Mum

Remembrance Day helped me every year. My mother's birthday is today and I never forgot it once. As soon as the poppys started to appear in the shops I knew it was time to get her a card.

Being a deejay, one year I managed to get my hands on a very special birthday gift for mum. I bought her an old, antique, 78, gramophone record. The type that smashes to bits if dropped. It was a recording of a Remembrance Concert held at the Royal Albert Hall circa 1928. What I thought was special about this particular service was that it was actually recorded the year that the 11th November was on a Sunday.
She wasn't impressed. She was expecting perfume.

Mum died 5 years ago aged 56. The hardest thing i've ever had to do in my life was to tell my children she was gone.

I never ever forgot My Dad's birthday either, it was the 12th of the 12th. He passed away in 1986 aged only 42. My mother was never the same after his death and she spent 15 years fighting cancer before the disease got the better of her. In a strange way, I think she's happier now.

Lest we forget.