Mum’s final day was five years ago today, 17 March 2018, but there was another significant bereavement with the same date. I have therefore tended to mark 11 March, as it was on that day that I conversed with Mum for the last time, before she became unconscious.
I have written about the last conscious day, but not about the final few days – at some point I will do so, but not yet. During today’s journey, my wife said that as time went on she thought more about the good times and less about the illness of Mum and others who had passed away, and in many ways this is my perspective. On both the 11th and today (17th), we marked the day by a journey; in both cases to North Wales. Revisiting places that people have known feels something like reconnecting, or continuing the connection, with them, although, since Wallasey was the town that Mum knew best, various locations there provide multi-layered reminders.
On the 11th and 17th we went on different routes and in very different weather; on the 11th, it was very cold, sleeting started in Llandudno, and it was snowing heavily when we beat a retreat via Rhuallt Hill on the A55. The itineraries can be summarised briefly.
On the 11th we went through Mold and into a snow-laden countryside past Loggerheads, which Mum had visited as a child, and the Clwyd Gate, near to the site of the last family caravan. We called at the Ruthin Craft Centre, a favourite place of ours, which I don’t think we visited with Mum, and then down the Vale of Clwyd, which she once told me was one of the most beautiful places that she had visited.
Once onto the A55 coast road, we turned off to go into Rhos, a place in which she had holidayed with my late sister in 1974, very successfully, and then a disastrous time the next year with Dad and myself. I had re-visited Rhos with Mum after Dad’s demise, to the Rhos Abbey Hotel (now long demolished) and later Sumner’s Restaurant (renamed, but still trading in the same location). We stopped here and walked round the block, as it grew much colder, and decided to get some late lunch in Fortes restaurant, on the front. Fortes has a retro feel, with “champagne” coloured suites in the lavatories, and a decor and cuisine that feels Twentieth Century (although in fact the decor is from 2000 and much of the place was rebuilt after our first encounter in the 1970s). It seems very much a “Mum” place and so we ate there – despite being pensioners, it felt like we were younger than much of the clientele.
After this, we headed towards Llandudno, but worsening weather and a road diversion meant that we headed back to the A55 and to home, in snow and then sleet.
It was a pleasant enough day, bringing up memories of Mum, but rather like a series of snapshots or film clips, of the good times. There is enduring sadness about the fact that Mum is no more in this world, but much to celebrate quietly about the many good memories. Very similar comments would apply to today’s journey.
We drove via Mold again, but this time onto the Denbigh road, a route that Mum must have known well from around 1956 to 1962, when the family had a small caravan at Bodfari. We drove past the diminishing remains of the railway on which we had journeyed at Easter 1962, and near to the caravan site and the Dinorben Arms at Bodfari, which Mum had known prior to its recent renovation/rebuilding. We went up the Vale of Clwyd to the Ruthin Craft Centre (again!), and south past the Ruthin Castle Hotel (which Mum had visited for, I think, Masonic functions) and the Cadw-preserved Rhug Chapel, one of our later visits. Then, up past the Bryntirion Inn, which we had visited for coffee, and over the moors to Llandynog and the church at Pennant Melangell. After this, we would travel into Oswestry for an early dinner, and then north on the A483 towards home; we would divert off this route to go past the Moreton Park Hotel at Gledrid, where Mum took a final holiday in 2013, and the Hand Hotel at Chirk, that she visited in 1941 (and my sister and I revisited in 2013); and then home.
These provided pleasant reminders of her, but it was the St Melangell church that provided the main focus on her today. I have written elsewhere abut this church, towards the head of a valley, surrounded by a circular churchyard with yews that are at least 1000 years old. I do not share the Anglican views that this Church in Wales church represents, now Mum’s RC views, but there is something undeniably spiritual about this place, and one that connects me to Mum and others who are departed.
It was raining mildly when we arrived, after two miles up a narrow lane, in which we nearly wrecked the car trying to allow another vehicle to pass! We headed for shelter in the porch, but then there was the odd experience of hearing some clear, acapella singing. I thought that this was outside the church somewhere, but, on entering it gingerly, the voice proved to be that of a youngish woman who was visiting with a friend. She had her back to us, but looked slightly embarrassed; perhaps she hoped that noone would enter the church. I smiled and asked her if she had visited the church before, and she replied “many times” I went past her to look in the book of remembrance, open at today’s page, with Mum’s name at the bottom and another significant figure’s name further up. I decided, as I often do, to light two candles, as the young lady began to sing again. Perhaps it was the sound of my striking the matches, but after a short burst of song, the two women moved to the back of the church and soon out of the door, despite my wife’s approval of the singing and request that she should continue to sing.
I too was content that the woman was singing, and would have been happy to sit while she continued, but it is likely that she and her friend had concluded the purpose of their visit, and perhaps thought that they were intruding on our experience. There is a stillness about the church, a comforting silence, and one that was not disturbed by the singing, in excellent acoustics. We sat for a time, and then I went out into the churchyard and out to the lane by the retreat centre, turning onto a track that crosses a ford – with a brook running very fast – up to an open prayer ground.
I did not visit the prayer ground today, as it was raining, and my wife was sitting in the church. I also wondered for what those prayers might mean – solace, perhaps, and the feeling that there is a benevolent entity which overlooks and looks after those who believe. Those who created the retreat centre and prayer ground, and made the restored church a place of sanctuary for thought (and song, today) – rightly called a pilgrim church – did so with a view that I cannot wholly share. But, that sense of peace and sanctuary provided in me a sense of hope, hope that this life is not all that we have and experience, and that our life continues, so that Mum has only left us for a time, her life continues and we will join her one day. Well, it’s all very subjective, and the trained materialist in me has to caution maximum doubt, but Pennant Melangell has boosted a sense of hope today. I will return.
Postscript 24 January 2025: This was one of the last days out for my wife Sara, who fell ill on the 1st April. Her death soon after meant that I had – until now – ceased to contribute to this remembrance website. I intend, slowly, to make more entries, to round out the picture of my Mum and her world. I did, indeed, return, but with different motives. My visit on 20 January 2025 was to commemorate Mum’s upcoming 100th birthdate.
Joan Boughey Recalled 