Apart from being a committed wife and mother foremost, she was also a woman of the working world in her younger days of past. I can recall one role in particular from hearsay, which I feel deserves a mention here, in which she was at one time in the position of a bar maid at an old North-eastern English pub known then as The Waggon Team, situated in Gateshead, Tyne & Wear. Of course the position would have required, amonst other things, a generous amount of hard working ability, a friendly helpful nature and possibly a high degree of diplomacy and tolerant nature when dealing with the "Punters"of such a time. I'm sure then, we can all appreciate from that, just how energetic and self motivated she was, as I'm sure their are a few people who can also appreciate how hard it is to work in a pub atmosphere and at the same time successfully bring up a large family. Personally, in my time now, I find it difficult just to handle my working position and my somewhat relaxed homelife without the addition of a large family to care for, this does not seem to be a pleasant prospect although some people thrive in this role.
I remember some of the times when I visited my grandma, together with my mother, when I was somewhat younger than I am now, at her home in Bensham, Gateshead. The house she lived in was situated in a kind of green belt area of the district and I think this is one of the things I enjoyed, and now remember the most, about those visits. There was always a distict smell in the area of burning forrage for garden compost, as my mother told me, especially in the Autumn season, and a distinct aged, homely smell in the rooms of her house, which I suppose must have matured over the somewhat 50-something years that she lived their. Do not be mistaken though as this was not an unpleasant smell which one sometimes experiences in an old house, rather more like the rich flavour that a good wine gathers over the period of years of a maturing process, say. There was also her back garden, with it's old wooden shed, at that time still in use for the safe guard of the garden tools and most likely a home to a few mice and insects of the area.
These were memorable visits and it is in this way that I shall remember my grandma as I feel a person, such as my gran should be remembered for the good things that she contributed to other peoples lives as well as her own achievements. I only have one regret in all this, that being, that it is such a sad thing we have to say goodbye in such a way in our lives to anyone at all that we've ever known, but it is just something that we all have to accept in the end as it is better to accept it and live our lives than not to accept and ruin our lives because of it.
26 February 2002
Andrew P. Whittaker