I'm a journalist, a wordsmith by trade, and so words are my thing. Or they should be. But today I am struggling. Not just with the news that we have reached such a horrendous milestone in the numbers of those who have died due to Covid. Not just the fact we are in a worse position now than we were 10 months ago, listening to friends on the NHS frontline who are telling of unimaginable horrors they are dealing with day in day out while being on their knees with exhaustion. Nor the homeschooling, watching my two kids struggle with online learning for the second time, missing their mates, missing the school and, dare I say it, their teachers - who incidentally have been nothing short of amazing throughout this whole hideous nightmare.
No, I am struggling because I should be writing the eulogy for my mum's funeral which is tomorrow. Mum, Gill Gould, died on December 1 last year, not to Covid but following a stroke she had in July. That it's taken so long to organise the funeral is a result of Covid, Christmas and the huge number of people in the area who have also perished in the last couple of months.
Whenever I start to write something, I either well up or my mind goes off on a tangent, remembering that particular anecdote or her face or a comment that she had made at the time. I remember her love of life, always making the most of things and opportunities. I remember her warmth, her generosity of spirit and her love of nature, her garden, the environment, her intellect, her love of learning new things, always curious and always keen to share with others that which she has learned, seen or heard.
She grew up in rural Shropshire and so a love, and appreciation of nature was there from the off. But she was also a lover of literature, proudly telling my daughter Lucy who is studying the play for GCSE, that she could recite Macbeth off by heart. She taught English until her rheumatoid arthritis, which plagued her for most of her adult life, forced early retirement. She always said one of her treasured memories and achievements was helping a young Hong Kong Chinese girl, who initially couldn't speak or write English, gain a very good pass at English O Level.
She was a voracious reader and always had a few books on the go - growing up we were surrounded by books as we lived above my father's bookshop so reading was a thing. And even after he retired, her passion for literature and reading never wavered. She was hugely proud of my younger brother Charlie when he went into the bookselling business and ended up working at the LRB. It didn't matter what the subject was - history, autobiography, fiction, etc, she would be gripped by most subjects and the more intellectually stimulating the better. However, although she loved all kinds of literature, it was poetry that she loved and inspired her the most.
She and I were blown away when the actor Samuel West read some Tennyson for her in his series of Pandemic Poems and she delighted in being able to accompany me from time to time to various press nights at theatres on the South Bank. She particularly enjoyed King Lear with Simon Russell Beale in the title role and Othello in which Rory Kinnear played Iago, both at the National. It was while we were in the interval for one play at the National that she spied Rory Kinnear in the foyer talking to Sir Nick Hytner and others. My heart fell and my heartbeat quickened as I knew exactly what was to follow...... As soon as the bell went for the play to resume, walking ahead of me, she glided up to Rory Kinnear, touched his arm gently and said: "Your Iago was one of the best I've ever seen," before gliding off - giving him practically no time to acknowledge her! Embarrassment averted - only she could have pulled it off so successfully.
As well as all things literary, she enjoyed history, regaling my son Tom about archaeology, the Greek and Roman myths and inspiring him to learn more about them.
Gardening was another great passion, and she was tickled pink when my first job in journalism was as a staff reporter on the trade title, Nurseryman & Garden Centre. Going to the Chelsea Flower Show with her was an education in itself and wonderful to see her so animated and alive. Her garden was her sanctuary and she loved hunting out exotic species of plants and those which were old or on the "in danger of extinction" list. She grew fruit, including apple and pair trees and despite the vole population exploding after the cat died, and subsequently causing grief for the trees, she would not hear of ways to cull them - she loved nothing more than to see them scamper in the undergrowth and watch the birds at the bird feeders.
And when Tom was tasked by his Biology teacher last year to do a project on a tree, he chose her hazel tree as inspiration - a tree she had grown from a nut found in a local park and which was now well over 10ft tall. The fact she never got to find out what his teachers thought of his project, which he dedicated to her, is a real sadness.
She also had a generosity of spirit - many were the times she'd befriend someone whether it was meeting them in Church and then inviting them back for Sunday lunch or talking to them in a cafe, shop or anywhere really. She made lifelong friendships from these encounters, many of whom live overseas, and it's been heartbreaking to tell them the news of her death.
I could go on and tell you how she took up lace making because my father's forebears were big in the lace making business and one of them even made some of the lace on Queen Victoria's wedding dress. I could also tell you how she was determined to sew and knit despite her arthritis and made clothes, curtains and even reupholstered her chesterfield settee. She went on a pottery making course, sang in a local choir for a time and supported my father in his business as a bookseller and when he developed Parkinson's Disease.
But most of all she was my mum. Always there for me and for my two brothers and latterly my kids. She has supported us all in all ways, instilled in us the values she felt are important and the tools to lead our lives in a good way. If I am half the mum to my kids as she was to me I feel I will have done well. I miss her more than I can say - her wisdom, warmth, kindness and love. The world is not the same without her.
