The Prologue

I’d like to start, if I may, by going just a little off-script.

I’d like to start by thanking Mum for the highest compliment that anyone has ever paid me. My only regrets are that it took me such a long time to realise the significance of it and even longer to formally and publicly acknowledge it.

But I was quite young when it happened. Still at school. A teenager.

It was at the dinner table. Four kids seated round it.

Dad was out at work. Mum was serving out the meal.

I was messing about. Moving the plate as she was about to put my food on it.

“NICHOLAS JOHN!!” she said.

Both forenames. In full. She was serious.

“Nicholas John! For Christ’s sake stop buggering about! You’re as daft as your bloody father!”

I don’t think either of them were aware of how proud I became of such an accolade or how eternally grateful I am, to both of them, for it.

But at least you all know now.

The Eulogy

It’s normal at a service such as this to expect some sort of eulogy. An impressive list of achievements made, ranks ascended to, monuments built, estates to be admired.

But Iris was a humble girl from a working family in London’s suburbia.

She came from a generation where girls from her background were expected to give up paid work outside the home when they married.

She came from a generation where that was a possibility because an ordinary working man could feed, clothe and house his family on what he earned even if it wasn’t that exceptional.

She came from a generation where she was expected to devote herself to her family.

It was a role she was born to. She came from a large family courtesy of her grandparents. Dozens of uncles and aunts. Dozens and dozens of cousins.

She revelled in her family. Nurtured her family. Exalted in her family.

She wasn’t blessed with natural social skills with people she didn’t know well but she lit up as a person when family were around.

And she wanted to be the glue that held it all together.

And it didn’t always seem to matter if you were a blood relative or not. There are lots of instances where when she got to know someone well, she treated them like family too.

We were always encouraged to call her adult friends Auntie This and Uncle That.

It wasn’t just that it was a cultural convention at the time. I think she genuinely and literally meant it.

She picked up a number of “waifs and strays” along the way.

The family down the road from here near Newbury that she got evacuated to during the war as a child were our aunt and uncle

A German family who’d come across to London on a church exchange were treated as family.

Friends of ours from university days and even their children were treated as family.

Her vicar tells me that even she and her daughter both felt like they’d been adopted

And at the end, when illness robbed her of so many memories, the ones that she clung most tightly to were her family.

It was painful for me to see that there were so many gaps but the ones who were left gave her great comfort on the days when she thought they were with her.

The people who were with her all day in the last 18 months know all about Barb… Tom, Dick and Harry… Eric and Ernie… Phylis and May, Tony and Terry, Lou… Her Mum and Dad and many more.

Her family, at least the ones she could remember, was all she talked about.

Her family meant everything to her. It’s why I made sure there was a family member with her every single day.

So if you’re looking for a monument to Mum’s achievements in life, her legacy, just look around you.

It’s here.

We’re it.

Image Credit

Original image by Nick Gilmore. January 2025.