MOTHER'S MID-LIFE CRISIS
Some time in the late 1960s, at the age of 54, Mum broke out of her humdrum life riddled with periods of depression. For a long time she had hankered after a secondhand green Morris Minor car in the window of the showroom in what had once been the village haberdashery shop. One day, not knowing anything about cars, she went in, pointed, and said: “I'd like to buy that car”. Whether or not she paid a deposit is not known, but a Hire Purchase agreement was set up without a guarantor. The salesman asked when she would like to take possession. “Oh!, I can't take it – I can't drive – please could you deliver”. They did, and the car sat in the road outside the bungalow for several weeks. Mum and my brother had not been getting on very well together so she decided to carry on paying the rent so that he had a roof over his head, gave up her job, left him to fend for himself to come to live with me in London. He was 22. Of course the car had to come too, so one of my friends and I went up to Liverpool on the coach and returned with Mum, her possessions and her car – my friend driving the Moggy. Once settled she took advantage of her freedom: visited the Tutankhamun exhibition, went to the tennis at Wimbledon and started driving lessons. I had already had a few lessons in the driving school's Morris Minor, but now we had one to practice in. Mum took a job as personal assistant to the managing director of Chapman's Paper Company in Clapham. The company had a mill in Darwen, Lancashire, manufacturing newsprint. She made friends with two of the office girls (both drivers) who were prepared to sit with Mum during practise sessions. One time they went to RHS Wisley and were scared out of their wits when Mum almost drove into the lake. We both passed our test; me at the second attempt, and mum, a few months later, at her fourth attempt. The day after Mum passed we headed for Scotland, she driving, me navigating. We were driving along the Great West Road, I instructed her to take the next turning right whereupon she did as instructed and drove into the back of a VW Beetle parked on a double yellow line in the entrance to the West London Air Terminal. The VW came off worse; all crumpled; the Morris relatively unscathed. After sorting out the formalities, and convinced we were in the clear because of the illegality of parking on double yellow lines, we continued on our way, not knowing until our return from holiday that the VW owner had diplomatic immunity.
For a while Mum made occasional visits to Bebington to make sure my brother was coping on his own. There came a time when she discovered that Graham had demolished a fitted corner cupboard in his bedroom, with his clothes still hanging there, and the bungalow was beginning to look uncared for. She was torn between staying with me or, feeling that she had deserted Graham, going back. She also worried that she would lose the tenancy of the bungalow. So, back to Bebington she went, having resigned from her job at Chapmans.