Mum. Part 1.

If you were to ask my Mum ‘What are you good at?’ she would no doubt look at you, slightly bewildered and say, ‘I’m not much cop at anything really’. Not out of modesty but because she truly believes it. Suffering from Osteoporosis, my Mum is now bound to a wheelchair and has lived in a care home for the last 4 years. I know she misses her home dreadfully and my Dad but I’m glad she’s there, she’s safe, loved, well cared for and can live her life without my Dad’s constant criticism and for the first time in their marriage, her life does not revolve around meeting his needs.

My Mum in her Dinner Dance Dress 1976

She has never placed much value on her own creative abilities, they weren’t really appreciated or encouraged (except perhaps by my sister and I who frequently benefited from them), and aside from a job, hand gilding ceramics at Crown Derby before I came along, her skills were only put to use within the constraints of her role as a housewife. Everything she did creatively was for her home and family.

I say that not to deride that, but like so many women of her generation and those before her, those essential skills deemed necessary for a woman to master received no accolades or recognition. Her work was taken for granted, she was just fulfilling her duties as a wife and mother. Had she been born at a different time, that might have been a very different story, for my Mum was exceptionally talented, creatively there was little that she couldn’t turn her hand to.

Her skills were shared in equal measures between my sister and I, with me inheriting her aptitude for fashion and textiles and my sister for art and design. But it has only been through the progression of my project that I have recognised just how much of myself I owe to her. Although my tastes and interests have waxed and waned over the years, the influence of her love of fashion, film, art, sewing, nik naks, glamour and homemaking have shaped who I am personally, professionally and aesthetically.

The most prevailing image I have of my Mum is her sitting at the kitchen table with her 1960’s Singer sewing machine. It had two speeds, stop and one hundred miles an hour, but she handled it with total dexterity and precision. She always had a project on the go either clothing for my sister and I or something for the house, all of which she would finish by hand. For years I presumed that was just because her machine only straight stitched, but later on when a second-hand Bernina replaced the Singer with it’s wealth of fancy stitches, she still continued to overcast by hand, because that was the ‘proper’ way to do it.

Me in my Party Frock, made from the remnant fabric of my Mums Dinner Dance Dress, Christmas Day 1976 accompanied by the knitted Santa she also made for me.

When she wasn’t sewing, she’d paint watercolour portraits of us to give as presents or decorate old tins into useful storage for the house. If she wanted something to co-ordinate with her kitchen curtains (homemade of course) she’d simply make it. She’d make table lamps from wine bottles, some mosaiced with shells from family holidays, some painted. Mateus wine bottles were sophisticated enough to remain unembellished, but all were finished with a lampshade made by her from stripping and re-purposing jumble sale shades. My mum was upcycling long before it was ever a thing.

After bedtime, my Mum would make gifts for us. Clandestinely creating rag dolls, teddy bears and dolls clothes to perfection, the latter of which she would always stitch onto card, just as they would be presented if shop bought, some knitted and some cloned directly from actual Sindy clothes. In my entire childhood I only caught my Mum in the act of creating our Christmas and birthday presents once, when I found her refurbishing a dolls house, discarded by a local nursery for my sister. She turned a battered, mouldy old toy into a beautifully painted, decorated, fully carpeted miniature version of our own house from using the remnants from her own home improvements.

Before marriage and a family diverted my Mum’s creativity, she spent her spare time, indulging in her own passions. She’d paint portraits of her favourite movie stars; Charlton Heston as Ben Hur took pride of place in our living room for many years. When I look back at old photographs she was always beautifully turned out, dressed in clothes she designed and made herself, often based on what Elizabeth Taylor whom she idolized happened to be wearing.

My Mum's childhood copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with her hand-tinted illustrations.

She told me as a child she loved to draw and paint, indeed one of my most treasured possessions is her copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in which she colour washed all of the black and white illustrations when she was 8 years old. Her dressmaking started in her teens, along with her pursuit of styling and make up advice, taken from magazine articles that schooled women on the art of femininity and beauty. She kept and collated the features to produce the ultimate 1950’s teenage girl reference guide, covering everything from posture to cleanliness to the correct eyebrow arch for your face shape. Something again that has become part of my own personal treasure.

My Mum's Beauty Guide Book, collated and made in her teens in the 1950's.

I mentioned previously that I didn’t wish to deride her role as a house wife, but I have spent much of my adulthood thinking it a shame that her talents were wasted. I couldn’t help contemplate, what she might have achieved if she’d had the same choices as my sister and I. Consequently I have often felt sorry for her.

In recent years I realised, to think along those lines is to negate, her own thoughts and feelings on the matter. On reflection, I have never once heard my Mum express regret, she is one of those people that just seem content with their lot in life and there is a lot to be said for that.

Her talents were far from wasted, she just exercised her creativity for enjoyment not financial gain, she didn’t have to spend hours of her life sewing those dresses and soft furnishings, painting those coffee tins and portraits, she chose to because she loved it. She was a natural homemaker utilising her skills to create a home she adored on limited means and she was exactly where she wanted to be. If anything, she has every right to feel sorry for me, for all the angst and self-doubt that I’ve put myself through over the years for pursuing a career within design. I doubt she ever had an emotional crisis whilst deciding on the piping for her latest scatter cushions. But I have had plenty in the name of furthering my career. That’s not to say I regret my own choices, I don’t and we live in a different time now but as I get older there are aspects of my Mum’s life that I find very appealing.