Unconventional, pink-haired Val.

I count myself as very lucky to have had a mother that was the first of a more enlightened generation of parents that figured out that love, respect, encouragement and attentiveness was going to yield a far more emancipated, happy and less traumatised offspring than her parents’ generations and my parents very much bucked a trend in that respect.

I still hear to this day, from my contemporaries about my parents being friendly, open, progressive, warm, unjudgmental, funny, open-minded, hip, trendy, cool, playful and having us kids dressed in hippy-trendy clothes, …also , I am still reminded to this day, from an old mate, that my parents were highly unusual in that they insisted that my mates call them by their first names – “Val and Dave”.

My mum, like her father, came from humble beginnings, but they were both culturally aspirational… Whilst my mum was clearly very intelligent but, like many other women of her day, never had the opportunity to attend university, however, she devoted her life to, and immersed her life in, culture, history and the arts, more specifically and recently getting involved with amateur dramatics, choir-singing, lots of local and European travel, classical music events, joining gardening clubs, visits to the local arts cinema, she was a brilliant and creative cook and even tried her hand at water colour painting at which her brilliance was a recent revelation to me.

My mum had a full and enriching life thanks to her restless and inquisitive mind and had an insatiable thirst for knowledge.

Mum left a positive impression on everyone she met by deploying her rich cultural knowledge, quick wit and a kind heart…. and one of the hardest aspects of losing her is hearing all the beautiful and warm things said by those who knew her.

I will always miss her.