What’s in a name?

On top of the page in my desk diary today is a blunt note that reminds me that my Mum died on this day 34 years ago. That was 1986. The day your mother dies is a bad day on any scale; watching perhaps as they fight for their last breath. My Mum on the other hand had wanted to die for eighteen months before that day. Although she nagged my poor old dad something terrible as long as I can remember they were in fact a classic love match. They were to most important person in the world to each other.

My Dad had died an awful death suffering from Lung Cancer just a year and a half before his wife and that was the end as far as she was concerned. She just wanted to follow him as soon a she possibly could. I did my best to prevent that happening and she resented me for it. In the first place; for recognizing what her game was. Then for doing my best to keep her alive for as long as I could. She had Kidney failure and she decided that she could hurry that along by doing the exact opposite to any doctor’s advice. That would be her best route in her last six months she was a tartar of a fighter to anybody trying to stop her. She had a number of stays in hospital where among other things she would pull out tubes and refuse medication. She left the hospital in an open backed hospital night gown on one occasion and walked home barefoot. I was called over to Worthing to find her.

She was a strong woman, as am I (a clone of her), so it was hard for her to get her way. It was hard on me too and I will never forget that time. I had waited at the bedside with them as both of my parents when they died. It was quite an ordeal on both occasions. But I am so glad I was with them both.

Mother’s name was Winifred Rose Peace, her maiden name was Chance. Some people she worked with called her ‘Win’ but to her family, she was always Rose. My Dad called her Rose or Rosie. My fathers name was Granville Peace, a Yorkshire-man who had played the cornet in the Salvation Army band in his home town, a plumber by trade but an electrician in the army. Mum, and most other people called him Bill, apart from a few work colleague’s and his mates in the T.A. who called him George, guessing wrongly what the G stood for, he never corrected them.

When my elder brother Peter and I were kids we made a lot of jokes and jibes about the combination of their names, Give Peace a Chance, was the favourite and Win Peace was always in there too.