One of the last people to visit Mum in the “home” was one of her Inner Wheel friends, who was, as far as I know, marginally older than Mum. She and another Inner Wheel member visited Mum on March 10 2018, the day before the Mothers Day visit which was the last time that I saw her conscious. I will always be grateful to these ladies, as their visits saved my sister and I from visiting as often as we would have had to do had there been no other visitors. I continue to be sad about the obvious possibilities in which a son or daughter can engage if someone is in a “care home”, and the fact that I just didn’t perceive them. You can be a long time reflecting on such matters. Anyway, I hope that the visits by the Inner Wheel ladies, and other regulars, reminded Mum that there had been a previous life and that she was very much thought about.
Before spring 2014, I would regularly call on Mum and catch up on the news. As time went on, it became a catalogue of who had died, and who was ill. At one point, I asked whether there was anyone who wasn’t ill: she thought for a time, and then said: Eileen. Eileen’s husband Jim was Dad’s cousin, and they lived just round the corner from Mum and Dad. He was in Rotary too, and I think Round Table – I have film of an event from about 1960 in which he features.
There were, I think, 5 or 6 couples who were friends, and I recall several New Years Eves in which a rolling party would begin in one house and go onto the others, with a different course of a meal in each house, all of which were in Wqllasey Village. My sisters and I took part in this on some occasions – I think when I was a mid-to-late teenager, and thus the early 1970s (certainly 1973/4, if pedantic memory is correct). They were generally enjoyable, when we had no other friends close by with whom to share these.
Dad would sometimes turn up very late on New Years Eve – working on preparing quarterly accounts for clients. Mum seemed to enjoy these events, although she did say at one point that it was becoming too competitive – each host/ess trying to provide food that outshone the others. And Dad getting progressively more tired, probably early signs of the heart problems that killed him. When he died in 1986 I recall one the group saying that he was the first of them to go. Now I think that the last has gone – Eileen died on April 5th, and I only found out yesterday.
What I recall of Eileen, and Jim, is that they were very open – one or two of the others could be a bit stuffy, but not them. I should perhaps have been in touch more, but it can be difficult when people are your parents’ friends. She might have enjoyed the chance to talk to her friend’s son, but that won’t be possible now. Still, I am glad that Mum had kind and supportive friends.
Sadly, each departure of someone from Mum’s generation – most already gone, some long ago – seems to draw her away further from me. There are less people who can recall her, and her world is receding, person by person, place by place.
RIP Eileen – good knowing you, and thank you for being Mum’s friend.
Joan Boughey Recalled 