Who is Jean?
My mother in law.
People often say seen but not heard, Jean was more likely to be heard but not always seen at first. When I was first dating Pauline I was advised (via Pauline) I was a bit old (4 years her senior), I was disabled (yes, I was spina bifida and walked with elbow crutches). And worse of all, my mother worked – in a factory!
Gradually however my status grew, we married 4 years after we first met, and 4 years later our first child, and grandchild was a boy!! Jean always liked boys, men, rather than girls.
I lost my own mother19 years ago, and adopted Jean as my mother, now she could do no wrong.
A wonderful lady, always spoke her mind, took no prisoners, wonderfully ignorant sometimes of what she had said, who she might have offended, but just continued as if nothing had occurred.
Later as she walked less, breathed less, she never talked less, and with a smile on her face said she felt fine. Always patched up with plasters, bandages, had to sit in the front of our car, but still could manage to bruise and cut herself.
Always wanting a kiss and cuddle, she was Jean, her own self, special, annoying, ignorant of modern life, wonderfully so. But oh so individual, as someone at British Leyland said ‘we don’t make them like that any more’.
Trevor Thomas