90 not out
Thursday, December 3, 2020 at 12:07 
My mother is 90 today.
She and my father were both born in 1930 – my father in Calcutta, my mother in Wembley.
They met when they were 17 and married, in 1956, at 25.
Before they got married my mother studied home economics in Edinburgh and worked for a few years as a ‘domestic science’ teacher.
Thereafter, like many women of her generation, she was quite happy to become a full-time housewife, looking after my father and bringing up a family.
Married life began in a rented house in Harlington, close to Heathrow airport. (My father worked for Nestle which had a chocolate factory in nearby Hayes.)
In 1963 they bought their first house - in Maidenhead, at what was then the end of the new M4 motorway out of London. It cost £3,000 (the house not the motorway).
Six years later my father was appointed manager of a Nestle-owned factory in Dundee so they moved to north east Fife and a house overlooking the River Tay.
In 1978 my father was sent to run another Nestle factory near Kendal in Cumbria. Two years later he was moved again - this time to a factory in Ashbourne, Derbyshire.
Their home was in a tiny hamlet just inside the Peak District and they lived there very happily for 34 years until my father died in 2014.
Last year, approaching her tenth decade, my mother realised it was impractical to stay there much longer.
And so, in January, she moved to a flat overlooking the River Dee in Chester where my sister lives on the other side of town.
Looking back, my parents were both disappointed to leave Scotland but my mother never complained. She simply got on with it and made new friends.
In fact, one of her defining characteristics is a remarkable refusal to grumble about almost anything, including personal injury.
A few years ago, for example, she fell and broke her wrist whilst shopping but continued to shop because she didn’t want to inconvenience the (younger) woman she was with.
Only after driving her friend home – with one hand on the wheel and in severe pain – did she go to hospital.
Perhaps it’s a generational thing.
She was almost nine when the Second World War began. The war went on for six years and rationing lasted for 14, finally ending in July 1954.
With that in mind you can understand perhaps why she considers the restrictions imposed by government during Covid to be a relatively minor inconvenience.
One downside is that the small family celebration we hoped to organise to mark her 90th birthday has been put on hold, but I suspect she may be quietly relieved because one thing she hates is any sort of fuss!
Meanwhile, despite her relatively good health, she insists that her personal nightmare is living to 100.
Unfortunately, in an age when longevity seems to be more important than quality of life, many people are facing a long and uncertain future, often compounded by ill health and money worries.
My mother is luckier than most – on that score at least – so this evening I shall raise a glass to Marjorie Elizabeth Clark, 90 not out.
Reader Comments (3)
Brilliant by Mrs Clark.
Her generation puts us to shame.
To Marjorie Elizabeth Clark!