Today marked the second birthdate that we were unable to celebrate with Mum. I recall her final birthday in 2018, but that is something about which I will write separately.
Some might well suggest that we should no longer mark the birthdate of someone who has passed on, but I would disagree. It may be a day for thinking about that person, about what their life meant and continues to mean. In my case, the journey that I took today stirred some memories and connections.
Today was also one in which Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January 2020) was anticipated – on the Jewish shabbat, now almost 75 years since the liberation of Auchwitz-Birkenau. Mum had connections with this, and my wife and I briefly attended an event today.
In earlier years, I had marked Mum’s birthday by taking her out somewhere, and so it seemed appropriate to take a day out and visit at least some of the places which would provide reminders of earlier visits. North Wales, and especially Llandudno, provided an obvious destination. We crossed the Dee at its lowest crossing and followed the coast road past Flint and Mostyn, intending to pass the Nant Hall Hotel outside Prestatyn, where Mum had taken a holiday late in the 1930s. However, the road was blocked beyond Gronant, and we were diverted up country lanes, along part of the Flintshire’s tourist route “Tour Taith”, which we had followed one day with an outing with Mum. This drew us past the Red Lion at Llanasa, where we had stopped; this was then rather tired in appearance, and at noon today, this looked closed.
We headed through Rhuddlan towards Abergele, and along the A55 to Rhos-on-Sea. Rhos carries many reminders of Mum, from a holiday we shared in 1975 and later. My last visit with her had included a small cafe which is still open (under a different name), but we had lunch elsewhere. After this, we went past the Little Orme, which Mum and I had partly climbed in the early 1970s, and parked on the Promenade at Llandudno. Mum had stayed many times in Llandudno, and we had stopped with her in April 1993, on the final family holiday.
Mostyn Street also holds many memories, and here we visited the Methodist Church. Oddly, outside there was a demonstration in support of a petition by Quakers for Peace; Mum was a Roman Catholic, so it seemed suitably ecumenical (and something of which Mum would have approved) to attend a short vigil in the Methodist Church. I do not share either Methodism or Catholicism, but the vigil was surprisingly moving. We sat inside simply enough, facing an altar featuring a Cross that we do not follow, with music playing. I am poor at meditation and visualisation, but felt a definite sense of communion. We did not stay long, but went out quietly, lighting a single candle on the way out. I felt that this was both for Mum and for everyone else whose lives would be remembered on this day. At least she survived the war, free from persecution, whereas so many younger lives were terminated brutally. One could well feel grateful for that.
Mum had talked little about the Holocaust, although in a society (and a church) that featured a degree of anti-semitism, this was not something that she or Dad shared; a major reason for visiting Llandudno in the early 1960s had been to visit a prominent Jewish family in the town. She did talk about a Jewish man with whom she had worked in Liverpool, and to whom she felt close. He was a refugee from Germany or Austria, and she was disappointed when, entirely understandably, he decided to join his family in the United States. She recalled his ship sailing (from Liverpool, I think) on her 21st birthday, and thus 74 years ago.
As the light began to decline, we went up the Great Orme to the summit, where my memories are more of Dad sitting in the parked car, smoking! Further round, I recalled a day, a poignant one for various reasons, in which Mum and I walked up part of the Great Orme. We then drove to the Castle Hotel, in Conwy, which she had also visited on a short holiday in 1977; I found photographs of this earlier this week. After coffee here, we drove to St Asaph on the A55 and stopped for a snack at the Dinorben Arms at Bodfari. Mum had had a caravan at Bodfari in the 1950s, and I recalled an outing to the Dinorben in my youth. While it was dark by now, the caravan site could still be viewed from the car park there.
It could be seen as ghoulish to follow a route that was closely connected with Mum on her birthdate, but our day out today was not driven by this motive. It was a pleasant visit, and the connections with Mum, poignant though they might be, served to heighten this pleasure. I was reminded, however, of places and visits that continue to hold meaning, and that I really should write about these while my memories remain clear. If anyone is reading entries on this website, they may wonder why I would seek to recall and record details of lives whose appeal is entirely personal. To which, my first response must be that there is no problem in simply ignoring everything recorded on this website.
The second, and more significant one, concerns the whole question of “continuing bonds” in bereavement; far from rejecting memories and reminders, and seeking to detach oneself from the departed, these reminders are placed in more permanent form. Commemoration can be about celebration of the past (or positive elements of a very personal past) in the face of attempts to dismiss, divest and destroy connections with that past – even if this is just by forgetting. Much the same, on an infinitely larger scale, concerns Holocaust memorials – not to forget the past and those who perished, but to hold onto and hold dear memories of their lives. And never to forget.
My feelings about Mum’s life are analogous in some ways, and today made me realise that I should record the pleasanter aspects of visits that prompt and consolidate poignant memories.
25 January 2020
Joan Boughey Recalled 