Ann was, and still is, my 'better half', the love of my life, the person who, in 1971, turned my life around. From the moment we decided that we should spend the rest of our lives together, she put all her effort into making our family a happy, workable single unit, and I shall always be grateful to her for that. We had some difficult times, some short-lived, some longer-lasting, but she always came up with a solution.
As Charlotte has intimated, the early days were a struggle, particularly financially, but I don't think we suffered from an overdose of chips! And we always had a chat and a laugh over the dinner table.
When Nana and Pop James visited us from Australia - Ann said they were checking up on her! - we 'lent' the children to Iain, and took Nana and Pop on a quick 5 day trip around Scotland, which they wanted to visit. We went to Edinburgh, Arbroath, Inverness, Fort William and Peebles, with Ann and I developing a taste for Talisker single malt, which has stayed with us for over 40 years!
As a family, we were early users of farmyard holidays, and we had 2 happy visits to Anglesea and one to Tenby. As finances improved, we branched out into holidays in France, usually in a gite, sometimes taking Granny with us too – all packed into the big Citroen estate car. The 2 highlight French holidays, though, were to a friend's caravan on the beach near St Tropez – how on earth we afforded that, I still don't know!
When Ann was working in the Careers Advice office in Bolton, and Charlotte was at Smithills Grammar School, Ann learned that there was to be a rapid change to a comprehensive school set-up, combining the 2 Smithills schools, and this was 2 years before Charlotte's GCSEs. So Ann set off on a tour of possible alternatives, and fixed on Westholme at Blackburn as the best. In 4 weeks, she got Charlotte enrolled, with uniform bought and transport arranged – she was really good at getting things done.
As the family grew up and moved away from Bolton, Ann decided she would take early retirement from being Careers Advisor at Bolton Institute – on 31st December 1999, “because that was an easy date to remember!” In fact, she spent another 2 years or so as a part-time careers consultant with Salford University, before really retiring.
I think it was then that she decided to join the local WI, though she had always professed that she didn't like 'groups of older women'. But she made some new and very good friends there, and some of them have said how much they miss her sharp, humorous and witty comments – the Liverpudlian upbringing showing through!
I don't know where it comes from, but this little verse really sums up my present life:
Though you're no longer with me
Every day I find,
In one way or another
You're back there in my mind.
I might hear a piece of music
And at once my mind is stirred
Back to a treasured moment
The two of us have shared.
I never try to stop thoughts
I let them just flow through -
It's just my way of spending time
Once again with you.