| My mother was born in Luton, Bedfordshire on 23 December 1921, the second child of Olive and David Francis. Her only sibling, Eric, had been born on January 13 that same year so for three weeks in every twelve month period my mother was the same age as her big brother. Her parents had decided to call her Monica but when it came time to register her birth, her father, apparently overwhelmed by the occasion, forgot the name and opted instead for Joan.
The family moved to Oxford when Mum was about four years old and it was subsequently here that she began her schooling. The few years she spent in Oxford had a profound effect on her and she often told me of the beauty of this university town with its sandstone colleges and views across the River Cherwell, and of her memories of pleasant walks through the University Botanic Gardens.
After a few years the family moved again to Royal Leamington Spa where they lived in a succession of rented houses before moving into 16 Telford Avenue, Lillington which was to be her address for the remainder of her time in England. The name ‘Lillington’ painted on a piece of English oak was later to adorn every house she lived in in Australia. In Leamington, she attended Milverton School and then Leamington College for Girls as a scholarship holder. She was a diligent student who shone in English Literature, Latin and French, enjoyed Biology but was fairly ordinary in Maths. I suspect her Geography mustn’t have been very strong either as she often used to recall a test which asked her to label place names on a blank map of Australia which she did quite accurately save for the fact that she had the map upside-down in the first place! During her time at school she also enjoyed a range of sports including gymnastics where she became quite proficient on the horse and the bars, and also developed a passion for swimming usually winning medals in the numerous carnivals in which she competed. As the daughter of a lifetime employee of the Halford Cycle Company she also spent a good deal of time bicycling around the countryside, particularly on the long summer evenings.
Leaving school unsure of what she wanted to be, she sat for the Civil Service Examinations for telephone operators, gaining second place in Warwickshire and subsequently began work at Telephone House, Coventry in 1938. Some months later this building was the target of an IRA bombing, perhaps a precursor of the violence that was about to engulf the country with the outbreak of the Second World War in September the following year. For some months Coventry was bombed relentlessly every night with Mum seeing scenes of great devastation as she cycled or rode the bus into work each morning. Her home town of Leamington did not escape unscathed either and on one occasion she had a ceiling collapse on her when a couple of ‘thousand pounders’ were dropped further up her street.
In 1940 her brother Eric enlisted and after various postings around England was eventually sent to India, virtually for the duration of the war, at which point the family decided to open their home to the many foreign servicemen who were stationed in England, offering them the opportunity to participate in family life when they were so far from home. At first these were mainly Polish, Czech and Belgian soldiers whose countries were under German occupation, and Mum made many lifelong friends amongst these young men. In time the Canadians and Australians followed and in 1943 a young Flight Sergeant from Victoria arrived at the house. This man was Ian Hunter and Mum spent countless hours during the summer picnicking, cycling and boating with him. The other servicemen continued to visit and to be part of their family life but Mum always seemed to gravitate to Ian. By the New Year there was a sense of optimism as the war seemed to have taken a positive turn and so it came as little surprise that they were married on 19 January 1944. Mum always had particularly happy memories of this time but in the quest for victory in Europe the Air Force was called on to fly many more missions and so their time together was punctuated by his absences on the call of duty. Then on 28 April 1944, whilst on a training flight, Ian was lost over the English Channel. At the age of 22 and after just three months of marriage, Mum was a widow. She continued to wear Ian’s wedding ring for the rest of her life.
Mum faced emptiness and some very dark times for a while but with the support of many wonderful friends she determined that life did go on. With the stoicism and positivity which was to characterise the rest of her life, she threw herself further into the war effort, beginning to work after office hours in army canteens and manning telephones at the local air-raid shelter. She and her parents continued to offer rest and recreation to the young men who had been torn from their homes by their involvement in the war and in August 1944 my father paid his first visit to the Francis family home and was very soon after spending most of his off-duty time there. A great friend of my father, Jim Collins, also came on these R and R visits and befriended, Joyce, a local girl whom Mum had known at school, and soon the four of them were inseparable. At the same time the Allied advance in Europe was gaining momentum and people dared to believe that victory was in sight. The war came to an end in May 1945 and on 14 June, Mum married Ray, my father, in a union that was to last for over sixty-six years. A few months later Mum watched as Dad boarded the troop ship Aquitania to return to Australia, wondering how long it would be before they would be together again.
In May of 1946 the Australian government chartered the Atlantis to transport war brides to Australia. When Mum boarded the ship in Southampton she was farewelling her family and everything that she had grown up with for a life half-a-world away. The women who made this great leap of faith in an era when transport and communication systems were nowhere near as accessible as they are today, I believe, showed enormous courage. Mum suffered terrible sea-sickness on the voyage to the extent that she phoned Dad from Perth to say that she would disembark there but he managed to persuade her to stay onboard until the boat docked in Melbourne. She caught the train to Sydney and was reunited with Dad on Central Railway Station in late June. He took her then to their first home in Stanley Street, Bondi Junction which Dad had furnished with the help of his sister Hazel, who was waiting there for them with the baked dinner she had prepared to celebrate Mum’s arrival in Australia. Some short time later Mum made her first trip to visit the rest of the Drurys on the family farm at Central Lansdowne, near Taree, and was overwhelmed by the distances and seeming isolation she encountered. The differences between the ‘sceptred isle’ and the ‘wide brown land’ were immediately apparent to her. Mum however made an instant connection with the family and I have recently heard from a cousin of his first meeting with her where ‘a number of family members picnicked on the riverbank - swam in the river and enjoyed Grandfather’s watermelons which had been cooled in the river.’ I can imagine how much Mum would have loved that.
Mum settled into life in Sydney very well. After spending about three years in their rented home she was excited to move into the house they had built at 27 Crowley Crescent, West Ryde. This was where Jill and I grew up and enjoyed a particularly happy childhood where we were always deeply loved and totally supported. As was the norm at the time, Mum was a stay-at-home homemaker, always there for us. There were always biscuits, slices and cakes coming out of the oven, many of which have not only remained favourites of ours but are also much loved by the grandchildren – all of whom mentioned her coconut slice when I asked them for their memories of Nanna. Kate also remembers her love of liquorice and for years the grandchildren would buy her a sample bag whenever they went to the Royal Easter Show. She was a seamstress and a knitter making many of the clothes that we wore in our early years. Knitting particularly was a passion that stayed with her throughout her life until her failing sight made it too difficult and I really value the hand-knitted jumpers which still survive in my wardrobe today. (Jane remembers the knitted socks that were produced from leftover bits of wool later in Mum’s life and which she and several of her friends still treasure.) She and Dad also worked to establish a beautiful garden in their new home. Mum got much pleasure from this and seemed never happier than when she was out weeding and tending her flowers. This love of gardening continued throughout Mum’s life - even long after she had difficulty distinguishing the weeds from the plants but still pressed ahead anyway!
Mum was always a reader and the shelves were full of books. I remember particularly the copy of ‘David Copperfield’ and several books of the English poets, and Mum would often be heard quoting snippets of poems – ‘Break, break, break on thy cold grey stones, O Sea!’ or ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ – as she thought the occasion required. My ultimate decision to become an English teacher could well have had its origins here.
Always a very gregarious person, Mum made friends easily and entered fully into community life. She was quick to offer a cheery word and a helping hand to neighbours and was a great supporter of the Parents and Citizens Association, and the social activities of the Scouts, the church, the Masonic Movement, and anything else any of us got involved in. The Lamberts who lived a little further down the street became particular friends and Mum and the rest of us enjoyed many happy outings and holidays with them.
In 1956 Mum was excited to be able to welcome her parents when they migrated to Australia and bought a little weatherboard cottage close by. This also gave Jill and me the opportunity to get to know our maternal grandparents. Mum was very happy to be able to share her new life and I remember many enjoyable times we all spent together.
We always spent Christmas at home followed by a Boxing Day picnic at Dee Why with Jim and Joyce Collins and their family. We would then typically visit our grandparents and Ron and Millie on the family farm at Lansdowne before spending two weeks camping at Flynns Beach, Port Macquarie. Mum loved these times with the family reunions followed by days of lazing on the beach and pottering around various places of interest.
When first Jill and then I entered into married life, Mum was delighted to welcome our partners, Graham and Jenny, into the family with genuine warmth and love. She enjoyed a special relationship with each of them. She was particularly overjoyed with the arrival of her grandchildren Shannon, Jane, Kate and Tom, and immediately warmed to the role of Nanna. She was a most willing baby-sitter in the early days and then as they grew, a proud supporter of their various activities. The grandchildren considered it a real treat to be able to stay with Nanna and Pa and all have memories of foods, games and so on which they associate with these special times spent with them. In fact Tom recently looked inside their Scrabble box and found a note that he wrote years ago asking if it would be alright if he stayed with them in the caravan. Mum had a real pride in the achievements of each of her grandchildren and a sense that each had a bright future ahead.
With Dad’s retirement, caravanning became a central part of their lives. At the drop of a hat they would be off for a few days on a whim or on a more extensive trip to some exotic destination. Mum would often send us colourfully written and enthusiastic postcards about their adventures. Sometimes we would meet them somewhere and camp with them for a family holiday. They were usually away for several weeks but they did also embark on the grey nomad trail spending many months travelling around Australia. I could only marvel that the girl who once got the map of Australia upside-down and seemed unaware of its vast expanses later travelled confidently across the length and breadth of the country.
Mum was always obviously English; it was there in her accent and in many of her expressions. She often spoke with great affection about memories of the English countryside and she kept close contact with her English friends and especially with her brother Eric who she would always phone on birthdays and at Christmas. She would meet fellow Brits in her travels and swap memories and experiences of the old country. But she was very much Australian and this was never more evident than during the Ashes cricket tests when she always wanted to see the Poms sent packing with their tails between their legs.
Mum was always especially outgoing and a great conversationalist. She was quite well-informed, at first through reading and later through listening to ABC 702 radio, and would happily engage in discussion on just about any subject. A visit to her place would always involve a cup of tea, a chat and a biscuit. Shannon says in fact that a forty-five minute visit would invariably involve three cups but as one who has inherited Mum’s love of a good cup of tea, I see nothing strange in that. She could - and did – get involved in conversation with complete strangers and in no time at all know everything about them. I remember a couple of years ago taking Mum and Dad on a drive and stopping for a cup of coffee, leaving them at the table while I went to the counter to order. By the time I returned about two minutes later Mum introduced me to the young couple at the next table and told me all about their motorcycle trip from their home in Tasmania to visit family in Newcastle.
She had a great love of life, coupled with a cheerfulness and positive attitude. She was always ready to participate in French cricket and our other childhood games and she seemed to never grow out of this. Soon after moving to Umina she attended a show and accepted the invitation to take part in a can-can, doing herself a mischief, and even her recent broken hip resulted from her sky-larking with a ball in the hostel. No matter what befell her, she seemed to take it in her stride always believing that things would work themselves out for the best. She was invariably so happy to see people when they visited and I will always remember her cheery ‘Oh, it’s David’ or ‘Hello Davey’ every time I entered her room.
A little over twenty years ago, Mum and Dad moved to the Central Coast and a new life in Umina. I remember being concerned that they were walking away from their extensive network of friends and services at the very time that they might need them most. But I needn’t have worried. In no time at all they had settled in, joined the bowling club, joined Probus, volunteered for Meals on Wheels and were making new connections. The gardens very soon looked a picture, the house was made their own and they were participating fully in life on the coast. And the caring relationship between the two of them continued to flourish. Their’s was a partnership of perfect co-operation which towards the end with Mum’s failing sight and the onset of Dad’s dementia saw them as a co-dependent team shoring up each other’s shortcomings. It is perhaps little wonder that they should have left us within six months of each other.
Mum was never one to complain, even when she was obviously experiencing great pain and discomfort. She was particularly grateful to those who cared for her during her illness and thanked the medical staff after each procedure even when it had obviously been painful or unpleasant. Her final words to her doctor were ‘Thank you. God bless you, Harvey.’ She also made it clear how much she appreciated the care and attention she received from the family. I was particularly moved to hear Mum in her last few weeks thank Jenny on several occasions for her kindness and consideration. I know that each of the rest of us got a similar message from her also.
My relationship with my mother was warm, relaxed and, I must admit, a little bit cheeky. I will miss the easy banter that we shared. She was everything I could have ever asked for in a mother. She gave me comfort, support, guidance, friendship and an unconditional love. In her last words to me she said ‘I have lived a good life. I don’t want you to be sad for me’. There will be moments when I am unable to follow her wish but I will be eternally grateful for the life she lead and the example she set. I love you Mum.
Jill, who was Mum’s primary carer over the past few years, has asked me to include the following words on her behalf: ‘I treasured our times together - visiting Mum was never a chore. Mum, I am glad that I was able to support and comfort you in the last years just as you always supported us. Family was central to everything and we often reflected together on how lucky we were to be part of such a happy and loving family. Thank you for the fun, kindness, strength, support and love. You told me to stay strong and I will try - you were my champion. I love you, Mum.’
I know that Mum’s philosophy was to live a good life and to help others to the best of her ability. In this she certainly succeeded.
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