It will soon become apparent from this website that I am very proud of my parents. The full lives they lived, and the massive personal contributions they both made to the society and times in which they lived are incredible, as was the impact of those times on them too. Lives lived to the full, in every sense.
I was only twenty three when my mother died, and twenty eight when my father died. It is with very deep regret that I did not get to know them more. My stock of personal memories of them is shamefully low. After my mother died, I think I only saw my father once and am quite certain that I never talked to him about his life and experiences, thought and feelings. I did not find it easy to talk to him unfortunately. It is a matter to me of very great regret that we never discussed together his life and feelings. I'm sure he would have done this with me had I asked, but regrettably I never did. As far as I know, he never, for example talked about his experiences during the second world war. How fascinating I would find that now. All I have is a few photographs to stimulate my imagination. Creating this site has helped me to remember what memories I do have and to give them structure. By thinking deeply about the evidence I have of their lives, and during the process of piecing it together in order to make sense of it, forgotten memories have come back to me.
Because of my lack of first hand evidence, and my own limited memories despite being one of her children, it often occurs to me that I have have the story, and perhaps more to the point my viewpoint on her personanlity and more completely wrong. But the alternative is to write or express nothing. I accept that if the above statement is true, that instead of being about her, that what I have really written about is myself. I often think anyway that there is no truth. Only personal truth. What I have written is my understanding of truth. It is not the whole truth, nor could there be such a thing. I can defend my interpretation of the truth, and am willing to alter or add to the detail of such truth should reliable evidence materialize. As Skakespeare wrote 'To be or not to be, that is the question'. I am fond of that quote. For me when we speak of others, in this case mainly my mother, it is often the case that it is our selves that are revealed, and also that questions reveal more than answers.
Of course not everything was good in their story. Bringing up seven children in post wartime Britain was bound, to put it very mildly, to have it's ups and downs, as it surely did, and continues to do with any family. This is not the place to write about the bad. This website is a celebration of her life, and what was, to my mind good about their marriage.
It started out mainly about my mother, and this has remained the case, but it has seemed more and more natural to me to bring my father into the story too.
I was only twenty three when my mother died, and twenty eight when my father died. It is with very deep regret that I did not get to know them more. My stock of personal memories of them is shamefully low. After my mother died, I think I only saw my father once and am quite certain that I never talked to him about his life and experiences, thought and feelings. I did not find it easy to talk to him unfortunately. It is a matter to me of very great regret that we never discussed together his life and feelings. I'm sure he would have done this with me had I asked, but regrettably I never did. As far as I know, he never, for example talked about his experiences during the second world war. How fascinating I would find that now. All I have is a few photographs to stimulate my imagination. Creating this site has helped me to remember what memories I do have and to give them structure. By thinking deeply about the evidence I have of their lives, and during the process of piecing it together in order to make sense of it, forgotten memories have come back to me.
Because of my lack of first hand evidence, and my own limited memories despite being one of her children, it often occurs to me that I have have the story, and perhaps more to the point my viewpoint on her personanlity and more completely wrong. But the alternative is to write or express nothing. I accept that if the above statement is true, that instead of being about her, that what I have really written about is myself. I often think anyway that there is no truth. Only personal truth. What I have written is my understanding of truth. It is not the whole truth, nor could there be such a thing. I can defend my interpretation of the truth, and am willing to alter or add to the detail of such truth should reliable evidence materialize. As Skakespeare wrote 'To be or not to be, that is the question'. I am fond of that quote. For me when we speak of others, in this case mainly my mother, it is often the case that it is our selves that are revealed, and also that questions reveal more than answers.
Of course not everything was good in their story. Bringing up seven children in post wartime Britain was bound, to put it very mildly, to have it's ups and downs, as it surely did, and continues to do with any family. This is not the place to write about the bad. This website is a celebration of her life, and what was, to my mind good about their marriage.
It started out mainly about my mother, and this has remained the case, but it has seemed more and more natural to me to bring my father into the story too.