Mum Puts Pen To Paper

Mum Puts Pen To Paper

Having been an accountant all her working life, Mum's forte was always figures, and not words. She could write a good letter, and generally keep in touch with people, but producing longer pieces of work never really crossed her mind - until one day, about eleven years ago, she suddenly announced she wanted to write about how she got her first job at the Midland Bank.

"If you write it," I said, "I'll type it all up for you."

I didn't think any more about it. In the past, very occasionally Mum would announce she would like to write about her life experiences, but she had never really got around to it, so when she actually produced a really lovely piece, reminiscing about starting work in Liverpool in 1937, it was a wonderful surprise.

As I'd promised, I typed it up for her, and said I thought she should submit it to a magazine, to see if it could reach a wider audience. Mum didn't think anything would come of it, but went along with the idea. I told her she might not hear anything for weeks or even months, but to our surprise and delight, after quite a short time, she had a reply from the Editor, accepting the article.

She was so thrilled to see her story in print - and even more delighted when a few weeks later, a cheque arrived in the post for her!

She then began to think about writing more about her life and she wrote a few paragraphs every week. We all encouraged her; when she had completed a couple of chapters, she gave it to us to read, and said she wanted to call it, "A Liverpool Lass."

I was pretty sure that title had already been used by another author, and explained she might have to think of another one, but in the meantime, we produced a mock up of how her book could look, if it was picked up by a publisher, and went to printed.

The local press ran a story about Mum and her dream of writing her autobiography, which inspired her to keep writing for a while longer. Unfortunately, it was about this time that her memory began to play tricks, and she started repeating over and over again, all the different places she had worked, with no cohesive structure or narrative. It all became so jumbled, until even I couldn't work out what she wanted to say, or where she was in her head, and presently the idea of writing more chapters faded away. I was so sorry about it; even now, there are things I would love to verify with her, but her memories can be so confused, nothing is reliable anymore.

Mum with "A Liverpool Lass"

I thought it might be nice to include Mum's first article, Looking After the Pennies, so that will be coming up next!