Rena Horrocks 1914-2004

Born November 9th 1914, the year the Great War began, she lived almost 90 years, dying in 2004. I have often descibed her as "my best friend." Perhaps an odd label to apply to a mother-in-law, but that's how I saw her for many years.

I fear this little tale can never do the woman justice.

I first met her in 1958 I think, so I'd be nineteen and she'd be forty-four. She, no doubt, seemed old to me then, as my mother would have seemed old. Strange how young forty-four sounds now! The 25 year gap remained constant of course, it made her seem wise to young me. But as the years passed we often seemed to be contemporaries.

She'd been born in holiday-town Blackpool. A less than ideal childhood. One of two children - Her brother Cyril was 18 months older than her and I supect, very 'elder-brother-like.' Her parents ran a boarding house, that is to say her mother ran a boarding house. Her father suffered from epilepsy in its worst form. I suspect Rena's mother was a tough lady and led a tough life.

Rena was twenty one when she married Herbert Ralph Ward-Eversley on July 30th, 1935. They had two children, Glennys was born in 1936 and Andrea in 1943.

The story has it that Rena "threw Ralph out" soon after Andrea's birth. The reasons? All pretty hazy. Many, many years later it transpired that Ralph was gay (yes, I was amazed too!). Given Rena's no-nonsense, self-reliant nature when I knew her and Ralph's "fussy-little-man" personality I can imagine the potential for friction. He headed off to eventually settle in Coventry, but that, as they say, is another story.

I don't think they ever divorced and HRWE seemingly provided little support. We forget how difficult, socially, legally and financially divorce was back then. Rena proceeded to handle life much as any single mum would. She often worked two jobs and there's no doubt it was a long tough struggle to raise her two daughters through the balance of the war and through the "still-rationed" shortage days that followed WW2. A 25+ years struggle.

Then I happened along. Glennys was by then supporting herself but still living at home. So she ran off and married me; no doubt much to Rena's relief.

Andrea joined the WRAF (Women's Royal Air Force) "soon after" and Rena got on with the balance of her life.

By then she had a steady job as a clerk with the North Western Eletricity Board. This allowed her to pay the never-ending rent on 97 Mansfield Road and keep her in cigarettes.

She stayed at that same address (No.97) for almost the rest of her life. A very modest and quiet life. One husband, Herbert Ralph had been enough and seemingly, she "never looked at another man." Pity perhaps, she was an attractive, intelligent woman with a wonderful sense of humour.

Her daughter Andrea's life style was a constant source of worry and perhaps annoyance. While her other daughter's apparently sound and happy marriage gave her joy.

Over the years, both daughters would arrive and stay with assorted company for days, weeks or months. Whether this brought joy or misery I don't know, some of each no doubt ... I was a part of it, as the R.A.F.'s foibles made us "homeless" from time to time by repeatedly posting me to new bases with an irritating frequency. But she made room for us in her small home with stoic unselfishness, time and again.

Blackpool became very much a second home for me, for us.

There's no doubt her daughters and their doings kept Rena emotions in some turmoil. Andrea ended up in Germany, Spain and South Africa, twice flitting home between times. Glennys to Singapore and eventually to Canada "forever". Each move, to and from, would usually result in her home being invaded.

It's hard to tell it all in digestable form. Her life was much interwoven of course with those of her daughters and their assorted beaus and offspring.

When we eventually left for Canada in 1968 I think Andrea was on the verge of heading by a circuitous route to South Africa. Rena was soon to be very much on her own. I think it suited her.

She was a great reader of biographies. She read widely. The newspapers she devoured. A very politically aware woman, very much a Socialist. She loved her cigarettes and her roses in her little garden. She studied Russian at one point at evening classes.

No fear of travelling, at least until the years began to catch up with her. She managed several trips to visit us in Canada. After retirement she took one solo trip to Venice (a lifelong ambition). Not sure whether or not she visited Andrea in South Africa.

I knew her for thirty-six years and have almost limitless memories of her. No matter how much I write I suppose I'll miss half .... so I'll ramble on until it seems enough.

As above I applied the label of best friemd to her. I must have a place in the Guiness Book of Records for "most letters ever written to a mother-in-law". Ever the compulsive writer, having heard her complain of seldom hearing from her banished relatives in Canada, I decided to write to her every week. Write I did! It settled into every Tuesday and I'd write, later type, at least two sheets relating the events of the previous week. This went on for years and years, only ending when we returned to England for that strange "one year in Bourton". The paper was always 'different', sometimes a paper table napkin or the latest wallpaper being applied etc. The envelope always 'reused' or new business envelopes from just about anywhere. Two air mail stickers on the front and one on the back. She came to look forward to this little siliness avery week.

The years rolled by and she aged very slowly and very gracefully. She had a bicycle (I got to fix it on my infrequent visits from Canada) which she rode late into her years. She continued to smoke endlessly and rendered her house into a yellowed, nicotine coated place. She loved roses and produced an unbeliveable front garden with them.

Sometime after our return to Canada from Bourton she went into decline. Altzheimer's had caught her in its foul grasp.

Single handedly Andrea took charge and moved her to a 'nursing home'. The downhill slide continued of course. I think Andrea nearly broke herself emotionally and financially over this.

Vivian and I visited her just the once and much of the 'old Rena' shone through. Did she forgive me for the break with Glennys? I'll never know.

In 2004 she died, my friend had gone. What a lady!

The above is the merest sketch. I think I'll write more later to try and give her the recognition she deserves - to her goes much of the credit for saving the Hutton line from possible extinction.