I often reflect on the wonderful mothers I have had in my life, especially when Mother’s Day gets close. Although many sons could say much of a positive nature about their mothers, I briefly offer my own experiences and circumstances—they may be a little different. I publicly declare my enormous appreciation for mothers, despite having experienced much motherly absence in my own life. I am also conscious that Heavenly Father was most likely involved in the positive aspects of my short account; He certainly was in later years when I was blessed by being baptised at the age of 33, along with my wife Jenny.
My natural mother Irene was unknown to me; she died from a serious infection in 1946 caused by inadequately clean medical instruments. I was 8-months old at the time, so the key consequence for me was the loss of that physical bond so essential to an infant in their early years. I was the fourth child, so very fortunately there were older siblings who had some memories of Irene; and even more fortunate was the connection I made with Shirley, the dear life-time friend of my oldest sibling Gwen, who fondly recalled her memories of my mother.
At 8 and 9 years old, Shirley would often visit our home in Hayes, within a stone’s throw of her own home. She always remembers the very kind lady that was my mother. This connection with Shirley was made when I was in my fifties, and fortunately well before Gwen passed away in her late 70s – this long-distance friendship between Shirley in England and Gwen in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, was crucial to me in becoming better acquainted with my early departed mother.
Following Irene’s death, my father Joe had to decide on his children’s care. My two oldest siblings (Gwen and Peter) were placed into an orphanage called Spurgeons, located in Reigate, Surrey (now the headquarters of the Surrey Fire Service). My immediately older sister Sue was taken in by Grandmother Ada, Irene’s mother. In my case, my father made an unusual arrangement by letting a young married couple, the Tappins, move into our house and become my foster parents; they cared for me while my father went to work in Nigeria for the next six years. (In later years I tried to find the Tappins, unfortunately without success.)
Then in 1950 my three siblings were shipped out to, what was then, Southern Rhodesia under the Fairbridge scheme, set up to provide opportunities in the British colonies for fruitful lives for orphaned British children.
In my case, I escaped ‘shipment’ by coming under the care of my stepmother Hilda in 1949, who moved into our house in Hayes with my half-brother John, while the Tappins moved away. Hilda was a marvellous lady and loved me as her own; she was in fact a good friend of Irene’s sister Molly. Hilda, John, and I, then spent 1951 and 1952 with Joe in Nigeria.
Among many very good deeds, Hilda was largely responsible for gathering the whole of Joe’s offspring as a family. In late 1952 Joe, Hilda, John, and I went to Southern Rhodesia, and siblings Gwen, Peter and Sue were taken out of the Fairbridge home, located near Bulawayo in the south, to join the rest of us now located in what was Salisbury, the capital. We were all together in the one home for a precious two years. Then, due to concerns about space in our three-bedroomed Rhodesia-Railways provided house, Gwen left to live in a special establishment set up to house young single women.
Those years in colonial Rhodesia were wonderful especially for John and me. As youngsters we lived a largely outdoor life, often running around barefoot and getting up to mischief, but mostly creatively (building platforms in trees; forming rowing boats from corrugated metal sheets – usually used for roofing purposes; fabricating, dare I say it, catapults from carefully chosen branches of trees and rubber strips from old car-tyre inner tubes, and bows that we used to shoot arrows made from dried elephant grass with pins in their heads and chicken feathers as flights). Hilda was always around to attend to our injuries, and provide as best she could for us, including repairing clothing that still had ‘mileage’ in them.
Most significantly, Irene was a devoted Christian, of the Anglican order. She gave time to keeping the local church building clean and tidy. It was she who was responsible for bringing a knowledge of Christ into my life and helping me to prepare for confirmation in the Anglican faith when I was twelve (I also had to be baptised just before, as there was no record of this having been done when I was an infant). I remember many of those times.
But, tragically within a year, in my thirteenth year, Hilda died from a blood-based disease, probably arising from an insect bite, but never confirmed. So, the wonderful architect of our recovered life was taken away from the family that she had gathered, loved, and cared for during the 1950s.
Life thereafter was very much based on the children taking up various responsibilities, the greatest burden falling on Sue (Gwen married a year later in 1959). Gwen nevertheless became a confidant during my growing teenage years. Not surprisingly, my formal attachment to the Anglican faith quickly faded, my father being a declared atheist. However, I often wonder whether, in some way or another, the spirit of Hilda, in her post-mortal state, was influencing events when I became a Latter-day Saint in 1979 (I do like to think so).
Now, onto my third ‘mother’, in fact my mother-in-law Christine. Jenny’s parents Christine and Bill were a wonderful kindly couple – what examples they were to Jenny and I, as we started our own family (eventually including six children). There came a time after some house moves during our early years of our marriage, that Jenny’s parents relocated a few miles away from our home in Tunbridge Wells. Christine was an ever-present support to Jenny in those days, and she was always very welcome to our home. I mostly remember the happy banter she and I would have. When she passed away in 2000, in her mid 80s, it took me years to come to terms with her absence; one always seems more appreciative of loss in later years. To say I had a soft spot for Christine would understate it. She was my adopted mother, whether she knew it or not. I remember, once so shocked and agitated by Jenny’s and my joining the Church, Christine in subsequent years became a staunch defender, while remaining wedded to her Anglican faith. Close to her death she occasionally expressed doubts, but I tried to reassure her that her faith in Christ was not misplaced.
Finally, I must add my love for my wife of 55 years – what a mother she has been to our children, someone who has been ever ready to serve them, and her grandchildren, as well as her slothful husband, without question or reservation. What a treasure!
What treasures are all our mothers. (I must say, somewhat tongue in cheek, that I have an alternate insight into Christ’s observation that “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”, 3 Nephi 13:21.)