This is Marjorie Jocelyn Wilkins nee Broadbent, my mother,born 1st June 1922. Today would have been her 91st birthday. She died, aged 75, on 17th December 1997, having given up her fight against Parkinson’s Disease. And I do mean ‘given up’. She railed against it for nearly 20 years, but, in the end, it was just too much for her. We had our differences but I do still miss her terribly. Today is one of the days when I miss her more than ever.
At her funeral the minister described her as ‘single-minded to the point of obstinacy’! What he meant was that she was one of the most pig-headed people I have ever met. But she needed to be. She didn’t have the easiest of lives, but she did make the most of it. The most important thing she did, in her eyes anyway, was to join the WAAF during the war, and therefore meet my father. He was the love of her life, and, after he died in the Berlin Airlift at the tender age of 26, she never found anyone to equal him. 
Their wedding, in 1942, was, apparently, a joyous occasion, though you would not know it from the photographs! Aren’t they a scary lot! She loved him so much she was even jealous of me. I was the apple of my Daddy’s eye, and it was difficult for her to take. Somehow this remained for the rest of her life. My brother was always the one who did the right things – even when it was me who did them! But underneath I know she loved me, and I loved her. As a widow with children she had many decisions to make. The most important as far as my brother and I were concerned was the one she made about our education. The people of Berlin had a fund to pay for the education of the children of the men who died saving them from starvation, and Mum decided both Graham and I should go to boarding school, and she would take a job in a school. Therefore we would not be ‘latch key’ kids, and we would have the holidays together. It could not have been easy for her. Her mother had died just a few months after my father, so she didn’t even that help. In fact she moved in to help my grandfather for a while, and then moved to a farm shared with her sister’s family. It was not until I was nearly 20 that she finally got a home of her own. Her small flat in Stratford upon Avon was her pride and joy until she had to move into assisted living due entirely to the Parkinson’s. But she was always proud of her children. My biggest regret is that she died just before I started my studies with the Open University. She would have been so thrilled with my First Class BA, and over the moon with my MA. I just wish she could have been there when I met Betty Boothroyd at Symphony Hall in Birmingham! This is one of the proudest moments in my life, and I like to think she was sitting up on her cloud feeling equally proud. 
Her Will, apart from the usual, asked one special thing. She wanted to be cremated, and her ashes taken to Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg to be buried with my father. 1998 was the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift, and the British Berlin Airlift Association were arranging a trip for the veterans and the next of kin of the men who lost their lives. They were extremely helpful, and arranged everything – well , almost everything! German law said that, in order to take ashes into the country the box containing them had to be taken to the Embassy in London to be inspected, sealed, and a certificate issued for German Customs. Luckily my son was going to London about that time, so he offered to do the honours. He took the box in a carrier bag and boarded the train in Birmingham. A friend got on and asked if he was travelling alone. ‘No’ said son ‘I’m travelling with my grandmother!’ His trip to London included a visit to a night club, where he duly deposited the box, now sealed, in the cloakroom. Mother would have been thrilled! We were also allowed to take a marker stone, provided it was York Stone, and a standard size. My brother and I took it with us onto the plane, and put it under the seat in front of us. Flight attendant ‘This has to go in the overhead locker.’ Brother ‘I don’t think so.’ FA trying to pick it up ‘I don’t think so!’ 
One of the things I do miss is having to remember for both my brother and myself to buy cards and presents! Graham could only remember one birthday a year, February 10th, his own! But it is on days like this that I think about my own family. Mum and I had so many fights, and so many things that I regret I didn’t say to her when she was capable of understanding what I was saying to her. So I say now, Simon, Caroline and Nik, I love you all dearly, and your partners and children – not to forget Callum, my almost brand new Great grandson. And my only brother, Graham, with his long suffering wife Linda. Looking forward to coming to see you in a couple of months, up there in the wilds of Yorkshire!
Happy birthday Mum. I just wish you were here so I could tell you in person.
