This story – Remembering Florence – is adapted from the short talk that I gave about her life at her funeral. It was quite hard to put it together, not least because there was so much that I wanted to mention about her life and I had about eight minutes to tell the story. So, …
When Florence, my mother aged 105 years was first admitted into hospital in July 2019 she had been diagnosed as having two small fractures in the lower half of her left leg and was fitted with a sizeable leg plaster. She spent 10 days or so on the fracture ward and was then discharged on …
In the middle of October, nearly six months ago, my mother Florence died aged 105 years. It was not ‘somewhere towards the end’ as Diana Athill calls it in her wonderful book of that name but right at the end. I did not expect to be hit very hard as I had been anticipating it …
It’s the morning of the 105th birthday. Its Friday. “She slept like a baby all night” says my brother who has stayed the night with her at the flat. At 9.15am the special delivery of the card from the Queen arrives. Florence sleeps through the very loud doorbell. She eventually wakes up when the …
In March this year I saw an interview on TV as I expect loads of people did, of a wonderful old man of 111 years old called Bob Weighton. He was very sparky and full of life and was asked the inevitable question people always ask my mum Florence aged nearly 105 “what’s the secret …
Its end of April 2019 and just one month away from Florence’s 105th birthday. For my first blog on my mum Florence I looked at her 100th birthday party. It felt right to go back to something lovely and to honour the happiness and joy for her and for us about getting older and becoming …
What a day. It was May 2014 and my mother, Florence had made it to 100. There was never very much doubt that she would. Three years before in 2011 , Florence at 97 years of age sold up and left the house where she had lived for over 60 years. She moved into a …