Remembering My Mother June Tyler, 1932 - 2025
The loss of a much loved family member will always be sad, particularly as it was so very sudden. Earlier in the day she had been texting (EE were always amazed at how many texts she sent, at 93), and just a few hours later she had died from the maelstrom that is sepsis, in hospital.
The joyous element is that Mum's end was swift. She had been losing her sight and was terrified of the possibility of a long hospital stay or having to go into a care home.
We all think our mothers are extraordinary, I'm sure. But the women of the Silent Generation, those born between 1925 and 1945, deserve a special mention and to be remembered.
These women went through a depression followed by a world war with all the devastation, loss of life and hardship that this entailed.
They came out of it with resilience and stoicism. In life, society deprived them of opportunities. Equal rights were not achieved for many years.
Let me tell you about my mum. She wasn't born to a middle class family, or sent to a private school. She wouldn't consider herself extraordinary in any way. But she was. A livewire of intelligence and spirit, June would have excelled in a career had she been given the opportunity.
June's father Jack Lovis was a painter and decorator. Unable to get work in this field because of the Depression, he became a labourer in what was known in Plymouth as "tar works." He married Kathleen Lovis, a fellow Plymothian, in 1930. June was born in 1932.
Kathleen was an expert at sewing, making most of the clothes for June and her brother Brian. She could stretch simple ingredients to make something delicious. She adored Christmases and tried to make them special.
The four shared a bedroom and one night, aged 11, June heard Kathleen whisper "That exam tomorrow could change June's life."
The exam was a scholarship, the precursor to the 11 Plus. June was very bright and passed among the highest in Plymouth (the numbers were shared at this time).
She was educated at Plymouth High School for Girls. During her school years war broke out. Plymouth was a target for bombardment because of its dockyard. During her school years war broke out. The Plymouth Blitz saw the city enduring 59 separate bombing raids and 602 air raid alerts between July 1940 and April 1944. The bombing resulted in 1,174 civilian deaths and 4,448 injuries.
June was evacuated to Newquay, the Headland Hotel, to avoid the bombing. She spoke often about this: the girls were accompanied by mostly single female teachers, for whom it was a big responsibility. With her was best friend Maureen, a friend for life. Maureen and June (right) are shown here aged 18.
She first married when she was 21 and moved to Torquay with her husband, Walter Kennedy, who was a musician trained at Kneller Hall. My brother Andrew was born in 1954.
The marriage wasn't a happy one, and didn't last long. One day Walter told June that he was leaving her because he didn't love her. June and Andrew went to live with her parents back in Plymouth.
The process of divorce was painful. In those days both parties had to go to court, and be represented by a barrister. Mum recalled meeting the barrister just before the hearing. He told her what to say, and lostened gravely as she recited it back to him.
Afterwards, Kathleen asked if they should take the solicitor out for a drink, but Mum was adamant they shouldn't. She told me later the solicitor was continually making improper suggestions to her when they met for meetings.
Before she married she had two jobs, one in Spooners, a department store which became Debenhams a few years later, and the other as a secretary at Plymouth Transport in Milehouse. She was promoted at Spooners, where she worked in the patisserie. It was there she met another lifelong friend, Joyce Bartczak.
Once a woman married and became pregnant, she was no longer employed. Mum met my Dad, a Royal Marine, at the Park Ballroom (it much later became Woods, a disco I used to go to). They married in January 1960. Here they are with Andrew. I came along in November.
We lived in Morden, Surrey, until 1964 and then moved to the house where Mum would live for the rest of her life, in Plymouth. Robert was born a few weeks after we arrived.
Dad was very traditional and expected Mum to be a housewife. When we were young she was happy to comply. She would change her outfit and refresh her make-up before Dad came home (different times!).
She loved looking after us. Money was tight so we rarely went out as such. Instead we made messes in the kitchen with flour and water, went on nature walks, and had a drive on Sundays, wearing our car coats.
As we got older, she was keen to work. Dad reluctantly agreed she could work part-time in Marks and Spencer. I was 12 at the time, Robert was 8. I had offered to help make the tea if she wasn't home in time. I was keen for her to work there, she was bringing home exotic things we'd never eaten before like Scotch pancakes.
Sadly it didn't last for long. Dad was exasperated after a short while and told her she had to leave. He said she could only get a job that tallied with our school hours.
She Called His Bluff
I'm pleased to say she called his bluff. She became a dinner lady, working first in the kitchen at my primary school.
She was good at it and was offered her own kitchen at Hooe, another district of Plymouth. By now Mum was in her early 50s. She never learnt how to drive (Dad was not keen on the idea) so she had to catch 2 buses to get to Hooe. She always started early but never got paid for the extra time.
She managed quite a big team of women. At lunch time they had to get the huge round tables and chairs out, and put them away at the end of lunch. This contributed to arthritis in later life.
When Grandma (Kathleen) had to go into a care home, she insisted Mum visit every day. So this was added to her already hectic schedule: every day of the week except Sunday.
The first thing Mum did with her "pin money" was book a holiday for us in a hotel in Bournemouth. It was there that she used her own cheque book, for the first time. Women were not allowed to have their own bank account until 1975.
After she and Dad were retired, they started having holidays abroad, for the first time, and became regular walkers. Dad was diagnosed with COPD at 55 and it took its toll on his health, and on their relationship. He was a difficult man, and Mum was always her own woman, spirited and stubborn. It wasn't easy for either of them as she became his carer.
Her golden years came in the period between 2004 and 2019. Dad had died at 72. Mum was a member of three women's organisations and a social secretary for two of them. She was always busy organising trips, going out for coffee, meeting friends. She took over the garden having never done any gardening before.
Below: with my brother in 2022. She hadn't had colour analysis but she loved bright blues, red and yellow, and in particular, scarves.
We had some wonderful outings and holidays. We saw several ballet productions in London. Mum visited me when I was living in Munich, at Christmastime. We revisited one of our 1970s caravan holidays, staying at Beverley Park in Goodrington (the caravan was very cold at night). On Mother's Day we had several years enjoying the special lunch at the Corbyn Head Hotel in Torquay. Very genteel, with a pianist. Sadly the hotel closed. Our last Mother's Day lunch was at the Grand in Torquay in 2019. Mum enjoyed it.
One of our pet hates was the stale food smell you sometimes encounter in pubs and restaurants. I would always scout ahead, sniff the air inside the hostelry, and back out with the cry "Old Fat!"
Mum was full of beans until around 2021. Covid had done her cohort no favours. The three associations all closed. Some of the ladies had not made it through Covid. Others, like her friend Maureen, would no longer go on buses because of the hazard.
Mum was very approachable and chatty. I used to say she could talk the hind legs off a donkey, because she would always talk to people on the bus and in shops. She had a great sense of humour. Yet she was a mass of contradictions. She hated surprise visits, particularly in the evening, because she changed into her "dismals" around 4pm.
Distant relatives, or friends met on holiday, struck the fear of God into her when they wrote to say they would be in Devon on holiday and would call in to see her.
She tried to make new friends. I told her about an older person's coffee club at a venue not far from her on Fridays, and on one of her good days, she went along. There was a group of people sitting together - evidently from a home - and they completely blanked her. I was livid on her behalf.
She was a virtual stranger to the NHS and not on prescription medication, at 93. Her surgery, Beacon practice in Plymouth, is a poor performer. Appointments are always 3 or 4 weeks out, provided you can endure the Spanish Inquisition beforehand from a receptionist. It shows the disparity between different parts of the country. We can get a same day appointment if we ring after 8.30.
No Prescription Medication
I worried she was in pain from some of her ailments. She wouldn't tell us. One exception was when she felt a shifting within her hip that made her cry out. She eventually agreed to go for an x-ray. She was told bones were disintegrating, floating around, and nothing could be done. She wasn't able to walk very far for about 2 months.
She was very nearly blind, which terrified her because she knew that if her optician's prediction came true, she would have to go into a home or have carers. Just a couple of weeks ago she was panicking because her oven seemed to be aglow at strange times. She was convinced everything was switched off, but frightened it would leak gas. Her cleaner quickly identified it was an oven light, and switched it off.
It upset me when I saw her wardrobe this week and how she had labelled some of her clothes with "red" or "blue."
Like most members of her generation, she was thoughtful about others and never wanted to be a nuisance. Her affairs were left in immaculate order, folders all labelled with 2025 correspondence inside, including her boiler and alarm servicing. She was forever "death cleaning" and her house is bare of possessions.
If I could sum Mum up in 3 words I would say: Funny, Stubborn (she was always right. I have inherited this trait!) and Kind. She was "collecting" old ladies, as I called it, right into her 80s, going to their houses and visiting them in hospital. One of the kindest souls I ever met.
I hope Mum you will rest in peace, you have earned it. I will hear your voice on the wind and in the rustle of the primroses you loved in early Spring.
Below: before an outing circa 2014.
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