London.

I took the six women to Highgate Cemetery in Crouch End and we spent a wonderful time walking around this extremely fascinating place. When we reached the graveside of Karl Marx the women formed a circle around the grave, held hands and sang the African National Anthem. Their beautiful voices were haunting and had me moved to tears. The rain was falling softly and I noticed that there were a number of other visitors standing around listening to them and they were clearly moved as well. It was so special and I will always remember it with such affection. Reading Audrey Niffenger’s book “Her Fearful Symmetry” which is set in Highgate Cemetery brought it all back to me.

It was my first experience of being involved with the TUC’s Women’s School and it was amazing. As well as looking after my six South African women, I was co-tutoring on some of the sessions. There were over a hundred women at the school and they were split up into various workshops all covering different topics. At the end of the week there was a mini conference where two women from each workshop volunteered to give a five minute speech on a topic dear to their hearts. The idea was to give them experience of being involved in conferences, but in a friendly supportive environment. I was in for a big surprise and will never, ever forget that week and I came away completely buzzing.

At the mini conference, two women talked about being gay. They both had decided that they wanted to voice for the first time the fact that they were gay, how they were going to talk to their families when they got back home and the problems that they knew they would face. They said that the support that they had received from other women during the week gave them the confidence to speak out and that they felt such an enormous relief at being able to speak so openly about it.

Another woman talked about her life as a victim. She had been subjected to repeated beatings from her husband when he got drunk and how she had put up with it for the sake of her children. She said she still loved him and was hoping that he would change and that she knew he needed help. She had been in the workshop that looked at Domestic Violence, realised that she definitely fitted the category and that her main responsibilities had to be to herself and her children. She broke down in tears. She knew now what she had to do, even though it was going to be hard, but she also knew what sort of support was available for her. She too moved us all to tears. Other women gave similar moving experiences and the contributions were brilliant. For me it was a completely wonderful week that left me with such fond and everlasting memories.

The TUC also nominated me to sit as a Panel Member on Industrial Tribunals. These Panels consisted of a Worker Representative, an Employer Representative and an Employment Law Solicitor who was the qualified Judge. The Tribunals deal with employment rights at work and in particular when people feel that they have been unfairly dismissed. I was expected to sit for approximately fifteen days a year and I loved it. I am still sitting on these Panels only they are now called Employment Tribunals and I have so far served for twenty one years.

Sharon had been seeing a good looking guy by the name of Paul, They decided to get engaged and we had a lovely engagement party in our back garden. Jane had also remarried. She and Richard had divorced the previous year and Jane fell in love with a big hulk of a guy named Francis. They married very quietly in the Wrexham Registry Office in March of 1992.

Mum was going through a bad patch of ill health. I remember that Mum and Dad had arrived home after being on holiday for two weeks with Cathy, Kevin and their two children.

Mum had not been at all well and was in agony and had not had her bowels moved for over four weeks. She went into hospital and they diagnosed cancer of the colon. The doctors operated on her and told her that they were ninety eight percent certain that they had got it all. Colon cancer was one of the easiest cancers to deal with. But I remember everyone being stunned. Mum wouldn’t talk to anyone about it. I think sometimes the nursing professionals make the worst possible patients and mum being a nurse was no exception.

Just over a year later, mum was taken back into hospital. She had serious symptoms again but had not said a word to anyone. Now though it was too late. I arrived at the hospital about an hour after her operation. I was greeted by the staff nurse – who was an old friend of mine – Beryl Steen (her family knew my family well). Beryl said that she was so very sorry about my mum. I asked her what the doctors had said and she replied that the growth was just too large to remove. I asked her how long she had to live and I was told perhaps three to six months. I was in a state of shock. I went to see mum but she was still asleep. One of my sisters Jane was on the Maternity Ward. She had just given birth to her first child, Mum’s thirteenth grandchild. My brother Robert’s daughter was also on the same Maternity Ward – in fact in a bed opposite Jane. She had just given birth to a daughter and called her Sarah. (Mum’s second great grandchild). Mum was given a life sentence on one ward and she had just become a grandmother and great grandmother on the same day. I will never forget it. I was angry, so, so angry and the hurt inside was dreadful.

Mum didn’t live for three or six months. She went on to live for thirteen months. Throughout all that time she would not talk about her illness or what was going to happen. She refused to face it. In fact it was easier to pretend it just was not happening. I remember her lying on the couch eating her favourite children’s sweets and asking dad to go and get some videos to put on because the television programmes were rubbish. He brought a selection which made me cringe. He was so thoughtless. Amongst his choices for her he brought “Tombstone”, “Till Death do Us Part”, and “Night of the Living Dead”.

Mum’s last couple of days are etched on my mind forever. It was the 31^st of July and it was my turn to help dad look after her. I got there early in the morning. Mum’s bed was now the couch in the living room. We helped her to the toilet, washed her and tried to make her comfortable. She was so weak and thin. I wanted her to die now. I could not bear to see her like this. She had no dignity at all and even though she was on high levels of morphine she was still in a lot of pain.

What happened next has always haunted me. She hated taking the morphine. She said it made her feel so ill and she was scared of what could happen when she took it. We could not get her comfortable and she was crying with the pain. The doctor had left us some liquid morphine as well just in case it was needed. I decided that we should give her some. Mum tried to stop us. She could not speak properly. Dad held her arms down while I tried to give her a spoonful of morphine. She kept her lips tightly closed and dad tried to hold her mouth open. He was shouting at her, telling her to “open her bloody mouth and to stop acting like a bloody child”. She fought like a tiger but we managed to get some down her. I wrapped her up and went into the other room and sobbed my heart out. Not long after she went quiet and seemed to be sleeping. But she had actually started to slip into a coma and I believed I was responsible for it. I am filling up with tears as I am writing this the memory is so clear.

We called the doctor and she confirmed that mum had indeed slipped into a coma and that she would not last the night. We did not want her in hospital and said that we would all stay with her. I rang round all my brothers and sisters and they soon turned up. The house was full. Dad just sat in his usual chair in the corner and was quiet all day long. Tea and coffee was constantly on the go. Mum died just after one a clock in the morning of the first of August 1994. She had an awful rattle in her throat and a smell that I have always referred to as a Death Smell. She just slipped away from us. I remember looking at the clock and what was so significant about it for me was the fact that exactly twenty five years ago at one am on the first of August, my mum was watching me give birth to my youngest son Paul, and here I was now watching her die.

While we were all wailing around the couch I turned to look at dad. He was still sitting silently in his chair with tears streaming down his face. I don’t think he wanted to interrupt his kids mourning the loss of their mother, but he looked so desperately sad. I told everyone to go into the next room and leave them alone together. Ten minutes later I went back into the living room to tell dad that I had phoned the doctor and that she was on her way. He was on his knees by the couch with his head buried in my mum’s chest. His whole body was racked with sobs. It was heartbreaking.

It took me a long, long time to remember my mum as she was before she became ill. Whenever I thought of her it was as a broken woman who had lost all of her looks and her dignity. I have lots of photographs of her around the house as she was – a good looking woman whom I was proud of and a great inspiration to me.

I had been working in Liverpool for six years, when a job became vacant as a full time Education Officer for the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) . There was a lot of competition for the job and I was the only female amongst thirteen applicants. I was successful, but there were a lot of angry men around saying that I had got the job because I was a woman and that it was so obvious since there were two questions on equal opportunities and I would be the only person able to answer them!. No matter, I got the job and I was really looking forward to the challenge.

The job was based in Salford and the previous person to hold the post was sacked for a whole host of reasons. But the Education Department was a mess and my responsibility was to build it up again. I was lucky that I had worked for the past six years with such a good supportive team in Liverpool. My plan for my new job was to implement the best practices I had learnt at the TUC. In my thirteen years in the job, we had gone from having only three part-time tutors to five full time and seventeen part-time tutors and two full time administrators. Originally there were only five hundred learners a year going through the education programme, we increased that to over two thousand. We put all the tutors through so many training courses and they have now got lots of qualifications. One of my proudest moments was when twelve of us tutors had our photograph taken in a cap and gown – myself included – when we finally received our formal teaching qualification.

We changed the whole training programme to include literacy and numeracy support, training and national tests. We raised the standards and had a department that everyone was proud of.

I have been so lucky throughout my entire working life. I have been well paid to do a job that I would have done on a voluntary basis. I believe I am living proof that lifelong learning can be what it says. I have been retired for three years now and I am still learning and still enjoying it.

I had only been doing the job for six months when we had a tragedy at work. Bobby Owens, who was my immediate boss and a friend of ours, collapsed and died at his home. He was only forty eight and had a really lovely family. I was sent to his home to act as a liaison for the Union, to see that anything they needed was taken care of. It was so sad. A massive funeral was arranged for him and the church was absolutely full. Bobby was so well thought of. Dave gave a speech at the funeral, talking about Bobby, his work and his friends. A few months later Dave was appointed to take Bobby’s place as the Regional Secretary for the North West Region of the TGWU. He also became my boss!.

Steve and Alison were next to bring another baby into the family. They had been married for five years now and we thought that they were not going to have children, they were enjoying their life together. But in November of 1994 baby Emma was born making her our grandchild number two.

Sharon gave birth to Liam one year later making him our third grandchild. I remember Paul, Sharon’s partner coming home and crying his eyes out after he had witnessed Liam being born, he was so proud of having a son. Last but not least, Andy and Annette had made a contribution to the family baby bank. They had been married for almost ten years and were thrilled to bits when Annette gave birth to Anya on the 30^th December 1995 making Anya mum and dad’s fifteenth grandchild.

Years 1996 to 2001

This next five year period saw us with another wedding on our hands; the births of a record TWELVE more children; myself, Rob, Geoff and Pat all reaching the grand old age of fifty; and the death of our beloved sister Denise in 1998.

Sharon and Paul got married in the summer of 1996. It was only a small wedding and the reception was held on a Canal Boat at Llangollen. It was a very hot day and Sharon looked lovely. She had two bridesmaids – Abi and Katie who looked like little angels. (Our Paul had moved in with his girlfriend Sue who already had two daughters – Katie and Vicky from her previous relationship). Holding the reception on a canal boat was very novel and worked really well. The boat was nicely decorated and the whole day was such good fun.

The following month we had the fourth of our grandchildren to be born. Steve and Alison had a new addition to their family with the birth of baby Callum. Callum was the living image of Steve and still is to this day.

In September of the same year Robert and Lorraine became grandparents for the second time. Their son Mark and his wife Kate had given birth to their first child and named him Adam.

I loved being involved with the labour movement in 1997. Dave and I played our part in helping to elect a new Labour Government. It wasn’t hard since the country was so ready for a change. We stayed up all night watching the historical results. It was truly amazing. Labour had a landslide victory and, whilst I was not a fan of Tony Blair’s, he was without doubt a very clever politician. One of the first things they did when in office was to set a National Minimum Wage. It was a long time coming and would never have happened without Labour.

The Labour Government had put aside a sum of money so that trade unions could help their members combat learning difficulties such as Literacy, Numeracy and Dyslexia. We submitted a Funding Application to work with road transport drivers (mainly because they were a group of workers that no one bothered with and any learning difficulties they may have would not be dealt with). We first completed a survey to find out what we were dealing with and found that thirty eight percent of drivers had difficulties with reading, writing and maths. We were successful with our funding application and received £25,000. We received further funding awards every year afterwards and went from strength to strength and our whole Education Department obtained national recognition and awards for our work with road transport drivers, bus drivers, taxi drivers and airport workers. We set Learning Centres up in many workplaces and met every challenge that was thrown at us. I absolutely loved my job and got so much satisfaction from everything we did.

Paul and his girlfriend Sue had given birth to a baby boy in March of 1997. They called him Zak and he was our fifth grandchild.

Less than three months later, Andy and Annette had their second child. It was another Gardner boy and he was called Alex and looked very much like his dad.

The TGWU had a formal opening of their Liverpool Office in 1998 and it was such a good day. The building was called “Jack Jones House” in honour of our old General Secretary Jack Jones. Jack was an amazing man. He was in his eighties and still championed rights for people – this time it was as President of the Pensioners Movement. He was thrilled to bits at the honour and I have some lovely photos of me trying to teach him a bit about computers!

Dad said that the worst thing for any parent was to outlive their child. I agree entirely with him. Denise’s death hit us all. She had been ill all of her life and she had scars on every part of her poor body.

Since the age of 19 Denise had been on kidney dialysis three days a week which lasted for the next twenty three years. She had earned the title of longest serving patient to be on kidney dialysis. Over the years many trainee doctors used her as part of their medical thesis. Denise married Barry when she was twenty five. She mothered him and he was very good to her. She absolutely loved her many nieces and nephews.

I will never forget Denise’s last two weeks. She was just over six stone, only four feet six inches high and so frail from all of her years of ill health. She would not last much longer if she did not get a successful transplant. She also did not have a good track record of success. However, a suitable donor had become available and she was rushed to Liverpool. I drove Sharon and my sisters to see her the next day and she was sitting up smiling. It looked as though everything had gone well and the doctors were very pleased with her. We were all laughing, crying and making plans. It was wonderful to see her so happy. We went back home, had a lovely meal at my house and drank a toast to Denise.

One week later it all started to go wrong. It looked as though her body was rejecting this kidney as well. I was working in Salford at the time but was calling in at the hospital on my way to and from work. On the Friday of the second week I called in to see her on my way to work. I could not believe the change in her. She was in a lot of pain and her body had swollen up. She had a saline drip up but it seemed as though it was oozing out of her pores rather than going though her body. I stayed for an hour and then told Denise that I was going in to work to cancel the rest of my appointments for the day and that I would come back and stay with her. All the way to Salford I could smell the Death Smell. It was in my hair, on my clothes and all around me. I was crying and I could sense my Mother in the car with me.

I returned to the hospital. I had made arrangements to see the doctor and he told me that Denise’s whole body seemed to be shutting down. Her heart had become enlarged and her lungs were filling up with fluid. It would seem that the reason for the kidney being rejected was that a cyst had developed and had caused all the problems. He said that she was in the worst possible state of health when they operated but that they had to try otherwise she would not have lived much longer given her current health. Denise was very popular with all the staff and they seemed genuinely upset about this awful turn of events. I stayed all night with her.

Denise told me that she kept seeing mum and that she was smiling at her and looked lovely and not how she was when she died. A couple of years previously Denise was in hospital and very poorly indeed. She said saw mum all the while, that mum looked dirty and was screaming at her to “go back, that she was not welcome” Denise said she felt really afraid of mum at that time. But now she said mum was looking after her.

Denise kept slipping off to sleep but desperately trying to keep awake. She said that she was scared of not waking up ever again. On two occasions she woke up with a such a start that she made me jump. She said that she kept dreaming that someone was throwing dirt in her face and she could not see or breathe. Denise suddenly did stop breathing and her machines all started sounding alarms. I ran for the nurse who immediately called for the resuscitation team. They appeared as if out of nowhere and began to work on Denise.

I don’t think they realised that I was watching the whole thing. I felt as though I was suspended in a freeze zone. I could not speak or cry or move. I have no idea of how long they worked on Denise, but they eventually told me that they could do no more for her. They took her out of the ward and I then seemed to come out of my shock and just broke down and cried. I think I knew all along that I was meant to be with Denise. I am not religious nor do I believe in spiritual beings and things like that. But I do know that I was so very conscious of mum all around me and that since I was the eldest I had to be there. But it was so hard, seeing people that you love die. Seeing how their life just ceases to be. I did not want to do this ever again.

Denise’s husband Barry came with his sister. We were sitting in the doctor’s office and he was asking Barry if he could have his permission to perform an autopsy on Denise. He said that even though he knew why Denise had died, he thought that they could still learn many things from her body. I was holding on tightly to Barry’s hand. All of us were crying. I felt like screaming at the doctor to leave Denise alone that she had been their research tool for many years. But it was Barry’s call. I kept my mouth shut and held my breath. Barry slowly lifted his head to the doctor and replied that Denise had suffered enough, that she really would want to be left alone now. Her poor body was crisscrossed with scars from countless operations. Enough was enough. I hugged him. It was exactly what Denise would have said. We all still feel Denise’s loss. Her number five space is always still there in between Pat and Cathy and always will be.

We had a further three births in the family during 1998. First was Charlotte. She was our David’s second child. But David and Karen had split up a few years earlier and David had moved in with his girlfriend Lorraine. David lived in Llandudno and was a police officer. Sarah was next to give birth to a baby boy. She called him Jake and he was Sarah and Jeff’s second child and Robert’s third grandchild. Last child to be born in 1998 was Ryan. He was our grandchild number six and the third child of Steve and Alison.

Over the years, Dave and I had been going to Spain on a regular basis. We had travelled everywhere in the Country and Dave could speak the language fluently. We had decided that we would like to have an apartment in Guardamar – mainly because our Spanish friends Chamorro and Angela have an apartment there, but also because we liked the place and felt at home there. Whilst we were there in 1997, we were looking around at some apartments, but nothing was the right place or the right price. The following year Chamorro got in touch with us and said that he knew one of the developers and that a new block of apartments were going up which would have a sea view. For a third floor, three bedroom apartment it was going to cost us £50,000. But we had to make a quick decision because they would soon go. We trusted Chamorro and Angela completely and told them to go ahead and reserve an apartment for us, we knew that they both would be looking after our interests out there. We needed to raise a £10,000 deposit (which we borrowed off Dave’s sister Joan). By July of 1998 it was all completed.

Dave and I took the Ferry out to Spain with a car absolutely loaded up with household goods. I remember getting on the ferry, taking a book out onto the top deck and unwinding completely. I was like a coiled spring following the death of Denise and I could just feel myself unwinding and relaxing for the first time in months. I remember talking to Denise about our plans for Spain and she offered to lend us some money if it would help (bless her she was always so careful with money but still prepared to lend us some). Denise had been so excited for us and was planning on coming out to join us if she possibly could.

The apartment was better that we could possibly have imagined. Chamorro and Angela were so proud, showing it off to us. We could not have done it without them. I remember that we wanted to thank them with some gift but they would not hear of it, so we bought Angela a necklace from the jewellers shop for her birthday. We thought that we had got a good bargain with a lovely necklace that was in the sale. She was thrilled to bits but thought that we had spent a lot of money unnecessarily. We realised what she meant when we got home and Dave saw his Visa bill. His Spanish was clearly lost in translation! We thought we were paying £50 when in actual fact it was £350. He rang the jeweller’s shop – but no mistake had been made. We have never told Angela and Chamorro what happened and we have only seen the necklace on her once since!

We have had the apartment for thirteen years now and it was the best decision we ever made. Over the years many family members have used it and everyone loved it as well. Now we are retired we spend about six months of the year out there.

Dave’s mum Dorothy (Dot) was a hypochondriac and believed that she was dying. Problem was that she had had this belief since she was in her twenties. She was eighty three when she died. I remember once she wrote to Dave telling him that she wanted him to go and visit a doctor. That she had just been diagnosed with a genetic disease which is fatal to male members of her family. Dave said that there was no point in going to the doctors since, if it was genetic and fatal, there wasn’t a lot the doctor could do about!. The letter was smudged with her tears she was so dramatic.

One of the problems with Dot though was that she was apt to cry wolf too many times and no-one took her seriously. But this time she was back in hospital with a chest infection. I remember that I was booked in to deliver a training session in a local school in Birkenhead and when I arrived at the school it appeared that I had got my times wrong. I was not due in the school until the afternoon. So I had a couple of hours to spare and decided to go and visit Dot in the hospital. When I got to her bed, I could smell that awful Death Smell again. Dot got hold of my hand and clung onto it. I sat with her and was chatting away to her when it became obvious that she was slipping away.

I tried to call the nurse but Dot had hold of me very tightly. I could not believe it. Not again. Within one hour of me turning up completely unplanned at the hospital Dot was dead. I rang Dave on my mobile and told him to get there as quickly as possible. He kept asking me what on earth I doing at the hospital. I really had no answer. Dot would have died on her own in that large impersonal ward. Maybe my unusual homing instinct knew that and steered me in Dot’s direction. But I was starting to get a reputation from family and friends. They were telling me never to visit them if they are ever in hospital.

Our Tony had moved in with his girlfriend Hazell back in 1997. Hazell already had two boys David and Andrew from her first marriage and we were all surprised when Tony announced that he was moving in with Hazell. He was already thirty and there had been no sign that there was anyone special in his life. We were delighted when Tony became a dad in July of 1999. Hazell had given birth to baby Christian and Tony was tickled pink when we went to see them all at the hospital – he was holding Christian so carefully in case he dropped him. Christian became our seventh grandchild – seven grandchildren and I was still only fifty one!

A couple of months later Jane had given birth to her second child. He was named Connor and, like his brother Joe, he was an absolutely beautiful baby with a thick mop of black hair and very blue eyes.

Back in work I was expected to set up a formal Partnership arrangement with a local college. I shopped around and the best deal we could come up with was with City College Manchester (CCM). The Principal was a decent guy and seemed genuinely interested in the partnership. We gave it a trial run for one year and then formalised it at a reception with our Union’s General Secretary Bill Morris and the College Principal Willie Mills. Willie had been an admirer of Bill Morris for a long time and was very excited at meeting him. At the reception, as well as the formal signing of the Partnership, we got both Bill and Willie to present certificates to the first lot of students who had successfully completed the courses under the new Partnership. It was a lovely day and everyone was buzzing with excitement. From that day on the TGWU Education Department and the Partnership with CCM went from strength to strength. The college took on the tutors as formal employees and we shared in the expenses of running the Department. We had a record number of students going through our courses, all of whom achieved a formal qualification at the end of their course. For those students who had a reading, writing or numeracy problem we were able to put them on specific training courses and/or support to improve their skills levels as well.

We were coming up to the Millennium celebrations. We were at the end of the twentieth century and entering into a new era. A number of us had talked for months about what we would do to celebrate the New Year. In the end a group of us decided to go to Liverpool and join in with the festivities going on there. It was a very cold night, Sharon was eight months pregnant and the evening was as good as it was going to get. I remember feeling so cold and not being able to enjoy myself as much as I should. It all seemed a bit of a damp squid to me.

However, just one month later Sharon gave birth to a baby girl. She called her Hannah and she was our eighth grandchild. (My name Ann was in the middle of Hannah)

Robert also became a grandfather for the fourth time when Mark and Katie had their second child, a little boy and they named him Sam.

The third birth of the year 2000 was with Tony and Hazell, Hazell gave birth to a baby girl and they named her Emily Ann (the Ann after me as well).

Years 2002 to 2007

I had been feeling quite ill for some time and went to the doctors who then sent me to the hospital for tests. I remember it was just before Christmas 2001. After the Xmas break I went back to work on the 2^nd of January 2002. I had only been in work for a few hours when I had a phone call from Dave to say that the doctor from the hospital had been trying to get me. I knew then that there was something seriously wrong with me. I left work and drove all the way home in tears and rang the hospital as soon as I got back. The doctor wanted me to come in to see him and said that he did not want to tell me on the phone. I said “its cancer isn’t it” The doctor replied that yes it was and that he wanted me in hospital on the Monday morning and that he was going to operate. I couldn’t believe it. I sobbed my heart out. I rang Dave and told him and he said he would be on his way home. I also rang Sharon and she came around and I told her. We both cried.

I then did something very stupid – I searched the internet to see what it said about my type of cancer and got into a real panic. The internet sites are really morbid and make you ten times worse. I calmed down a bit when Dave got home and I told him that I did not want to be like my mum and bury my head in the sand about it. I rang each of my brothers and sisters and told them and then I went to see my dad to tell him. I thought that if I was the one to tell everyone then they would know that I was OK and dealing with it. Dad however was a different matter. When I told him he just looked at me shook his head and said it was a big mistake letting the doctors open me up because once the air had got into me it would make the cancer spread like anything!. He was really unbelievable and it was a good job that I knew him and knew he was just spouting some old wives tale. Dave and I just laughed at it.

It was not a good weekend but I entered hospital on the Monday just determined to deal with whatever comes. I was operated on the next day. It was major surgery and they removed my womb, fallopian tubes and ovaries. I remember waking up completely covered in foil and shaking like anything. It hurt so much to breathe. Once I came around I asked the nurse to make sure she put my teeth back in because no-one had ever seen me without my teeth – vain I know but I was only twenty one when I had false teeth and I have always been very self-conscious about them.

A few days later I had a bus load of visitors from Salford. All of the tutors and my secretary Judy had managed to book the TGWU bus and came through to see me. The ward was already flooded with flowers and cards from well wishers and now this lovely surprise.

I was in hospital for two weeks and on the day I was to be let home, the doctor came to see me and said that they had the biopsy report and that it wasn’t good. The tumour had spread more than sixty percent into the wall of the womb and that meant that I would have to undergo a course of radiotherapy to try and make sure that it does not spread. I was devastated. I was to start this treatment at the end of March once I had recovered properly from my surgery. When I got home the place was like a florists shop and I had so many get well wishes and cards. I was so touched and they all meant such a lot to me.

I had been home for two weeks when Jane and Andrew were celebrating their fortieth birthday. Forty years – I really couldn’t believe it. It just seemed like yesterday when they were born. I had spent so much time helping mum bring these two up when they were little and here they were now forty years old. It was a lovely evening and Dave and I got some lovely photos of us with Sharon, Steve, Tony and Paul.

The end of March arrives and I am feeling so well. I start the radiotherapy and feel fine to start off with. I was signed up for twenty three sessions over five weeks. I coped fine for the first two weeks and then became so very ill. I really thought I was dying. I had gone from over ten stone in weight before my operation to just over seven stone by the end of the radiotherapy treatment. But I got through it. The hospital even give you a certificate to confirm that you have undergone radiotherapy and the name of the machine you were on – mine was called BEN!

I was at home on that fateful day when the Twin Towers was attacked in New York. I remember that I had been lying on the couch with my feet up watching television when the news came on and the dreadful pictures being played out over and over again. It was unbelievable and had me glued to that screen in total shock and disbelief.

Over the next eighteen months our family grew with a further five babies. First was Kim’s daughter Natalie who gave birth to a baby girl and called her Shannon. Natalie had only just turned eighteen and it meant that Kim was only thirty six when she became a grandmother – younger even than mum was when I made her a grandmother.

Cathy was next to become a grandmother when her son Carl and his girlfriend had a baby girl and called her Ffia. Carl was a young dad at the age of twenty three.

The next two births were within two days of each other. Natalie gave birth to her second child just one year after Shannon was born. This time it was a baby boy and she called him Ryan. Kim was still only thirty seven and a grandmother of two. Our youngest brother David and his partner Lorraine gave birth to their second child Harrison just two days after Ryan was born.

Geoff was next to become a grandfather when his daughter Donna gave birth to a baby girl called Bethany. Geoff and Genny were thrilled to bits – they had so wanted to be grandparents and now their wish had come true.

Dave and I did something that we were both surprised at. We bought a sailing boat. We could not sail, had never been on one and yet here we were impulse buying a boat!!. It was a bargain!!! It was a twenty four foot dinghy sailing boat on a trailer. We took her to Joan’s house and stored her there until we had somewhere to moor her. Her name was “Setanta”. We both decided that we should get some sailing lessons and booked ourselves in at Plas Menai Sailing Centre in Anglesey. We went on two weekend courses and completed the RYA Stage One and Stage Two Dinghy Courses. We were bruised and battered and felt aches in places never felt before.

But the weekends were so funny as well. I hate getting my head under water and everyone tried very hard on these courses to get my head wet. Every time that it was my turn to sail the boat I got everything wrong and the boat capsized. I always managed to grab hold of something as the boat turned upside down and kept my head above water – and my hair dry!!! Everyone else (there were three of us and the instructor on the boat) were dumped into the water. When it was Dave’s turn to sail the boat he managed to keep the boat upright, but kept hitting the other trainee on the boat with either his elbow, his fist, his head or the tiller. At one stage this guy (who was only trying to help Dave) had managed to get his legs around the tiller whilst Dave was steering the boat and Dave yanked the tiller up catching the guy right in his private parts. The guy folded up in agony. He was so good about it and blamed himself when really it was Dave being so clumsy! Believe it or not we both actually passed the courses.

But then what do we do!. We had our sailing certificates, a boat and a place to sail her (a friend of ours had offered us his mooring at Beaumaris in Anglesey). We packed ourselves a picnic, drove to Beaumaris and climbed on to the boat. We talked, and talked, and talked. We ate our picnic and talked some more. We then packed up and went home. We still laugh at that day. We just did not know what to do, how to start her up, how to sail her and how to bring her back on the mooring!!! Dave decided to go out with Brian Dawson (our friend who let us use his mooring). Brian was a sailor and would be able to give Dave some pointers in the right direction! We had some fun with Setanta, but some scary times too. Joan and Tony went with Dave one day and I think Dave put Joan off sailing for life – she was mentally scarred after her day out with him. We kept Setanta for four years.

Rob had been having some serious heart problems and had been undergoing a lot of treatment and tests at Liverpool’s Broadgreen hospital. They eventually decided that he needed major heart surgery. He had four very seriously blocked heart valves and a further heart valve that was causing them concern. Robert’s doctors performed by-pass surgery on five heart valves. I went to see Robert after he had come out of surgery and I was so shocked to see him. He looked like death. He was obviously on life support whilst the doctors completed the operation and still on it until his heart was able to perform on its own again. It was a truly awful time for Robert and his family. But he is so brave. Like Denise, Robert has had many serious health problems for years and you never hear him complain and he always looks so cheerful. He came through that with such determination and now looks so well.

In January of 2005 Tony and Hazell got married. Hazell was a Catholic and so the wedding was held in the Catholic Church with a small reception afterwards. The kids all looked lovely and Hazell had lost lots of weight and dyed her hair a strange kind of pink which looked really nice on her. Hazell’s mum was dying of a muscle disease and she wanted to see Tony and Hazell married before she died. She was in a wheelchair and so unbelievably calm about the whole thing. I remember just a few weeks after the wedding Hazell’s mum – Joan, had asked to see all of her four kids and her grandchildren. She then said she wanted a quick word with me before I was to take the kids back to my house for the night. She was not expected to live through the night. She just said to me that she wanted me to be good to the kids and to make sure they never forgot their grandma Joan. She looked quite well and I just could not believe that she was going to die. But sure enough Tony rang me the next morning to say that Joan had indeed passed away. It was so very sad indeed.

Since mum died dad had become something of a recluse. He missed her a lot and he seemed so lost. When he was seventy nine he began passing blood every time he went to the toilet. He was admitted to hospital for tests and they diagnosed bladder cancer. Dad was always such a hard man and now he seemed so small and frail and extremely vulnerable. It was really hard seeing dad like that. My strong dependable fearsome dad whom I had dreaded to defy when I was a youngster.

I remember one day going to visit him in hospital and saw him standing up at the end of his bed. He was clinging to the bed frame terrified to go to sleep in case he didn’t wake up. He was so scared. He was to receive a course of radiotherapy treatment and he was not happy about it at all. During the nine months from when he was diagnosed to when he died I felt closer to my dad than I had ever done in my life. He had become a lovely softie. He loved us going to spend time with him. He talked about mum, his parents, his life and his kids. He also talked in a matter of fact manner about his illness. We girls took it in turns to sleep at his house. Geoff sometime took a turn too. We set up a rota. But he still cooked for himself. He never once missed a meal even though he was not often hungry. He had a routine since mum had died and he stuck to it.

In January dad had just celebrated his eightieth birthday and he was in real good spirits but he was to start his radiotherapy in two weeks time and I had agreed to take him. I drove him to get his treatment. The hospital was thirty miles away and travelling back and forth took it out of him. I went to pick him up to take him for his third treatment. His doors were locked. I looked through the window and could see that his shoes were ready by his chair to put on and his coat was draped over his chair. There was no sign of him whatsoever. I yelled through the letterbox but got no response. I did not have a key, but rang our Cathy to tell her to get to dad’s house. It seemed like an age since I called but when she arrived I was nearly wetting myself with anxiety. We ran through the house yelling his name. I found him crumpled on the floor between his bed and wardrobe. He was mumbling but could not move. The ambulance arrived and they had extreme difficulty lifting him up and taking him out to the ambulance. Small as he was he had become a dead weight.

It would appear that dad now had a brain tumour. He was paralysed and blind. The next two weeks were tragic. Not one of us left him alone in that hospital. We were lucky that there were so many of us that we could take it in shifts and I am so glad that we did. One of the doctors asked me where my father had worked. His last main job was in the plastics division of Courtaulds. He used to come home covered in plastic dust. The doctor said that bladder cancer was quite a common industrial disease for people working in that type of industry.

Towards the end dad was slipping in and out of consciousness. I was talking to him telling him that we would all be fine and that he could go and look for mum and Denise. Geoff was with me and I was stroking his face when he turned and started kissing my hand. That was the first response we had from him in days and I was so very touched it brought tears to my eyes.

Cathy, Jane and myself were with dad when he died. I think I must have been in that room for the past twenty hours. I just could not leave. When he died it was just like with mum and Denise. I can only describe it as something leaving him, like he was expiring breath. His whole features just suddenly went slack and he was gone leaving his shell behind. It is so weird and I cannot explain it completely. But my dad was no longer in the room or in his body. We left with an immense sense of loss. There was an obvious sense of relief because he was no longer suffering but it was the loss that was so acute. I didn’t cry until I got home. We buried dad a week later and I gave a talk about Dad as a parent and what he meant to each and all of us. I had gone around all of my brothers and sisters asking them for contributions and it all came together on the day and was just about dad. I remember the driver of the car that took us girls to the cemetery. He said that he was proud to be driving the car because he had worked with dad in the factory and liked him very much indeed.

Dad had named Geoff and myself as executors of his will. Considering he didn’t spend much money on himself we were surprised at the amount he had actually left to us. The previous year he had been giving us all bits and pieces from his house, He gave me his record collection, his gardening encyclopaedias and mum’s wedding and eternity rings. But in his will he said that we could let whoever have whatever they wanted out of the house. The house was to be sold and the money raised was to be split up between all nine of us. Dad had also left £57,000 which was to be split up between the nine of us too. But we had a big job on our hands first because dad’s house needed so much work on it before it could be sold. There was no central heating, the house needed complete rewiring, new windows, a new kitchen and bathroom, plastering and redecorating. Geoff agreed to manage it all and in fact did a great deal of the work as well. It looked really good when it was finished. Geoff had done a complete set of accounts for everyone of what had been spent and what was left for sharing. In total dad had left us all almost £17,000 each bless him. I put my share of dad’s money towards a campervan and called it Bertie after dad.

It was July of 2005 and we had just bought our campervan – it was brilliant. Our first trip in Bertie was scheduled for Scotland. Our Spanish friends Angela and Chamorro were coming from Spain to spend two weeks with us and they both really wanted to see Scotland so we were taking them in the campervan. It was wonderful to drive and so convenient. Chamorro had been diagnosed with cancer the previous year and was doing well with his recovery so actually having our own travelling fridge, cooker and toilet was perfect. The Scotland trip was wonderful and everything that Chamorro and Angela could have hoped for. We took them to Joan and Tony’s for a meal and Cathy had put on a Family Party in her garden. She has such a big house and everyone brought some food and drink. They all made Angela and Chamorro feel so welcome and they had a wonderful time.

Six months after dad had died Cathy and I went to our Graduation Ceremony. We had both been on a Teacher Training Programme and passed with flying colours. Dad would have been proud of us and we have got our photos to prove we went to it!. I had set the course up for our tutors in Salford because none of them had formal qualifications. I decided to join them even though I was fifty seven and the eldest in the class and I invited Cathy to join us. It was really good, hard work, but well worth it.

Rob and Lorraine became grandparents for the fifth time when their son Mark and his wife had another little boy. They called him Alfie and he was another one to carry the Gardner name.

Natalie gave birth to her third child – Charlie – a few months later making Kim a grandmother of three at the tender age of forty two. The last TGWU Conference was to be held in Blackpool and because Dave was the Regional Secretary for the North West he was to be responsible for hosting it. It turned out to be very good indeed and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Since the TGWU and AMICUS had voted to merge the two unions this was to be the last ever TGWU Conference and Dave tried to make sure that it should be special and a Conference that people would remember with affection. Dave did extremely well and so many people came to congratulate him and his team of organisers.

Years 2008 to 2011

There were many problems with the merger between the TGWU and Amicus. As with any organisation that goes through a merger you would expect problems, but these two organisations were both such very different trade unions and had very different agendas and visions of how they saw the new union in practice. From my perspective they just did not have a workable plan for the Union’s Education Service for example.

The TGWU’s education provision was excellent, in particular in the North West and North East of England. Amicus, on the other hand hardly had any provision. It would have made sense to ensure that the TGWU’s provision was made available to the union representatives from Amicus, but no-one could agree on the best way forward. In the end UNITE took the bizarre step of watering down the TGWU’s provision and gave every region just a basic and limited provision.

I was so angry – after all we had worked for in the North West, it was going to disappear just like that. I had already made it clear that I was going to retire in October when I reached sixty but I wanted what we had achieved to carry on. We had worked our socks off trying to ensure that the good provision was going to carry on after I had left. But it was not to be. The service has been drastically cut back and many of the tutors have lost their jobs. It was so sad and I am glad that I was not around to see the demise of such a good department. It would have broken my heart. I was lucky that during my thirteen years of working for the TGWU I had the best of times with the best resources at my disposal.

My sixtieth birthday was upon me – I really could not believe it. I was going to be an old-aged pensioner with a bus pass! We spent my actual birthday with a party for me, our kids and grandkids in Frankie and Benny’s Restaurant. Dave was retiring with me – his job with the Union was coming to an end anyway and we had decided a few months ago that we would both retire together on my sixtieth birthday. We had a really brilliant retirement party with over two hundred and fifty people turning up to wish us well. The retirement party was held in Liverpool and we organised buses to take all our family members to the venue. Jake and Marilyn actually came all the way from Canada – said they wouldn’t have missed it for anything. We were quite overwhelmed by the response and genuine good wishes.

It was so strange though getting up on the following Monday morning and not going to work. We still had a lot of things to tie up but I kept expecting a phone call from work asking me how to do this or that – but they never did. I ran that Education Department for all those years and suddenly I found myself completely dispensable – how arrogant of me to think that things might fall apart without me!!! Anyhow, no phone calls, no long journey back and to work, no reports to write, no decisions to make, apart from what I was going to do with myself. It wasn’t like I was just on holiday I would not be going back at all ever again! It took me a while to get used to it but Dave and I had plans to enjoy ourselves, to travel, to write, to learn a language (me – I have been trying to learn Spanish for many years) and Dave was going to do some voluntary work for the North West Trades Union Congress (TUC). Dave also started writing his very first historical novel (called the Jacobite’s Apprentice) and is now well into his second one (called the Republican’s Assassin). They are both very good indeed and he just loves writing.

And so two weeks after we retired we were in Spain where we stayed for two months. We are so lucky having our apartment out there and it really does feel like a second home. From 2008 to 2011 – in just three years we have been to: Italy – where we spent three wonderful weeks touring the place. It is such a beautiful country and we will definitely go back again; Portugal where we spent a further three weeks exploring this truly lovely country – we are going back next year with Joan and Tony; several times to Paris; Jordon with Joan and Tony to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary; and touring various parts of Spain. We have settled into a lovely pattern of spending two months in Wrexham and two months in Spain – so that overall we actually spend six months of every year in each country.

Dave and I also bought ourselves another boat. Although this one was not much longer in length than Setanta (Setanta was twenty four foot long and this one was twenty five foot long) she was a much bigger boat. We changed her name and called her Sea Otter. She is a Fisher – motor/sailer and does really well. We have had a lot of good times with her and arranged for her to be brought out to Spain where we are not limited by the weather for when we can sail her. Sailing around the Mediterranean is a dream. We have music playing loudly, cushions to lean back on and a good book to read – sheer heaven.

Life moves on after retirement and the family baby boom continues. Cathy became a grandmother for the second time in 2009 when her son Carl and his partner Claire had a second little girl whom they called Soffi. Both Soffi and Ffia are lovely, affectionate little girls and such a pleasure to spend time with.

Just one month later Geoff and Genny became grandparents again when their daughter Donna gave birth to her baby boy. They called him Sammy and he has his mum and sister Bethany’s great big eyes.

Sharon got a lovely surprise for Christmas of 2009 when her partner Nick gave her an engagement ring. They had planned to get married the following Christmas (2010) but it actually took place during Christmas week of 2011. It was a wonderful wedding. Sharon, Abi and Hannah looked stunning and it was such a good start to the Christmas festivities. All the family were in attendance and it was such a good day. I like Nick a lot, he is a good guy and is good for Sharon.

Our Paul and his partner Sue had split up in 2008 and Paul started a relationship with Monica Thomas, a young woman who worked with him. In March of 2010 Paul and Moni got married. The wedding was only a small ceremony held in the Registry Office at Mold. Moni is Polish and the wedding was different and unusual because the bride was dressed in black. Despite the fact that Tony and Hazell had been together for a number of years and only got married in 2005, their marriage only lasted for four years. Tony was quite devasted by it. He went to live with his Dad and, for the following two years he tried his level best to get a reconciliation with Hazell. It didn’t work.

My Siblings in a Nutshell

ROBERT IVAN – Robert left school without sitting any exams. He was employed as a trainee television engineer with a firm in the town centre. He was sacked a year later. He was carrying a television set down the stairs in the shop and he dropped it – he was given the choice of paying for the damage or the sack!. Robert was then taken on by the British Coal Board as a trainee electrical engineer. He eventually was promoted as a supervisor. Rob married Lorraine (who trained as a nurse with my mum) and they had two children, Mark and Sarah. Rob was only forty years of age when he had his first heart attack. During the next couple of years he had a further two heart attacks. It seemed as though he had inherited our Taid’s cholesterol problems. Rob had to give up work and has dealt with years and years of health problems including heart by-pass operations; vein stripping; arthritis. I have never heard him moan or complain once. I went to see him after he came out of surgery at Broadgreen Hospital in Liverpool and I was so shocked to see him. He had five blocked heart valves and so they had to do by-pass surgery on him and he looked like death. Robert recovers very well and is always so calm and laid back whilst his family are tearing their hair out with worry. Rob has just celebrated his sixtieth birthday. Lorraine, Mark and Sarah organised a surprise party for him and all of the family turned out to celebrate it with him. Over a hundred attended and they were literally just immediate family members and a few friends. Rob and Lorraine have five grandchildren.

GEOFFREY MICHAEL – Geoff also did not sit any exams despite being in a grammar school. His first job was as an administrator in the offices at British Steel. He applied for the police force and was accepted. At this time he had met and married Genny – who had also been training to be a nurse with my mum. Once Geoff had been accepted in the police force he was given a posting in Colwyn Bay where he eventually became an Inspector. Geoff and Genny have two children Donna and Emma. Emma joined the police force and Donna has two children. After thirty years in the police force Geoff retired and they have a second home in Cyprus.

PATRICIA JEAN – Pat’s first job after leaving school was as a clerk in a store in the Wrexham town centre. She then became an administrator in the offices at Courtaulds. She later applied to train as a nurse. At this time we had mum, Pat, Genny and Lorraine all training to be a nurse. It was whilst she was nursing that Pat met Elvin who was one of the patients on her ward. They married and Elvin started his training as an ambulance driver. He was nearly through his training when he was diagnosed with cancer of the lymphatic glands (Hodgkin’s Disease). I have always thought that people with very serious health problems are the least likeliest to complain. Like Denise and Robert, Elvin had had a lifetime of illness. He had Polio when he was a child, Thyroid problems, cancer and a heart by-pass. Whilst undergoing treatment for cancer he completed his training as an ambulance driver. For a number of years he was undergoing operations and treatment because cancer growths kept reforming. But he was a fighter and just dealt with it. As a result of the chemotherapy and radiotherapy Elvin and Pat couldn’t have children which is a dreadful shame because they would have been good parents. But they have each other. Pat too has had years of health problems associated with Rheumatoid Arthritis. She continued nursing until she and Elvin retired a few years ago.

DENISE LINDA – Denise hardly ever went to school. At one time she was given a home tutor but it did not work out. There just wasn’t any quiet space for her to learn. She was an extremely pretty girl with dark hair and very blue eyes. She was devastated when she had to start kidney dialysis when she was nineteen, together with the fact that her fiancé had cancelled their wedding because he couldn’t cope with her illness. But she got on with her life and decided to learn everything about her illness and the treatment she was on. She eventually became an expert about her own body and her treatment. The council had put a portacabin in her backyard and she was able to have her own dialysis machine and equipment without having to make the seventy mile round trip three days a week to the hospital. She had many a row with the various doctors who looked after her because she believed they were wrong in their diagnosis of her and how they were going to treat her. She told them what she thought was wrong with her and what treatment she should be on – most of the time she was right. I remember Denise meeting another kidney patient by the name of Tony. He was completely bowled over by Denise and they eventually got engaged. But it didn’t last because Denise, perversely, couldn’t cope with Tony’s illness. She eventually met and married Barry. Denise couldn’t have children but she loved her many nieces and nephews and was always keen to babysit anytime. She was lovely and we all felt so protective of her, and so extremely proud of her. She lived her life to the full and we will always miss her.

CATHERINE ELIZABETH – Cathy did extremely well in school. She was working in Tesco when she met Kevin and they were married a week before her eighteenth birthday. I was her chief bridesmaid and I remember that on the morning of Cathy’s wedding I had to go and sit my fourth driving test. I passed and was on cloud nine at her wedding. Six months later Cathy gave birth to her first son Lee and second son Carl was born two years later. As the children were growing up Cathy had various part-time and full-time jobs, in Courtaulds (on the evening shift in the same department that I was in) and Laura Ashley as a machinist. When Laura Ashley closed down, Cathy went to college to get some qualifications and obtained a teaching post at a local college – originally only to teach computer training. She eventually ended up teaching on a whole range of different subjects. It was during dad’s illness that Cathy found out that her husband had been having an affair. It was her turn to sleep at dad’s. She had been given a mobile phone for her birthday and she took her husband’s mobile to transfer all his numbers on to her phone. It was while she was doing this that she found the text messages between Kevin and the woman he had been seeing. Cathy couldn’t cope with it and told him to leave. Both of their sons were settled in their own homes. For months Cathy was inconsolable, but then decided to pull herself together. She realised that for years she had not taken much time over herself and she decided to have a good make over. She lost weight, had her hair highlighted and bought a new wardrobe of clothes. I have to say she looked wonderful. She joined myself and some of my team of tutors when we went through our training to obtain our formal teaching qualifications. We were so proud of ourselves when we had our photograph taken together with our cap and gowns on. Cathy now has two grandchildren, is living with her partner Paul and they both get on very well with her ex-husband Kevin.

ANDREW JAMES – As they grew older you could see that twins Jane and Andrew looked so much like mum and dad. All of the boys look like dad, but Andrew more than anyone else. Jane looked very much like mum and Denise. I remember that when I started back to work in 1973, one of the women whom I worked with – Esther – had lived next door to my mum and dad when I was very young. Esther was ten years older than me and she said that she had had a serious crush on my dad when she was a teenager. She said he was gorgeous with his blond hair and very greeny/blue eyes. Andrew looked just like him. Both Andrew and Jane did well at school. Andrew was a quiet and shy individual, but also a very steady and hard working character – a trait that I believe mum and dad passed on to all of us. Andrew worked for many years as a Television Engineer until the firm went out of business. He very quickly got employment with the Water Authority and was one of the supervisors at the depot. Andrew met Annette, who was a supervisor at Laura Ashley when Cathy was working there. They married and had two children, Anya and Alex. We were all absolutely devasted with the tragic event of Andrew’s death in June of 2011. Andrew had been in work and was supposed be at a meeting. When he did not turn up for the meeting someone was sent to his office where he was found dead on the floor. The post mortem showed that he had a heart attack. He must have died suddenly and the doctors say that he would not have suffered. But it was dreadful. I was in Spain, getting ready to celebrate Dave’s sixty second birthday. Abi rang me up in tears and told me the news. I was absolutely stunned and just could not believe it. I flew home. I wanted to see Andrew, see for myself. When I went to the hospital and they let me see him I was shocked – he looked so like Geoff and he was cold, oh so cold. I went to see Annette and the children. They were holding up unbelievably well and it was all down to Annette. She is such a strong person and I so admire her strength and courage. Andrew’s funeral was the following week. We were all still in a state of shock but Jane being Andrew’s twin was in a dreadful way. She took it very hard saying that she can’t believe that she will never see him ever again. Rob said that he fully expected to be the next one to go given his health problems and not one of the younger ones. I know what he means – forty nine is no age. We will miss Andrew so very much. Just like the loss of Mum, Dad and Denise will never go away, Andrew’s loss will be felt just as much.

JANE MARGARET – Jane was more like mum is many ways. She was a bit of a rebel when she was younger leaving windows open so she could creep back in, smoking, drinking and always getting into trouble. She was the complete opposite of Andrew. She has always been extremely outgoing and bubbly. She is very pretty, with long dark hair and dark blue eyes. Jane married Richard when she was only seventeen. She said she married mainly to get out of living in such cramped conditions, even though there were only four children living at home then. The marriage did not last long and they divorced. Jane was working in Laura Ashley at the time with Cathy and Annette. She then started working in a Care Home for Young Offenders. She loved her job there and met Fran whom she later married. When the Care Home closed Jane went to college to train as a Social Worker and is currently working as a Hospital Social Worker and is qualified to train other social workers. Jane and Fran have two lovely sons, Joseph and Connor – whom all the girls, including Connor’s cousins fall in love with!

PAMELA KIM – Two years after Andrew and Jane were born, mum had given birth to a still born baby girl. A year later she had Kim. I think that Kim and David, who is three years younger than Kim, suffered the most as the youngest of such a large family. Once David had been born mum decided she wanted a career as a nurse and I know that it took so much out of her. When I think back to that time I am astounded how she managed. Mum was forty one years of age, I was twenty one and married with three children, Robert was twenty, Geoffrey nineteen, Pat eighteen and all three of them were still living at home, Denise was fourteen, Cathy eleven, Andrew and Jane were seven, Kim was four and David was only one year old and Mum had decided she wanted to train as a nurse. We all helped out as much as we could – I lived just two doors away, but I do know that it affected Kim and David in particular. Kim was a very shy child and suffered from nerves and used to wet her bed until she was six. David was spoilt and given anything he asked for. Kim and David vied for attention from mum and dad and I know that Kim always felt as though she was the one left out and that no one had any patience with her. Kim was just one year older than my daughter Sharon and they grew up together as sisters and were very close. Kim got married to Kevin when she was eighteen and gave birth to Natalie five months later. Two years later Kim had Simon and then six years later she gave birth to Josh. Kim suffered severe post natal depression after she had Josh which was made worse when mum was diagnosed with cancer at the same time. It took Kim a very long time to recover, but with the support of her family she is now fine. She also became a grandmother at the tender age of thirty seven. Kim is forty six now and has three lovely grandchildren.

DAVID RICHARD – David was just four months old when I gave birth to Tony and fifteen months old when I had Paul so these three boys were brought up as brothers but as they got older David and Paul became very close. David was often getting into trouble. He was a very good looking lad and had girls literately drooling over him and he became quite cocky about it. He married Karen when he was twenty two and they both were a beautiful looking couple. Their daughter Lauren was born a year later. David joined the police force and moved to Llandudno. Things started to go wrong after just a few years. David took mum’s death very badly and David and Karen split up. Karen moved back to Wrexham with Lauren and David left the police force. His home is still in Llandudno but he lives with his family Lorraine and their children Charlotte and Harrison.

ANN MARY – As far as I am concerned, I would say in a nutshell that I have loved my life. I just love being the eldest of such a big family. I had three children very young, but I have grown up with them. I too was a young grandmother and have had so much enjoyment out of my grandchildren. Every single job that I have had I have loved and count myself so fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, possessing the right skills to do each of those jobs. I got such a buzz from being involved in the trade union and labour movement and the education side of the union in particular. I would never have met Dave if I had not been involved with the union.

Dave and I have been together now for thirty two wonderful years. Dave is my best friend. We share everything. The only time I felt that I had shut him out of my life was through the dreadful period when I had been diagnosed with cancer. If I am ill my natural inclination is to hibernate until I am better. I had been told on a Friday that I had cancer and I was to go into hospital on the Monday for major surgery. I finally knew exactly how my mother felt. I also think that it is much worse for the relatives of cancer patients. Relatives worry and dread all the time – the patient deals with it. The dread is still there but how you deal with it is up to you. Over the years I think that my strength and determination had become pretty unshakable and I was absolutely steadfast about beating this illness. Dave was there behind me all the time supporting me. We talked about it lots and I know that he would have taken the illness himself if he could. But I was dealing with it and had to do it in my own way.

I have grown, developed and learnt so much since Dave has been in my life. We have done so many things together. Canoed through the lochs in Scotland from Inverness to Fort William; backpacked around China; travelled the length and breadth of Spain; and visited so many other countries. I have learned how to swim, how to ride a bike, how to sail and how to speak Spanish (well I am still learning, I am not as disciplined as Dave is when he is studying languages). I have got academic qualifications that I would never have dreamed I was capable of getting. I have so many hobbies and interests and I just love learning, tasting and experiencing anything and everything.

Dave is the best thing that could ever have happened to me and I wouldn’t swap my life for anything. We never take what we have for granted we both know how very lucky we are. Even my relationship with Mike gave me my three lovely children and six wonderful grandchildren. My relationship with Dave added a stepson that I love and a further three lovely grandchildren. I have no regrets in my life whatsoever.