Autobiography Part 1

Man Of The World Written by Peter Green, adapted by moi! I could tell you about my life And keep you amused I'm sure About all the times I've cried And how I know I wont be sad anymore And how I am so happy to be in love I was born as a result of my mum falling in love with a chap who wasn't a particularly nice person. My nana and grandad did not want mum to marry him, but mum being mum, in love, married him! I came along 9 months later! It wasn't long before the bad chap (notice how polite I am being here!) started to show his true colours. He was a nasty piece of work. He was a womaniser and a drunk. Oh and he was a roofer...well until he went bankrupt! Eventually mum moves me out of the house as it wasn't a safe place to be anymore, and I lived with mum's sister & her husband, Auntie Dot and Uncle Moss. Mum was fortunate in having good qualifications and secured a good job at ICI Wilton, a secretary in the Training Centre. She divorced the bad guy (still polite) and bought a small house , next street to Auntie Dot & Uncle Moss. At ICI she met Jack Davison, a Training Officer.....He offered to help mum with some DIY with the house and would visit us.... I remember the first time I met him, I was 7 at the time.! He rewired my Doll's house with independent light switches!!! Very impressive. Over the next few years he came to be part of our family, finally marrying mum in 1970 at the request of my nana, who when she was very ill asked him to look after mum and I. He was my favourite Uncle, and cried the day I called him "Dad"...(Was the prospect of me as a daughter that worrying???)I jest, I didn't see him cry, he did it very privately, mum told me some years later. Mum and Dad were devoted to each other. He suffered a heart attack in 1982 as a result of which he had to finish work. Mum did too and they spent their retirement driving round the North York Moors, eventually buying a holiday caravan in Rosedale Abbey. In 1986 he was driving mum home after one such visit and suffered a fatal heart attack at the wheel of the car. Miraculously nobody else was hurt...amazing as it was peak holiday season time, August 13th on the main moors road to Whitby. I was teaching in Nottingham at the time, but knew when this happened I was to come home for good and look after mum, which I did. I met my husband the following year and we were married in 1988. I missed my Dad at the wedding, he would have loved Jon. In 1994 mum died, knowing Jon would look after me. Why all this information? I learned a valuable lesson from mum, the choices we have in life, in some cases are down to our own making and choosing. By working hard at school to achieve a good education, can be the passport or springboard to wider choices for our future. I tried hard at school and became a primary school teacher. I often come across children experiencing a parental break up. I always tell them that when I too witnessed the breakdown of my parents marriage I had a choice........the choice I made was to make my mum proud of me....sometimes I got things wrong but ultimately I did my best to be a good daughter....just as they can be, a good daughter or a good son. As was read at mum's funeral... "Question not, but live and labour Till yon goal be won, Helping every feeble neighbour, Seeking help from none; Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone, KINDNESS in another's trouble, COURAGE in your own."