My Mum was 42 when she had me (I’m a post war baby as my Dad spent several WW11 years in the RAF in India) so not surprisingly I’m now an orphan.
That’s my Mum on the left.
Amy Ashworth, born in Rochdale, 17th October 1907.
She had 3 sisters and 2 brothers but one, the eldest Bertram, died of TB. She left school aged 13 unwillingly, she was very clever, but her mother was having a baby, my Auntie Joan, the youngest on the photo and needed help. That didn’t stop my mother though, she got work, took herself off to night school, became a super-speed shorthand typist and before she married was PA to the boss at Turner’s Asbestos.
She probably made the dress she’s wearing on the photo above, herself. She must have been working for almost 2 years but she looks so young. Her mum was a skilled dressmaker. I never met my maternal grandmother as she died just before I was born but she supposedly never made any dresses for my Mum, so she must have had hand-me-downs from her elder sister or later on made her own and she continued to do so for a good part of her life. She made wedding dresses (and bridesmaid’s dresses) for both my elder sisters and taught me so well that I made my own…. twice
This is my Mum on the bike
She taught me honesty and I hope kindness and to love learning and reading and writing and she taught me to touch type and to knit and to embroider but had to give me a teach yourself leaflet for crochet as I’m left handed and she was right and she admited defeat trying to demonstrate.
And she taught me to cook (I won the Victoria sandwich class at the church when I was 10) and sent me for singing lessons when I was 9 so I sang my way through my childhood …. and if you happen to pass my house when I’m working in the garage you will probably hear that I’m singing still.
Think I was 9 here, in the cardigan with the different coloured grey cuffs, she must have run out of the rust wool
Even more than all these lessons she taught me I could be what I wanted to be and do what I wanted to do and I did.
I wish my mother was here now so I could show her the glass I make.
I know she would love it and I would fill her house with pretty suncatchers to thank her for everything she taught me. I make new pieces sometimes and hang them in the window for her to see if she likes it… I know she does.
She was always so proud of me, my singing, my crafting, my university education (the first in the family) and my super IT job ,which she didn’t understand but was happy that it was a good one.
She would have been so pleased to see me still making after all the things she taught me to make.
Thank you Mum xxx I miss you.
