My grandma Rosie celebrated her 90th birthday yesterday. In fine form, she had a merry time and made us all laugh with her gleeful antics. "I'm ninety years old, I can do what I like!" she announced - and promptly knocked back a fourth schooner of sherry.
The world she was born into in 1922 is so different to our own. Born at home, just four years after the end of the Great War; a decade after the Titanic disaster; with George V reigning over a global Empire; and Lloyd George as Prime Minster. Home was a back-to-back terrace in the very centre of heavily-industrialised Bolton, a town packed with cotton mills and iron foundaries that belched out smoke and provided employment for thousands.
She was her mother's first child - her father had a teenage son by his first wife who was living with his own maternal grandparents - and was followed by a sister, Nora 22 months later. There were plenty of local aunts and uncles on both sides and numerous cousins but no grandparents. Sadly, with the death of her mother in 1925, my grandma lost all contact with her maternal family and when a new stepmother came along in 1926 most of her paternal family were distanced.
Yesterday was all about celebrating her ninety years. With her daughter, grandson, son-in-law, former son-in-law and brother-in-law, she enjoyed drinks, food, a cake, flowers, presents and laughter. Friends (mostly in their late 60s and early 70s) joined in, as did her neighbours from the sheltered housing she lives in.
There were, of course, plenty of people whose absence was felt, not least my granddad Archie to whom grandma was devoted and who died in 1986. Grandma's two surviving sisters weren't able to come (due to distance or ill health) and her late brothers were missed. My gift to her was a Memory Book created online and published to a satisfyingly high standard, filled with carefully selected, cherished photographs from her lifetime: all those absent featured in the book - and were with us in spirit.
Yesterday is a memory I will cherish for my lifetime - and family history in the making.
And here is grandma Rosie at 90 with her Memory Book.
