This is me outside a tobacco barn, probably aged about 3

My Mum had a wonderful sense of humour, which luckily overrode her slightly snobbish tendancies, bless her. She was brought up with her very beautifully spoken English teacher sister by her single parent mother, Marjorie. I only met Granny-Marjorie once after she’d been diagnosed with Cancer when she made a very brief trip out to Rhodesia to meet her grandchildren, shortly before she died.

I don’t know much about her, I think she had high standards and although they had no money I think they had loads of ‘Class’!! All three women were very talented with a sewing machine – particularly Pam, my aunt. My mother was Diana and apparently Marjorie was always nagging Pam to look after Di Di, which annoyed Pam, I think. They were teenagers, during WW 2 and I wish I could remember all the stories. My mother hated waste, especially of food and we always had to clear our plates; my excuse for being a fatty!

I only found out recently from my Godmother : another Pam Mueller who lives in Hawaii with her sister Betty, who was my Aunt Pam’s best friend, that Marjorie and Diana moved to Moose Jaw just after the war to be with a Canadian Major she had met at a tea dance and got engaged to. However, when they got there, they found that Pat, the Candian major was already was already married! I never knew this, until the March Covid lock-down when Pam Mueller got in touch, and I was able to ask the questions.

One of the stories that I DO remember, is that Mum went out to the bush in Nyasaland (now Malawi) as a newly-wed at about 22 to live with no near neighbours. She says she looked around the house and said to my Dad who was only 23 ‘Oh there is no running water?!’ and my Dad responded pointing to a local chap running towards the house with 2 buckets balanced either end of a stick across his shoulder… ‘Yes we have – her it comes!’

My Mum was such a drip about a lot of things, but it must have been pretty adventurous in those days, to do what they did.. and so young! Look at 23 year-old these days!