Ivy Mary Chalkley

Eulogy to Mum (Read at her funeral)

There is no one who can ever be like your mother – no one who can replace her no matter where your life leads you and who else you meet and love. Your mother is always special.

We have many happy memories of our mother – various aspects of her which touched our lives in different ways. When we were young she gave us lots of love and affection. When we grew older she would take time to sit down and talk through any of our problems.

Her love of music is something we vividly recollect. She came from a musical family and she loved to sing. The sound of her singing was probably heard from the cradle by each one of us. Right into adulthood we heard her singing around the house and we recall how she could harmonise if you decided to sing along too. Often if a lively tune came on the radio, she would jig around the room just for the sheer fun of it. That’s how we like to remember her, full of life and fun.

She also played the piano and as a young woman accompanied the silent films in her local cinema. She loved to hear Chopin’s piano music because of its wistful charm. But her special song was “Over the Rainbow” because she associated it with Andrew, the child she lost as a young baby. That was one of her darkest periods and a tragedy from which she never fully recovered. Less than 10 years later, she lost our father.

We won’t forget her love of nature, often expressed in her appreciation of the beauty of a flower, the evening sky or the song of a bird. Astrology was another of her great interests and she knew each sign of the zodiac down to the last detail. Her life wouldn’t have been complete without her daily ration of “The Stars”.

She had a very tough life, we know. After enduring the struggles and hardships of the First World War she had to cope on her own with a young family during the Second, whilst Dad was away most of the time serving in the Royal Navy. She must have been lonely too which is perhaps why she took comfort from the words of John Masefield’s poem, “I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky”. At 41 years her loneliness increased on the death of Dad. From then on she was very much on her own, still with a family of seven to raise, in particularly hard times. But she drew strength and courage from her religion. We all remember growing up with her friends in the spirit world and knew what they meant to her.

Her sense of humour and her ability to laugh at herself are what we shall remember most. She often described herself as unconventional and this “unconventionality” often led to amusing incidents. It would be perfectly normal to discover her wearing odd slippers – for comfort, you see. Or she couldn’t find the tea cosy because she had placed it on her head out of the way. Makes sense to do that because that way you can’t lose it! There was another occasion in her early marriage when Dad drove off in the lorry and unbeknown to him, Mum had hid in the back. He had the fright of his life when later as he was driving along, she knocked on the back window of the cab to get his attention!

These incidents were characteristic of our mother. Sadly as she grew older, her memory began to deteriorate but she could still be amusing. On one occasion, when Barbara, her daughter-in-law, called to see her with the children, Mum said, “Well, I don’t know who you are but please come!” Even recently there was a funny incident when she was at John’s house on Christmas Day. Everyone was sitting down relaxing and he decided it was time to get up and feed the dog, at which Mum wanted to know, “And who gave you permission to get up and feed the dog?” We all agreed she had spirit right to the end.

Each member of the family, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, all have affectionate and amusing stories to remember her by which we will carry in our memories to the end of our lives. God bless you, Mum.

(Written by Ruth, her daughter, in colloboration with her sons.)