Snapshot: My mother, who had a memorable smile
After my mother died, I came across this delightful photograph taken of her in 1931 when she was 10. It shows Dorothy and her younger brother (both to the left) walking to school in Bamburgh, Northumberland, from their home at Budle Bay with three friends. The girls clutching their wild flowers and the children in their ill-fitting hand-me-down clothes make a touching sight.
Mum’s father was the head gardener and game keeper at the “big house” at Waren Mill; her mother cleaned there and looked after the five children. Money was in short supply and I don’t think the family had a camera. Instead, a passing motorist (rare in those days) took the photograph and sent it along with a letter to my mother, asking about her life. His name was John Heywood of Sale, Cheshire, and he wrote: “Everyone I show it to smiles back, so keep on smiling …” And she did. Mum was renowned for her smile and happy disposition. She married my father when he was stationed at Bamburgh during the war, and we returned there every year for our family holiday. I still go back and walk the road from Budle Bay. It hasn’t changed and I can visualise my mother and uncle walking to school with their friends.
Gwen Irving
Playlist: How a song changed the course of my life
An Angel by the Kelly Family
“I wish I had your pair of wings / Had them last night in my dreams / I was chasing butterflies / Till the sunrise broke my eyes”
My husband and I were born and bred on different continents, with more than 11,500km between us. I lived with my mum and sister in a village of 1,000 inhabitants in the west of Slovenia, whereas his hometown in Argentina had more than 15m people. But, in 1995, one song started a series of events that brought us together.
The Kelly Family were becoming more and more successful in Europe, but until 3 March 1995, I had heard about them only in passing. It was the last school dance of the year and, for the final song of the evening, I – at that time, a very shy 14-year-old – gathered up the courage to ask the boy I fancied for a dance. He said “yes” and I was so nervous throughout the whole dance that I didn’t even notice which song it was that we were so awkwardly moving our feet to.
It was only the following day when I heard the song An Angel playing on the radio that it hit me. From that moment on, the date – 3 March – and the song became sacred to me. I celebrated them both for many years to come.
In no time, I had become a huge Kelly Family fan and even fantasised about marrying Paddy, one of the younger siblings in the group. When they moved from Germany to Ireland, my interest in the Emerald Isle began to bud. Knowing my mother and her protective ways, I drew up an agreement stating that, when I reached 18, she would allow me to travel to Ireland. She signed it reluctantly, hoping it was just a phase that I would soon get over and thinking I would never have enough money to pull it off, anyway. After all, the financial reality for my family had been tough since my father died 10 years earlier and everybody who knew our situation was quick to discard my dream as nothing more than wishful thinking.
By the time I was 18, I had grown out of my Kelly Family fixation, but my obsession with Ireland was in full bloom. Against all the odds, I travelled to Ireland that summer and found the landscape and the people as enticing as I had imagined them to be. Even the weather cooperated and there wasn’t a drop of rain through out my whole stay.
But it was in 2002, the third time I visited Ireland, that the island worked its magic on me. I attended a summer school of Irish music and dance in Limerick, and that’s where I met a South American boy who not only shared my love for Ireland, but turned out to have been born on 3 March. Only five minutes into the conversation, I knew he was “the one” (he, on the other hand, needed a few more days). On meeting him, the circle was complete.
Three years later and many flying miles under our belts, we settled in Slovenia. My husband, a musician himself, first heard of the Kelly Family through me and never warmed to their music. But to this day, I stop as if in a trance, whenever I hear that special song – the song that started it all.
Ksenija Yoder Batic
We love to eat: Tommy Mess, invented for Grandma
Ingredients
4 meringue nests
1 tub of whipping cream
Bowl of blueberries, strawberries and raspberries
Whip cream and line up the meringue nests. Scoop blobs of cream into each nest and arrange the fruit on top.
Having moved from “up north” (Lancashire) to “down south” (Poole), it’s always a treat for us when family come to down to sunny Dorset to visit. Our four-year-old twins, Tom and Eva, get very excited, especially in the run-up to a visit.
They want to help get the guest room ready and, of course, go to meet and greet the visitors at the train station. Part of the preparation involves planning meals, and when I ask for help, it usually involves requests for fish and chips.
In preparation for my mother-in-law’s visit, a trip to the supermarket with the twins was in order, and after making the mistake of asking what pudding we should make for Grandma, bypassing suggestions of iced gems and brioche rolls, Eva spotted some meringue nests and so we decided on our own version of Eton Mess.
When it was finally time to prepare the pudding, my two little helpers were eager to lick the spoons and bowls. I gave them free rein to assemble the dish, and they piled lashings of cream and fruit on top of the meringue. Eva looked at Tom’s and decided to call it Tommy Mess – as the name suggests, it wasn’t the neatest of puddings but it tasted very good.
Now Tommy Mess is always on the menu when we have visitors.
Kate Cameron
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