My Mum

She was the eldest of ten.

She helped bring up her brothers and sisters, and the youngest three thought of her as their mum.

She was very stylish. When they were older, her sisters would steal her clothes to wear themselves. Mum would sleep with her clothes for the next day under her pillow.

She wanted to be a nun when she was younger, then met my dad and that didn’t happen.

She had a beautiful voice and sung in an award-winning choir.

Because my dad was Protestant and she was Catholic they were married at the chapel’s side altar. Mum lost her faith shortly after that.

We moved to America with my dad just after I was born. He had an affair while she was pregnant with my brother and she moved back to Glasgow with us two kids.

She worked so many jobs to keep us going. She was a cutter, a barmaid, a packer, a cook. She worked as a cleaner and on the market and in the chippie.

She’d come in from the chippie late at night and kiss me goodnight and I’d smell the fryers on her clothes. I liked the smell because then I knew she was home.

She always thought she should know more. She’d take correspondence courses because she left school at 14 to help look after her brothers and sisters.

She never drank, but kept a bottle of Southern Comfort in the house “in case I ever fancy a wee drink.” She never fancied a wee drink.

She wrote letters. Every single one started “Hoping that this letter finds you well.” She signed off every letter and card, “Wishing you all that’s good.”

She had long elegant fingers, like a piano player.

She had beautiful handwriting.

She was terrified of dogs, and had a phobia of earrings and pierced ears. When my granny took me to get my ears pierced without telling her, mum went ballistic.

Mum threw up every time she saw me twisting my earrings.

She’d blister in the sun, even with full sun cream on.

Her hair was like wire wool, and she would curse when she was trying to style it. She’d brush mine and tell me she wished she had straight hair like mine.

I wanted my hair to be like hers.

She baked every Sunday. Singin’ Hinnies, bread and scones.

I loved the way our house smelled on Sundays.

She talked to all the old biddies at the post office, at the bus stop, in the street. I complained and she said that she could be the only person they talked to that day, and I should think on.

She wore Tweed perfume. I’d save up my pocket money to buy her a bottle at Christmas.

Whenever she watched a sad film she’d say, “C’mere, sit on my knee” and we’d coorie in together on the couch.

She loved a coorie in.

She never learned how to drive a car or ride a bike.

She was really funny. She’d come out with some shockingly funny things then say, “Oh, you never heard that, ok?”

She loved Walnut Whips and treated herself to one every Friday.

Every Mother’s Day I’d buy her an African Violet, and my brother would buy her three Walnut Whips.

She would have been a brilliant granny.