LEFT TO RIGHT:
DORIS, MAUREEN, JEAN, LORNA.
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A VERY ENGLISH FAMILY.
When, early in our relationship, Maureen told me she had seven sisters I was – as an only child with two (unofficial and part-time) foster brothers– intrigued and a trifle apprehensive. What would they make of their 17-year-old baby sister taking up with a thirty-year-old former soldier now a lowly NHS employee? They were a very English family. Mostly tolerant. Sisterly close. Quick of temper. Shrewd in judgement. I was a trifle apprehensive?
Mo introduced me to them gradually, mainly in their own homes, and answered the most often (thankfully kindly) asked question: “Where did you get him?” with: “I got him on the NHS.”
Over the years I came to know them individually, though all but one of them (oldest sister Lorna, an Isle of Wight resident) lived in or fairly close to Portsmouth. they holidayed together at an island chalet complex every year, and were jokily known by its manager as 'The Sisters Grimm.'
I liked each of them as individuals. Being human, I had my favourites. Marg. was one of my favourites. She was the one who did not want to live beyond her seventies, who married Mike on the same day that our youngest child, Roz, was born (12 March 1970), who did the cryptic crossword in a broadsheet every day (a couple of times she attempted to teach me the knack, but I was hopeless), who swam thirty lengths at a local swimming baths three times a week, and whose television viewing in summer began and ended with tennis at Wimbledon.
As the years passed on so, one by one, did the sisters until, with the death of Pam in 2020 (Post 348 refers), only the fourth born, Marg. and the last, Mo, were left. Now lovely Marg. has gone.
Throughout the last year or so her health, both physical and mental, went into decline and, despite every possible assistance that Mike (now in his late nineties) tried to give her, she was eventually admitted to the Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth, and thence to a NHS nursing home where, barely a week later, and two days short of her ninety fourth birthday, she died.
I liked each of them as individuals. Being human, I had my favourites. Marg. was one of my favourites. She was the one who did not want to live beyond her seventies, who married Mike on the same day that our youngest child, Roz, was born (12 March 1970), who did the cryptic crossword in a broadsheet every day (a couple of times she attempted to teach me the knack, but I was hopeless), who swam thirty lengths at a local swimming baths three times a week, and whose television viewing in summer began and ended with tennis at Wimbledon.
As the years passed on so, one by one, did the sisters until, with the death of Pam in 2020 (Post 348 refers), only the fourth born, Marg. and the last, Mo, were left. Now lovely Marg. has gone.
Throughout the last year or so her health, both physical and mental, went into decline and, despite every possible assistance that Mike (now in his late nineties) tried to give her, she was eventually admitted to the Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth, and thence to a NHS nursing home where, barely a week later, and two days short of her ninety fourth birthday, she died.
There is little I can add except my commiserations to Mike who will be finding it all hard to take in, and my sympathy with dear Mo who now has none of her seven sisters.
REMAINS ONLY TO SAY.jpg)
MARG URRY nee HAMMOND.
A KIND, NICE PERSON AND
THE LAST OF THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.
REMAINS ONLY TO SAY
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A KIND, NICE PERSON AND
THE LAST OF THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.
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