John Warner Author

Age does some funny things to you, whilst I am far from being Methuselah; I am certainly not a teenager anymore. Sometimes, though, as you reach the later years you seem to have more time to reflect, I find myself in that mode at present, especially about my younger days.
It was something I read that got me thinking. Being an avid reader of almost anything, but in particular, stories relating to the war days, I was engrossed in a light novel recently where the characters portrayed and their experiences resembled something of my early childhood.
One of the characters in the book had been evacuated in the early part of the war, as had many children throughout Britain. During his time away, he had received regular letters from his mum, but he suddenly thought, after some time had passed, that he was finding it more difficult to picture his mum`s face, her smell: Ponds Cold Cream and freshness he could remember no problem at all, but he was afraid he was forgetting what she looked like.
This jolted my memory as I also went through this stage. Being born in 1947 I was obviously not in the same situation, however, my Mother passed away at the relatively young age of fifty-four, I was just approaching twenty-two. For many years mum had struggled constantly with ill health: Liver, Kidneys, and Heart. Back in `The Good Old Days` the medical advances were not that of today, it was the late sixties and it would be another ten years or so before any great advances of treatment would be available to such patients, and so consequently, despite what treatment she did receive, her body slowly gave up.
When my Mother eventually died, my dad fell to pieces. My mum, although ill most of the time, was the rock of the household, she handled everything, dad had no idea bless him. And so it was I handled the best part of all the arrangements. It was due to this that I realise today I never really cried, and after a long time had passed, I too began to be concerned that, apart from a picture I had, the memory of what she looked like in the flesh was deserting me. However, like the young lad in the war story, I too remember the aroma of my Mum: Johnsons Baby Powder, a certain Eau De Cologne, which she used to buy from Joseph Johnson in Leicester (later to become Fenwick’s) and her favourite Lavender. But now, at the ripe old age of sixty-nine, I remember her face perfectly. Strange, but at the same time, wonderful. Thank You for reading this Blog….JW
John Warner is a Pandora Cyprus family member & author of The Tales of Padistan Bear.
www.padistan-bear.com
www.pandoracyprus.com