Tomorrow it’s Mother’s Day so it may seem weird to post a pic of my Mum today. The reason is simple, tomorrow I’ll be spending my day travelling so won’t be able to share the day with this special lady.

I have the best Mum in the world. Throughout my life, she’s been a constant, unwavering source of support and help for me whenever I’ve needed it, no matter how hard that’s been for her.

Life hasn’t always made it easy for her to support me and my little sister. We were both born before Mum was 21 years old and although I’m more than twice that age I don’t feel equipped to be a mother even now.

Mum left school when she was 15 and went to work for that great British institution, Marks and Spencer. After my Dad’s pit accident, he joined the RAF and he was posted to Cyprus for three years. My parents couldn’t bear the thought of being apart for three years so got married on a special licence with two weeks notice and my Mum joined my Dad and they lived in a little house in the Troodos mountains. About eighteen months later, I came along and by the time they came home to the UK, my sister was on the way.

Being an RAF wife wasn’t much fun. She spent her early marriage in a country thousands of miles from home and so had no support from her family with me or with my sister. Once back in the UK we spent years moving every few months or years, often living in out-of-the-way places where there was little opportunity for a woman with no qualifications and two small children to work. She did some pretty bleak jobs. She picked fruit – backbreaking work, bending to pick strawberries in fields with no shelter from sweltering sun but it was a way of earning money without neglecting her parental duty to us and we never wanted for love or affection.

She worked in factories – making electrical sockets on Anglesey, lighters in Leatherhead and then for fourteen years in a dark room testing electron tubes for brain and body scanners in Ruislip. She often worked evenings so she could be at home for us before and after school. There were many years when she rarely saw my Dad because as he came home, she was on her way out to work.

About fifteen years or so ago, she proudly proclaimed that she was going to ‘pull herself up off the factory floor and get a clerical job’. To achieve that she took a course in typing at nightschool then went to a job interview and talked herself into a job by telling the boss she had no experience but that she would work hard and be a faithful employee for the rest of her working life. He was so impressed she got the job and, although officially retired last year, she has been working part time in my Dad’s office since then. They both retire later this year.

She offered us everything that money couldn’t buy despite not being able to offer us much that money could buy. She loved and cared for us throughout our childhood and to this day she loves us both still.

I saw my parents today and their love for one another, after nearly 46 years is still clear and strong and they seem happier now than ever, planning for retirement.

As a young adult, I struggled to afford my first home and both of my parents supported and helped me. Again, mostly not with money but with love and hard work. I remember a day, as though it was yesterday, opening the door to my Mum in my flat in Southall, covered in paint and in floods of tears because I’d just artexed the ceiling and it had all fallen down because the ceiling had previously been distempered and the artex hadn’t stuck. There was sandy gloopy paint everywhere. What did she do? She took off her coat, rolled up her sleeves, helped me mop up the mess then helped me to wash off the distemper and re-paint the ceiling with more artex. No word of complaint, no question of whether or not she’d got time or was happy to do it, she just did it because she could see I needed the moral support as much as anything.

Often she has had to stand by and watch me make mistakes. I’ve made them and then she’s picked me up again. Often we’ve had disagreements but we’re always friends before nightfall. Never sleep on an argument is one of her mottos. Often she’s a calming influence and sometimes she’s giggling with one of her sisters over some long ago incident and she seems like a young girl.

So, no apologies from me about posting this a day early, I can’t do it tomorrow and I don’t really need the prop of Mother’s day to say this.

I love my Mum. She’s special. She’s mine….oh, and Jan’s of course!