This photograph dating from 1920 or so is of my mother. She survived three wars, the Boer 1899-1902, the Great War as it was then dubbed, 1914-1918 & WW2 1939-45, two marriages.
She had two sons. It was a life sometimes easy and often hard,especially the latter part. Trained as a tailoress, she could make any clothes; do expert embroidery and had enormous patience. She dressed well belying our poor circumstances, a wretched second husband who locked us out of the house when I was
4.He sued her twice for custody of the child which anyway he did not want and fortunately lost both cases. He disappeared and we were never able to contact him except through a bank. He paid two pounds a week for maintenance with half a crown a week "for the child". He died in the fifties having lived with a woman who changed her name by deed poll to be respectable.
My parents were legally separated and never divorced. The court case was in 1939/40, the beginning of the war. Considered a single woman although having a young child, she was called up to make munitions working nights in the war effort. I was boarded out at night. When the Wellington bomber dropped incendiaries on Berlin as the Allies fought back, she used to say with pride: :"That's my work.". She was a welder.
Prior to 1939 she worked as a volunteer for the Conservative party. After the war she became a socialist. We took the Daily Worker, the Communist newspaper.
It was a different life to the one she had expected, the one where she had beautiful arms and hands and was a subject of photography.
She was a pretty woman. What a shame I can't see her again & only have these memories. Ah well.....
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