Barefoot Running - new route

New barefoot route

13.6km. The part of this route that is "new" is turning right at the end of "Goat man's lane", up over the Hollywood hill, and turning right to connect into the back of Hollywood woods. I would not repeat visiting the new cell phone mast - there is an easier way.

The Railway Room

This post is another precursor to my intended post about "My Father". There were two attic rooms in 16 Broad Street (now it has been converted to the County Library these rooms seem to have disappeared, possibly because the access via a steep stairway was considered too dangerous). One was my older sister's bedroom and the other was the "Railway Room". Of course we wanted to extend the railway into the bedroom but the Committee of Ways and Means (or at least the general consensus!) did not allow this.

I have no doubt that the seeds of interest in model railway were sown early in my father's youth - he did have some original Hornby O-gauge tin-plate stock which, I regret, I sold for hard cash soon after he died. But the seed for a Railway Room genrminated when he met Warren and Vera Lane. Warren had, I seem to remember, as sort of dry face and black hair. He set up little more than three feet of OO-gauge track in our dining room and some rolling stock and that was that. Although I saw through immediately that his interest was of another kind. I wanted more track, what ran on the track was almost inconsequential as long as it was approximately train shaped and, above all, ran smoothly. I wanted the realism of what I will call "time and motion" study.

I regret that I have no photographs of the Railway Room. Back in those days the idea of making a photographic record did not occur to me. Besides the digital camera had not been invented and I could not afford film.  Later I sold much of the rolling stock and what became of the track I know not. Apart from a few items of rolling stock all I have left is memories and even those are fading. From these memories I have reconstructed the approximate layout. I have omitted details - for example the good shunting area was more extensive and I have only shown the basics of the station.

The Railway Room layout from memory and not to scale

I have drawn the layout to look as much as possible like the plans my father drew, only he used pencil and compass and I used Board Capture, IrfanView and PC-Paint.

There were switch and controller panels for three operators although nearly always it was only my dad and I. Each panel consisted of a number of switches to energise the various track segments and a train controller of the 12V bumpy d.c. and rheostat kind.

My father habitually operated the up line (colour cyan) and I operated the down line (yellow).

My father built the whole arrangement which was on three track levels. The station was at the top level and most of the track was on the middle level. On the lowest level there was a loop eminating from the goods shunting area (blue) which, due to the lack of operators and the fact that you could not see the train most of the time, was rarely used. His interest was in designing, building, and operating. Neither his nor my interest extended to scenery so that finishing (I suppose one might now use the term "rendering") the layout was always relegated to the never never. So different from other model railway enthusiasts who seem to major on realism. Having said that I did from time to time play with paper mache, green paint, moss for trees, etc., but it never got very far.

My interest, as I have said, was in "time and motion".  I "adjusted" my father's workmanship by cutting the track to make additional electric circuits. I did this contrary to his intention knowing that if I succeeded he would not disapprove. This is a great principle and has often held me in good stead in my present electronics design work - do not tell your client what you are doing until it it finished and working for fear that he will disapprove. I divided the down line into four sections. The start of each section was guarded by a colour light signal (which I made using grain-of-wheat bulbs) and a short isolating section to force an approaching train to stop if it did not obey the signal. Following this section was a short sense section wired via a "current relay". I invented and made these relays myself - they were basically a changeover contact operated by a low resistance solenoid, the resistance hardly affecting the train speed yet the current taken by the train being sufficient to operate the carefully balanced armature. The metal parts were held in place my a mixture of Polyfilla and PVA glue (which mixture takes a surprisingly long time to set). These relays (one per section) in turn each operated a 4-pole changeover telecoms relay to (a) effect automatic signalling and (b) automatically switch between two train controllers so as to give independent control of two trains on the same track. This system was wizard - it worked without fault for the entire lifetime of the Railway Room.

An additional improvement I made was to create a very simple inertia train controller. Knowing that the speed of an electric motor is largely governed by the applied voltage, but the torque depends on the current, I created a variable current controller with a preset offset current. Thus a higher than usual source voltage (more like 18V smoothed d.c. than the usual 12V bumpy d.c.) and more resistance than a conventional controller. The offset was adjusted to just balance the friction in the train, so that it would approximately maintain the train at constant speed. I then had a throttle which increased, and a brake that decreased the current respectively. This arrangement also was wizard - it was a serious improvement on the traditional controllers then available and made "driving" the train more of a challenge because you could not simple turn the control anticlockwise to stop the train - you had, to some degree, allow for interia.

All this has now be superseded by electronic train control. I do not know how succesfully because I have not had the chance to try one of these new controllers.

Another of my improvements: we had point motors to operate all the major turnouts. These consisted of two solenoids and traditionally were operated using a passing contact switch. Because the "passing" duration depended on how quickly you operated these switches, and because the solenoids were poorly rated, points often got stuck half way with disastrous results. The simple expedient was to operate the point motor from a capacitor charged by a resistor from a suitable supply. My control panel had exposed brass screw "buttons" and a stylus - two such buttons per point - touching a button connected the capacitor to the solenoid and gave it a good jolt enough to always operate it fully but with no adverse effect. I think I was even able to operate two points in parallel. The same button system was used for selecting which controller when entering the first section and other functions, the game being to design it such that the same stylus could be used for all functions!

The "time and motion" study was punctuated with the task of transfering trains from up line to down line. There are two routes from up line to down line, coloured green and magenta in my diagram. The latter involved a very steep descent. But no easy way to get back is shown. There would have been a cross-over in the station (which I have not shown). I really cannot remember any better method, nor can I figure out how it could have been engineered.

Time and motion was of course the essential element in my running around the perimeter of the sports field at Peter Symonds imagining myself as a train and, I have to say, is an element in my running to this day.

But I forget - this post was meant to be a precursor. How did railway sessions begin? They were invariably on a Sunday afternoon. Rather in the same way as the dog Meg hangs about of the weekend gauging when it is that I will be donning running gear and setting out, I would make myself obviously "available" (e.g. reading a book and not hiving off to my workshop). But it must never be discussed openly because that would run the risk of my mother suggesting some alternative activity (railways did not interest her and she was jealous of the time we spent railwaying we knew that all too well). One moment we would be altogether in the front room (this room was only used by the family on Sundays or to play the piano, although I would sneak in there at other times to read because I loved the front room, I loved the armchairs and the floral carpet and being alone). Next thing I would look up from my book and he would be gone. So then I would have to surreptitiously absent myself to see if it was railway time. I would creep up the steep steps and adopt my position of second in command, usually without a word, and so it would go until we were called for tea time.

Did my mother or sisters join in? There were, I admit, rare cases when any of the above came up to see what all the fuss was about, but it never worked. They were never interested in what made us tick and so their presence became a digression and they soon left out of boredom or feeling unwanted.

What did father and son talk about? Nothing more than instructions about transfer from up to down line, etc. - why talk if there is nothing to say? I do not remember deep conversations such as one is meant to have. My father's input into my life was via short remarks. And because such remarks were not frequent I guess I took notice of them when they happened. So when he told me that Carol**** was not my kind of girl I dropped my asperations (after all, I had not even been sure myself). When, later in life, he and mum told me I might be being foolish in giving up a good secure job with the BBC, selling my house for less than the market value and pooling the proceeds to buy a "community" house, and deciding to teach our own children I listened and took their remarks very seriously, so seriously that I still have their letter and I still remember their pain. Although it did not change my course of action.

Wow - Bruckner's eighth is so beautiful. I think I said that before but it was some while ago indeed it would have been the last time I listened to it. Like clotted cream or Narnia stories, too much or too often would be sacrilege.

Railway time and motion studies, sheer colour, loneliness, barefoot running, Bruckner's eighth - the love of none of these pleasures have I yet met in another person. Am I so very weird?

Idle youth

I apologise for my disparaging comments concerning today's youth compared with that expected in my book '1001 things for a boy to do' - see this encouraging article.

Ginty

Bailey family at 10 Weir gardens

From left to right we have yours truly, my dad, Ginty, my mum, my older sister Margaret, Aunty Mary and Nana behind the camera.  I started by writing about my father but soon discovered that a necessary precursor was an introduction to his family and in particular his father who we children called 'Ginty'. Ginty is an Irish name (as in Paddy McGinty had a goat) but it does not appear to mean grandfather as I had imagined.

Prior to meeting Nana Ginty worked on the railroads in Canada and it was in a sawmill there that his lost two fingers on his right hand. This did not stop him being a reasonably accomplished church organist and carpenter. He passed on his love of organs to his son and grandson.

He also played the violin.

On returning from Canada Ginty could not have had much money because it was a Miss Knight, who I think was Nana's aunt, who put forward the money to buy 10 Weir Gardens. Although she passed away before I came on the scene, she exists in my memory as a kind of dark but necessary shadow over the Bailey side of the family.

My father had a younger sister, my Aunty Mary, whose influence on my life deserves a post of its own, and an even younger brother who died in early childhood. Mary cared for Nana through her final years suffering with breast cancer which she had refused to disclose to the medical profession until it was too late, and continued to live at 10 Weir Gardens until she was too frail to look after herself.

Our family would alternate between spending Christmas at Rayleigh or having them stay with us. The latter arrangement almost drove my poor mother insane, and being at Rayleigh was little better. We children also suffered but differently. It was not exactly that they disliked children - it was more that they made us feel like we were a nuisance. As a result we hated going to Rayleigh. Even when visiting Mary in her later life, as soon as I came within about five miles of Rayleigh a terrible feeling of desolation and foreboding came over me, as if the very air had become heavy and grey.  Even the place names still seem grey to me: Essex, Billericay, Wickford, Eastwood, Rochford, Chelmsford.

I have mentioned before that there were five dogs and cats without number. The cats had free access 24/7 to the kitchen (a window was left open) and this included all the work surfaces. So dog or cat hairs in the food were par for the course. And the washing up facilities were best not thought about - if it wasn't that hunger lends a rosy tint I might not have eaten at all whilst there. Actually this was more my mum's and my sister's experience as I was too young to make the connection. I could never understand then why Ginty always did the washing up - but I think I know now.

My memories of food at Rayleigh include smoked fish with bread and butter (swimming in the juice) - often a quick meal on arrival after a day long drive from Alresford (no motorways in those days). Nana's steak and kidney pie had a totally different taste to my mother's and yet it was one of her better meals in spite of the cat hairs. On one occasion I remember my sister and spreading butter on our toast and, on tasting, finding the butter was way off - I can vividly remember the taste being similar to strong blue cheese. When we pointed this out the grown ups told us there was (of course) nothing wrong with it and forced us to eat it (which we kind of did) - but curiously recanted when they got to taste it!

Unlike our visits to granddad's house or to Aunty Bee and Uncle Elf we were not showered with toys when we arrived at Rayleigh. Having said that there was the monkey up a palm tree - he would jiggle down the trunk when placed at the top; and a trolley on a ramp that would fill with sand (it had to be dry and clean) from a hopper, then run down the ramp under gravity, deposit its load and return to the top.  Both were made of tin plate and had to be constantly supervised by grown ups which lessened their usefulness as toys.

It is my theory that the dark side of my memories came from the Knight influence. I have often wondered what Ginty made of all this. An example of the strangeness of Nana and Mary was that both appeared to dislike female company but positively adored both Ginty and my dad: they could do no wrong in their eyes. As a child one did not question such behaviour and yet it left a bad taste. It was OTT.

10 Weir Gardens had a very distinctive smell - a Rayleigh smell. It was a small house and rather too full of stuff, not to mention the dogs and cats which doubtless helped the smell along. And not just the house - the garden also smelt. It was an untidy garden, as if whatever you did in the way of weeding and edging it would still remain untidy. At the end of the back garden there was a stream - more mud than stream and also untidy as was the undergrowth beyond this through which you could get to the field beyond.

Interestingly my younger sister (seven years younger) does not have the same memories.

But the subject of this post is Ginty. He was the most normal Rayleigh-ite. He played music, kept a bevy of tape recording machines and made things out of wood. Although he, too, was somewhat distant from us children he did at least try to make me feel at ease.

When I was a bit older I overheard a conversation in which Ginty was telling my dad about meeting a man who spoke in tongues. I pricked up my ears and was pleased to find that Ginty had an open mind about such things: this raised him a peg or two in my estimation.

Ginty never learnt to drive (I know not why) and Nana's driving was hardly up to long distance so it was not unusual, when we were staying there, for my parents to take us for a drive and thus escape from the tendrils of 10 Weir Gardens. But everywhere I remember going in Essex was flat and dull and grey. Here is Nana in a typical stance on one such trip at Maldon, a particularly grey spot in my memory. Maybe that's why this slide has become so moldy. One bright memory though - here it was that Mary might possibly have saved my life - I had wandered out into the vast areas of mud and had started to sink: I wailed (I was very small at the time and knew no better) and it was she (may God rest her soul) who ran to my rescue.

I think I may have mentioned that Ginty loved organs. His ambition was to build an organ, but he neither had the financial resources nor the space to do this. He did make a few organ pipes and kept books on the subject, and during outings in the car would want my father to stop at random churches to check out their organs.  I have in my possession a hand-written copy he made of the 1887 book 'Organ Building for Amateurs' by Mark Wicks. Strange to think that even photocopying was not an option then and yet you can now download this book for free from the 'net.

For interest here are some pages from the downloaded version compared with Ginty's copy.

Ginty's title page

Sample pages

I hope you can tell which is the original!

I used to have a book entitled something like "1001 things for a boy to do" which came from the same era - one of the things a boy could apparently do was to build a fully working steam engine from scratch. The nearest most children get to this sort of thing now-a-days is to create virtual civilisations using high-level tools in a computer game. Unobtainable as making a real steam engine might seem, some young people really do make organs and have found this book invaluable, see for example:

I found this invoice in Ginty's copy of the book.  Nice to see pounds, shillings and pence again.

As for the violin... the house had only two bedrooms and a small bathroom upstairs so getting us all bedded was a challenge: typically I would be on a camp bed in Nana and Ginty's room, under which was the back room aka music room. There was a large wall clock at the foot of the stairs with a large tick and a loud and creepy chime on the quarter. It was here that I learnt how to not be able to get to sleep - I lay there unable to shut out the wailing violin downstairs punctuated by chimes and loud ticks and fearful of steadily approaching midnight when, I had helpfully been informed, all the woodwork in the house would come to life and would start to move around. Children can believe that stuff. The same as I seriously believed that (back at home) our neighbour (who shot game on Alresford lake) might shoot us when he mock brandished his shot gun, and for a while I lived in fear of meeting him in case he had his gun.

I am glad to report that I have since learnt to be able to get to sleep - but it took a fair bit of unlearning what Rayleigh had taught me.

Eschatology was another bee in Ginty's bonnet and another bee that my father inherited. On one occasion I begged to differ from my father in his eschatological beliefs and got such an ear-full that it has affected my opinion of the subject ever since. Here is the only other tangible memory I now have of Ginty (apart from a reed puller which is very useful for getting things out of small spaces): this time not a copy. Amazingly you can still buy this book and it is still highly regarded.

Frontispiece (click to view larger version)

This book is full of complex charts of which I include only one. I cannot claim to have read the whole book as it somewhat blows my mind: it is not that I necessarily either agree or disagree but rather that it is, well OTT.  Here is the chart in question:

It is an explanation of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar dreamed (Daniel 2:31). Ginty made a humongous  copy of this picture and coloured it beautifully, doubtless using it as a sermon aid (yes, I forgot to say, he was a Reverend for part of his life). Some while after his death Mary decided to give this masterpiece to my older sister, possibly because her husband is a Baptist pastor and she though he could or perhaps should use it. I have to record that in the course of time my sister disposed of said artifact. To Mary this was an unforgivable sin, such was her adoration of all things Ginty. This adoration was, well, OTT. It was not worth discussing anything that Ginty had done or made because it would almost certainly be taken the wrong way.

I have mentioned in a previous post the way Ginty saved my face when I fell into the watercress beds and wetted my "pants" as he called them: this above all other memories is when I started to respect him.

He had a particular smell: odd the things children remember.

Before 10 Weir Gardens and before my time they lived in a timber structure they called the "Cottage" in The Chase. Here it was that Ginty and my dad made wooden toys for a living. My own workshop in the Top Garden at home was a section of a larger workshop in which were cupboards full of half finished wooden trains and suchlike, left over from those days.

In my time Ginty had a workshop - it was only a small garden shed but it packed with floor to ceiling with boxes of this and that and all in perfect order. These things suffered from damp and neglect after his death so by the time I got to being offered anything there was little of any value, but I do still have some brass chain and some brass gimp pins from his collection.

On one occasion, when they were visiting us at home, I was drawing one of my marvelous mechanical inventions in my random free-hand style and Ginty saw it and tried to teach me how to draw proper engineering drawings using a ruler and a scale. On another occasion I was making a small box to house a battery and lamp to illuminate a china model lighthouse I had been given, and Ginty gently scolded my imprecision and helped me joint the corners properly.

Thus I have some fond memories of Ginty mingled with the horrors of Rayleigh.

Ginty died peacefully whilst sitting in his chair in the back room. They say he had some premonition and put his affairs in order beforehand. He lay in his coffin in the back room for several days before the funeral, Irish style - it was so when we arrived from Alresford for the funeral and I found the idea of a dead body in the house somewhat horrific. This was the first funeral that I experienced emotional feelings in.

Silsean and Moanbane again

Cairn, Silsean

 The last time I climbed Silsean my daughter chided me for not having my mobile phone with me.  What would happen if you broke your leg, no-one would know where you were and you would be left to decay on the mountain side. So I took my mobile phone this time: I did not break my leg but I did get to chat to Kate and was able to take some photos. This Nokia has a pretty appalling camera (all 2M-pixels of it, and not helped by a layer of dust inside the lens - must do something about that...) but it is better than naught and I can now post my own pictures rather than borrow them from the 'net.

There is probably some law against climbing on cairns, but I was barefoot and trod very carefully and circumspectly to obtain the following picture:

Me on camera

I don't think my legs are really that thick. As I said in my previous post Silsean does have a "pond" although it is mostly mud (although the water is only a few inches deep I can testify that the mud is up to two feet deep in places).

Pond just north of the cairn

This time I continued on to Moanbane (which for the purposes of this post I am assuming is the more northerly companion peak). Just like the other sites say it does indeed have a pond on the top - I tested one end and it was a good 18" deep with, of course, a muddy floor: not deep enough for swimming.  It seems contrary to nature to place a pond on the very top of a mountain - you would think it would fall off.

Moanbane pond looking North

Moanbane pond looking South (Silsean cairn in the distance)

Back to Silsean again

On the way down, Valleymount is visible stretching across the lake towards our home somewhere in the distance

Sphagnum moss (in reality it was much greener than this - such a beautiful green)

Half running down hill I come across plenty of wet gullies lined with moss: these provide a more comfortable passageway when barefoot than last year's heather although I have to watch for rocks and holes.  And then I enter the last mile of forest. Since my last trip they have been felling so there are piles of logs and very muddy tracks made by the heavy machinery.

The highest part of the forest - this was a moss-carpeted track before the trees toppled

The lower part of the forest is laced with water

And finally the last half mile which is now deforested

I return to the trusty velocipede and trainers, and turn left to return via the downhill section to the main Wicklow Gap road and thence to home.

Barefoot lake run

A new route (well, new for barefoot) - 15.5km (almost 10 miles). Some parts were at walking pace because of rocks, but it was mostly run-able although pretty exhausting for both dog and me. Finding new routes only enforces my preference to run barefoot. It is hard to explain why to those of you who wonder at my sanity: it does feel good (some people pay good money to have their feet massaged) and there is something pleasing about getting about without need for man-made aids. In a less direct way cycling is also very pleasing: even though a machine is involved it is powered by your own steam. But I have no particular wish to evangelize...

Lady Watts and corrections

Walk down Broad Street on the left hand (West) side and continue down Mill Hill and you will find this garden on the left. When I was a boy it was owned by the widowed Lady Dorothy Dudley Watts. She was very friendly and would even talk to us children and I thought it was neat to have actually conversed with a real lady.  The term "lady" is horribly misused now-a-days.

As for the "corrections", here are some extracts from an email from my sister following my last blog:

Aunty Eva was mum's mother's sister, not granddad's.  Sorry!

The picture of grandad and mum and you and me was taken at Aunty Bee's house, Anglebury, in Woking.  Here is a Streetview picture of the cul-de-sac that Anglebury was in.  I remember dragging a wooden toy with wheels along this road which was then rough gravel. I also remember my dad taking us children to the nearby footbridge over the railway to watch the trains.

In the picture of East Street granddad and Aunty Eva lived in the purple house, number 50, (it did not have the single story extension then).

The old Congregational church where dad and mum got married still exists though not as a church and is in Pound Hill, not West Street. Dad used to run the Sunday school but they left when I was 8, so you would have been 5. We didn't immediately go to New Farm - for at least a couple of years we went to the Baptist church in Winchester and dad played the organ.  I remember being allowed to sit next to dad on the long organ bench as he played.  The hymn "Crown Him with many crowns..." still always reminds me of that church.  I found the building that was the Congregational church on Streetview:

Regarding mum's illness, she had had rheumatic fever as a girl of 14 and missed a whole year's school. This damaged her heart and when I was about 10 she had a recurrence of it and we were farmed out to stay with all sorts of people, and given a midday dinner with David and Betty Fairhead for ages, which disgusted me as at first dad had taken us to the Corner Cafe for lunch which I thought was wonderful in that you could choose what you ate!  I remember eating a roast chicken dinner at the Corner Cafe, complete with bread sauce, and it met all my expectations. There is nothing quite so bad as eating out and paying through the nose for it and the meal not meeting one's expectations - I regret this happens all too often.

My mother

If mothers have strap-lines then my mother's might have been "quietly determined". I think inherited a bit of this trait from her: I remember on one occasion her telling me that I had a stubborn streak. Like most children do I am afraid that I totally took my mother for granted and thereby I missed the opportunity to get to know her as a friend. I do know that she was a praying woman - I remember often seeing her on her knees by her bedside. Mind you, she had prejudices: she would not buy butter that had been imported from China (not sure that I would mind you!) and didn't have a good word to say about Roman Catholics. Of course I loved her, but like I said I took her for granted.

Here she is as a young girl, and a beautiful portrait of her as a young woman.

To give some idea of context, here's yours truly in typical garb though untypically looking cleaner than usual, and my mother as I remember her. The workshop of Smith & Crockford is visible in the background. The gate from our little bit of garden onto the yard was later moved over to the far right.

My mother's father Alan Crockford lived in East Street next to John Arlott's house, not that I ever noticed him. Here is a recent picture of that part of East Street, and picture of my mother with granddad and I suppose my sister Margaret and myself.

I remember all that you can see about him - the way he held his head, the braces, the trousers hitched high, hands in pockets. He used to frequently give my older sister and me boiled sweets, especially barley sugars: possibly this is the reason why I now have so many fillings and hate barley sugars. Or maybe they were never that good. His wife died ages before my era, so my mother was brought up by an aunt, and Alan's sister, "aunty Eva" to us, looked after him. In those days we had "tea" there once a week with tinned fruit salad served with tinned milk being the order of the day.  It was considered a treat in those days: we had to eat it with bread and butter, the idea being that it was too good to consume neat so it had to be diluted. This principle of eating has stuck with me and to this day I find there is something wrong in eating meat, fish or cheese on its own: I have to dilute it with potato, bread or some vegetable. There were other food rules like no second cake unless you first have at least two slices of bread, no jam on your first slice of bread, and of course we had to finish what was on our plate. As a result now, even when in a restaurant, I find myself apologizing if I leave anything uneaten.

I found this interesting post - I thought at first this was the house he and Aunty Eva lived in, but in fact it is one or more to the right, but doubtless the "Allan Crockford" was my granddad as he was a builder and invested in property.

Every week I used to play draughts with him but first had to wait until he had finished the ritual of listening to The Archers on a valve wireless set. Hearing the theme tune, unchanged in all those years, still brings back those memories.

The following entries of deaths appear in the parish register.

CROCKFORD ALAN EAST ST. 1963-11-04 76 C 4 10 315
CROCKFORD DAISY JANE EAST ST. 1930-11-28 46 C 4 10 1197


But, hang on, this blog was meant to be about my mother...

I do not personally remember too much about my parents wedding, but I have these pictures:

I have included the second picture because of my grandad. And the first picture is taken in front of the old Congregational church where the ceremony took place - this building was in West Street but no longer exists. As a family we "worshiped" there until such time as my father has some issue with their doctrine and and changed allegiance to New Farm Chapel - which does not seem to have changed in appearance since I left there apart from the addition of a circular window.

Taking Paul's injunction literally, women were not allowed to speak in church. My mother most certainly would have, had she been allowed, for she was forever composing sermons which, I suppose, none but her eyes ever read.

And then we took that fateful family holiday in Scotland. On the way up we stopped by the shore of Loch Lomond because she was not feeling well. I remember my dad and I half heartedly climbed a little way up a hill overlooking the loch. She was complaining of weakness and her ankles were swollen. I cannot remember whether we continued or returned home at that point, but that was the beginning of her heart problems which ended in what was then a very serious operation in a London hospital to replace a heart valve.  I remember, while she was in the convalescent home, taking her out to nearby Selborne hanger.

This is a wooded escarpment into which has been carved a zig-zag path - my mother was not up to walking much and she encouraged me to go off exploring as was (and still is) my want - but somehow it didn't seem to suit the circumstances.

I am not sure about the relative dates, but around that time I must have started work at the BBC Research Department, got married (doubtless to be the subject of another blog), given in my notice (another blog to be) and moved to Grennell Lodge (another blog..., and now a nursing home).  From time to time we visited my parents or they traveled to see us. There were rumours of wars (more on this when I blog about my dad) but I have always been a bit naive and I do not care too much about hear-say. And then the telephone call in which I was told that, whilst she went upstairs to take an afternoon nap, my father strolled up to the top garden possibly to have a cigarette and doubtless to blow some cobwebs out of his mind and then, on his return, he went upstairs to look for my mother and found her dead, still in bed. It was confirmed that the cause of death was related to the heart valve. My only hope was that she passed away without pain.

The following entry is recorded in the parish register:

BAILEY KATHLEEN CECILIA EVE 1982-04-19 61 EX/S 96 722

So what do I remember most about my mother? The fact that she loved me unconditionally, so that after leaving home I knew I was always welcome back. The fact that both my parents spent quality time with us children, so that there was never a feeling of being unwanted. The fact that they believed in discipline and taught us Godly principle (mind you, such indoctrination is not always an advantage). Happy family outings and the yearly holiday usually in the West Country are etched in my mind. My mother was quite an artist, though never exhibited her work: generally she never thought she was good enough at anything, but she took care with all that she did. Morning coffee (hmmm... instant coffee powder and made with hot milk and sugar, but I loved it) and a few biscuits. A special supper after all the meetings on Sunday evening. The handmade rug she used to work on in odd moments of free time (of which she seemed to have little) and which never seemed to get finished. Her getting up before anyone else in the winter and laying a fire in the living room to take off the chill (there was no other heating in the house back then, and even when my father installed gas fired central heating it was rarely used because of the expense: and no double glazing so Jack Frost was a common occurrence. Being conscious that she got hurt when dad said things, that she found his folk so very hard to get on with (didn't we all?). That, on the subject of me and girls, rather than probe she simply said that one day I would come home with a girl on my arm and that would be that, and this is exactly what did happen some years later.

And that my mother's folk were relatively normal. The folk that she stayed with when her mother died, Aunty Bee and Uncle Elf (Alf), who lived in Woking: although they were the type that you knew you had to behave with, we children also knew that they loved us, made room for us, and we felt safe and entirely happy whenever we visited them. Granddad I have already mentioned. Aunty Eva was a bit starchy but her being a spinster might have had something to do with that. There were cousins and other distant relations and as far as I can remember they were all relatively normal too.

Now I have grown up, I would love to be able to go backwards in time and be able to talk to her and share where I am at and get her input. If only I had spent more time with her...