Some early history

My mother, Hilda Cook, was born on 6th May 1916, the only child of George and Miriam Cook whose histories have been the subject of other articles in these pages ("A Wand'ring Minstrel, I!"). Miriam died a few days after the birth, and as it was during World War 1, Hilda was sent to be brought up by her mother's sister Mary Ball and her husband William. They had two sons, Bill and Cyril who were considerably older and so I guess her upbringing was as an only child.

Mum had a good education. She went to Alderman Newton Girls' School, a Leicester City grammar school. Her uncle was a master at Alderman Newton Boys School. She had various tales to tell of those days: the school desks were the type which had the seat attached which tipped up to allow ease of use. One day, she was supposed to be doing homework after school while waiting to go home with her uncle but instead was standing on a seat looking out of an open window and waving at the boys leaving school opposite. The seat tipped up causing her to crash to the floor with her foot trapped in the seat and she had to be rescued by one of the school mistresses. On another occasion, she has been doing cookery and had to carry home the finished dish. Unfortunately it was a rainy day and the paper carrier bag got wet (no plastic in those days!). The casserole dropped out of the bottom scattering meat and potatoes all over the pavement.

She learned to play the piano but was not very enthusiastic about the practising. She told of being left to practise for an hour and was so bored she moved the hand of the clock forward in the hope of being let off early! Her uncle was not amused!

My Mum

Mum was one of the traditional mothers. After the war she and Dad, who had been away for 5 years, moved into 358 Fosse Road North, Leicester which was to be the family home until they moved north to be near Alan in the early 1990's.

Her world revolved around that house and the family. It was the traditional family unit - mothers tended not to go out to work in that era.

Money must have been tight in the early days and to make the weekly housekeeping stretch a little further, the spare bedroom was let to two students from the local college, first we had architects and then pharmacists. Mum therefore had six to feed as the students were on half-board with full board at the weekends. Generally they were a sociable lot - especially during the annual Rag Week. I have a memory of one architect called Dick who borrowed the sheets off his bed to dress up as a Roman and went out on the streets of Leicester rattling his collecting tin. If the weather was fine we often took Saturday afternoon picnics to the local park with one or two students in tow. Simple pleasures with much fun and laughter.

Continued in column 2...

Friendships

Mum's world extended to a few close friends, especially Ann Potter who had been her bridesmaid in 1940 and lived close by. Together they cleaned the church silver, went on shopping trips and held coffee mornings at each other's houses. My secondary school was the Collegiate Girls' in Glebe Road. After school, as an occasional Friday treat, I would walk into town and meet Mum and Ann in Wynn's café for an orange squash and chocolate box cake. (If Alan joined us, his passion was a cream bun with lemon icing!)

Mum was good at keeping in touch with family and friends. In an age before computers, mobile phones and text messaging, she maintained the now dying art of letter writing, regularly keeping in touch with Ida and Lew Blackwell in Canada, Freda Green in New Zealand, as well as scattered relatives and friends around the UK.

She inherited the love of reading from her father, which she has passed on to me. Her grammar school education would probably have lead her to a more interesting career these days, but when she left school in the early 1930's she became a shop assistant at Joseph Johnson's department store where she met my father who worked in the office there.

I don't think she ever regretted giving up a working life - if she did she never expressed it to me. She took great pride in the achievements of her children - especially Alan's graduation in Dundee ("My son the doctor ..."!) She would have liked to travel abroad, holidays having been restricted to the UK - caravans when we were small, later touring Scotland when they were on their own. She often expressed a wish to see Rome and the Vatican but never made it - Dad had had enough of travelling while away for 5 years in the war.

Later when I was married and the first grandchildren came along, they came on holiday with us. First to Devon when Jenny was a baby, and then to Ibiza when Rob was 10 weeks old. We hired a villa and had both sets of grandparents with us. It was a great time as everyone took turns looking after the children and Richard and I got out on our own!. Two further summer holidays with us followed in Spain and then Alan took them to Florida. Dad seemed to enjoy this type of foreign travel so long as he didn't have to arrange anything!

As a treat, in 1990 to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary Alan and I sent them on a flight on Concorde to Paris. Her cousin, Eva, sent them on a trip to Canada to stay with Lew and Ida Blackwell to complete their golden wedding celebrations. No doubt the war memories were brought up and fully discussed.

After they moved north to live in Whitley Bay, travelling seems to have stopped. They were living by the sea so Dad didn't see any need to travel. Mum's last few years were marred by increasing infirmity and she became bed and wheelchair bound. A series of mini strokes robbed her of her memory and her power of speech and she became a shell of the Mum I knew and loved. But I cherish the memories I have of her- she loved us and at the end of the day, that is what counts most.

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Added March 21st 2006
Last updated: March 14th 2012

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