The Gorge House: Mum

Our Mother was first and foremost a practicing Christian. She did not try to preach at us, but hoped to influence us by example. She tried to follow Christ’s teaching in her daily life.

Every morning she read her Scripture Union passage before getting up; we were encouraged to do so, also, and all had our little Scripture Union booklet. I would get bored with it after a week or so. I couldn’t see the point of reading only a few verses at a time, then having them explained to me. I wanted to carry on and see how the story turned out.

In many ways Mum was pretty dogmatic in her beliefs. She held that anyone who was not a Plymouth Brethren, or even belonged to different branches of the Brethren, was not on the path to Heaven, and deserved damnation just as much as any Heathen or Roman Catholic. She was rigorous in observing some restrictions which often seemed pointless; no movies, no dancing, no lipstick, no fun on Sunday, no fun at all, it sometimes seemed to us. Surely you could be a Christian without being a martyr too.

She came to her beliefs naturally. Her parents were missionaries in India, and her mother especially was very strict and unbending. At the age of 7, as was usual with English children born in India, she was uprooted from her home, her parents, younger brothers, and especially her beloved Amah, who had anticipated her every wish, and was sent to live with her widowed Grandmother and three maiden aunts in Tunbridge Wells, in England.

This must have been a terrible upheaval for the sensitive child she was. Her Grandmother kept a genteel Boarding House in Tunbridge Wells, called Mount Zion, and Mum was required to help out with the work of running the place, as well as going to school. It all must have been frightening to her. Her brothers all turned up in England also, as they reached school age, but they were at a boarding school, so she saw them very rarely.

When she was 19, the family moved to Victoria, including her three aunts. At this time, she was a sweet young woman, rather shy and reserved. By the time I took notice of her she was worn down by her many babies, and by the hard work she insisted on doing. She was very thin, so thin that her elbows stuck out of her arms like bony knobs. Probably she was already suffering from the diabetes which plagued her later life. She always seemed harassed and nervy. She was always driving herself to work harder.

I feel she never accepted the move to Canada. She felt all Canadians, no matter how nice, were “Colonials”. She kept her British Passport all her life, and always refused to sing “Oh Canada”.

At the same time, she seemed to see herself as a pioneer woman, who had to turn to under adverse circumstances and work hard just to keep the family going. Thus, she was forever scrubbing and polishing, attacking dirt with a vengeance – a hopeless task in the Gorge House with all us messy children.

She bottled everything in sight, and laid up shelf after shelf of preserved peaches, cherries, plums, tomato juice, even pickled herring. She experimented with preserving eggs in bran, and green beans in rock salt. She took great pride in her efforts to make soap out of beef fat and lye. She sewed all our clothes, and her own as well; this for pleasure as much as for economy. She was an inspired seamstress, and loved to tackle any sewing project.

Of course, she was always knitting and doing embroidery in her spare time. She was not much of a reader, but enjoyed the stories in the “Ladies’ Home Journal” and “Saturday Evening Post”.

She had a lovely alto voice, and always sang harmony when singing hymns. She liked to play the piano, though she had little time for it. Sometimes after we were all in bed, she would play for us. She had the music for a suite by Greig, and played things like “Anitra’s Dance”, and another thumpy thing whose name I can’t recall, about fierce ghosts, my favourite.

She had a lovely touch in painting flowers, a hobby which she gave up in favour of her family. She had also done some beautiful china painting as a young woman.

She was what you might call a “plain English cook”, meaning her vegetables were always overdone. She made wonderful white bread once a week, and usually managed to have it coming out of the oven, smelling heavenly just as we arrived home from school, famished.

As a special treat for Dad, she’d occasionally make Steak and Kidney pudding, or the steamed pudding desserts he loved. She had her own recipe for Curry and Rice, which was everyone’s favorite, full of apples and raisins, and served with sliced banana and hard-boiled egg. She never mastered the art of pastry making, though she never gave up trying. About the only time I recall Dad criticizing her cooking was on being served yet another tough apple pie. Ordinarily, Dad ate all meals, good or bad, without comment.

Poor Mum, she tried so hard. She deserved a little recognition once in a while.

Appearances were very important for Mum. A lady never left the house without wearing a hat and gloves. A lady walked erect and graceful, she did not slump and shamble along. Mum had a brisk stride, head up, shoulders back. Above all, she never forgot who she was, she took pride in herself and her station in life.

I seem to have pictured Mum as a rather unpleasant person, ramrod stiff and humourless. Well, she was, but she was also a deeply loving mother, who would do anything for her family, and who loved us all intensely, and was loved by us, without reserve.

Possibly it’s because she was so close to me, so very essential, that I cannot summon up many pictures of her. She was everything to me. She was my mother.

Front Deck Clip

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The Gorge House: Granny’s Funeral