News from far away

My mother died last night. She was ninety-five, and in hospital after a fall and a major operation to pin a broken hip, but she'd come through that and seemed to be doing well. Then she had breathing difficulties, and a doctor came, and she slipped away very quickly.

She was an extraordinary woman. Army brat between the wars, classic child of empire - born in Rangoon, raised in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, sent home to boarding school while her parents stayed out east - then somehow making the shift from that life to something entirely different, winding up raising four difficult children alone through the '60s and '70s, and then living a long, quiet and happy retirement in Cornwall with my sister right on hand, grandkids and great-grandkids to make a fuss of.