Words from my mum on her mum, January 16 2020:
REMEMBERING RENE
It was 25 years ago today … that we said a sudden and far
too early goodbye to my totally outrageous, unashamedly outspoken, embarrassing, but irreverently witty “Mum” known
to officials, neighbours and grandchildren alike as “Rene”.
In the mucky, murky West Midlands town of her birth, Tipton
- she used to boast to newcomers in a pseudo posh voice, “I come from the country:
the Black Country” - Mum was known as the News of the World. What she didn’t
know wasn’t worth knowing. But because she knew everyone, she cared about them
deeply too and her other nickname was “Rene with the ‘eart of gold”.
Appropriately her heart matched the colour of her beloved
football team, ”the Mighty Wolves”. Her hero was Billy Wright and I only saw
her cry once when she told me: “Billy’s ‘ung up ‘is boots”.
Billy’s original boots are pictured here at an evening at
Molineux last September saluting the golden boy who also died 25 years ago. Mum
would have loved this tribute sent to me from Billy’s widow, Joy Beverley, when
I was planning a memorial concert for Mum soon after she died.
But it doesn’t come close to matching the picture of Mum in
full rapture at Wembley in 1988 with her eight-year-old grandson Lyndon, as we all
watched her beloved team win 2-0.
She once famously declared, when Wolves were shamefully
relegated from the old Division One to the second division: “I shall support
‘em even if they go down to the fourth.” And they did.
How proud she would be to see them ahead of Spurs (grandsons
Aidan and Christian’s team) in the Premier League today.
We laugh about Mum’s antics all the time. She was afraid of no-one - not even the policeman who threatened her with arrest after she joined him on the steps of No 10 (in the days when you were allowed to walk along Downing Street) and asked: “Is the Prime Minister in? I want to ask him for a rise in me pension."
We laugh about Mum’s antics all the time. She was afraid of no-one - not even the policeman who threatened her with arrest after she joined him on the steps of No 10 (in the days when you were allowed to walk along Downing Street) and asked: “Is the Prime Minister in? I want to ask him for a rise in me pension."
Love you forever Mum x
Twenty-five years ago was the first time I really remember someone dear dying - heartachingly just a few months before I was to begin studying close by in Birmingham, wishing she were still near for more regular visits that might just have helped us both through various struggles. Instead, cherish memories of every trip up the M1 and M6 - in earliest years, those Ocker Hill cooling towers showing we were finally "nearly there" - or hers the other way: ever-generous, ever-mischievous, loving her boys, her family, and of course her sport - whether cheering on "Beefy" Botham or "Whirlwind" Jimmy White, "Bully For Me" Steve Bull, John "Budgie" Burridge or of course the gentlemanlier Billy Wright. And the treasured Elvis postcard she kept on her mantelpiece, beside so many family snaps, now holds pride of place on the wall at my Mum's - recalling every time, whenever, she'd sing an adapted "It's Now Or Never" if buying any of us or even herself just one Cornetto... x
Twenty-five years ago was the first time I really remember someone dear dying - heartachingly just a few months before I was to begin studying close by in Birmingham, wishing she were still near for more regular visits that might just have helped us both through various struggles. Instead, cherish memories of every trip up the M1 and M6 - in earliest years, those Ocker Hill cooling towers showing we were finally "nearly there" - or hers the other way: ever-generous, ever-mischievous, loving her boys, her family, and of course her sport - whether cheering on "Beefy" Botham or "Whirlwind" Jimmy White, "Bully For Me" Steve Bull, John "Budgie" Burridge or of course the gentlemanlier Billy Wright. And the treasured Elvis postcard she kept on her mantelpiece, beside so many family snaps, now holds pride of place on the wall at my Mum's - recalling every time, whenever, she'd sing an adapted "It's Now Or Never" if buying any of us or even herself just one Cornetto... x
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