My mum died today - Isle of White Pop Festivals - it might not have any connection for anyone else but goes together for me !!!!

My mum died today - yes she was over 80 but she never had a good life and faced so much - Yet she always did what she could for others

She was special but it took me years to realize this.

My mum - she was an absolutely lovely!! So accepting of others, which is a true gift.

A kind and totally wonderful woman - a nurse in WW2 ( hastily
Trained up for the war at a young age as many were then and a nurse then that saw many an awful thing and awful deaths)

...............and later a pre school/playgroup worker and a then a carer of disabled children and despite her own blindness she worked for the Red Cross in later years
until she could not anymore - due to her own difficulties -

She was a woman who always did her best for her children - 3 of us and one step brother who she did not have main care of but did her best as and when she could

and tried to care for everyone else when she could - she took on other children during her life .......... in the days when the social services just were happy if you could help - in often
very difficult and awful circumstances for her she did a great job.

When I was young theses other young people, They were often termed as 'lodgers' but believe me that were a lot more than this.

I remember one very funny time when I was about 15 - 1968/69 and sneaked off to the Isle of White 'Pop' ( The Bob Dylan one? http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/iow1969.html - http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/708455/The-Isle-of-Wight-Pop-Festival -

No maybe it was not that one as that was the year after in 1989 - I went to 3)

So this was the 1968 one I think? that one of our 'lodgers' followed me and my friend and hitched with us!! We did not ask her and she frightened us a little.

As she was just out of Park Prewitt - the local mental Hospital/asylum - little did I know I at that age would be sectioned there a couple of years later at 17 myself !!!!!! .........

And she had an addiction to what we used to call then - Mogadoni.e Nitrazepam

Which made you manic and totally 'out of control' for the first 30 mins to an hour of taking it - which you could extend if you drank alcohol -which she did - with it for a lot longer but then - eventually whatever you did - made you stupid and coma like.

So us ................ two naive 15 year old's spent the weekend at the Isle of White Festival trying desperately to control a 22 year old who was totally off her head on Mogadon and was alternatively manic or in a somnolent almost in a coma so we had to carry her!!!.

It rather upset our enjoyment of Bob Dylan and the other wonderful performers!!!

but we felt we had no alternative as we felt we had to keep this young woman 'safe' for my mums sake!!!! Because we all respected my mum and whatever we had to look after this young woman as she had followed us so it was our responsibility

My mum was just so accepting, perhaps maybe to accepting given that I was complete rebel in the 60s and 70s - But it was a trait that i did not appreciate or value then and probably because I have not been accepting like this with my own daughter is why my daughter and I sadly do not get on?

As I have 'strangely' tried to control my own daughter and she has resented it - yet I was brought up by a mum whose great assist was her acceptance of her own children and her ability to give love and guidance but understand we had to make our own life and mistakes from as young as we needed too.


My mum has been partially sighted all her life and mostly blind
since her late 40s............ really since I was in my teens, and has had many illnesses
and later Alzheimer's - she knew it was happening i.e Alzheimer's -
and was so very brave - so has suffered so much - so we are all glad
that it is now over and she is able to rest at last


All our mums are special, even if all they did was bring us into the
world, that is a feat in itself - well that's what I think now having
only done it once to full term pregnancy!!!

I for one did not appreciate how special my mum was until I had gone
through quite a few things myself and then understood how hard and
complicated her life was and how much she had done in her life and
for others.

So this is for all our mums - they are all so special and so are we
all as women and some/many of us as mothers too - all women are
special and so are all of us here too - Since I have had HIV I have learned again

And I have been humbled by what others have gone through, both mothers and daughters/sons.

Thank you so much for reading this

Veritee