The Nostalgia column with Margaret Watson: The pillars of our society

The one above reminds me of the kind of families I grew up with, pillars of society who we all looked up to.

It shows the wedding of Michael Owens, who was a caretaker at St Joseph’s School, Batley Carr, which I attended as a child, and his wife, Margaret.

Pictured at the front with her hand on the little girl’s shoulder (Nellie Carrol) is Matilda Pearson.

Nellie lived with her sister Annie, for many years in Naylor Street, Batley Carr, opposite our school.

The old lady at the front with her hand on the shoulder of the little boy is Bridget Kelly, and the little boy is Bernard Pearson, Matilda’s son.

Others pictured are Denis and Mary Enwright, John, Francis, Maggie and Willie Owens, and Willie’s wife, Frances, Alfie Tong, Grandma Owens and Mary Elizabeth (Owens) Reasby.

I mention their names because these people were the pride of our alley, lovely people who were always there for each other and their neighbours around them.

There were many such big families who served our little church in Batley Carr well, and who we respected.

This photograph appeals to me more this week than ever before because I am looking at it at a time when the world is in crisis.

We have all been stopped in our tracks and are experiencing something we’ve never known before and we are looking to others to show us the way.

I think we can look back and remember those who went before us who lived through difficult times, including two world wars.

It is Mothers’ Day on Sunday, and we can look back and think of our parents and grandparents who lived through these times.

When I look at this picture, I realise most of them are women who would have become mothers, and they will have known hardship, but this often made them stronger.

People of my generation, men and women alike, love to talk about their mothers and what they meant to them, because we really did think they were a breed apart.

We tried to show our love for them by being as good as we could, never answering back, running errands, helping around the house and looking after younger brothers and sisters.

We earned money carol singing at Christmas, and potato picking or selling firewood from door to door, giving every penny earned to our mothers.

When we went potato picking or carol singing, we went en masse, travelling by the street-load, with lads like Walter Bates and Mickey Donlan, leading the way.

We weren’t from the same family, but we belonged to the same tribe, and they looked after us, and we felt safe.

Women ran the home and raised the children, and dads rarely interfered with how things were run, because it was a matriarchal society in every way.

My mother was always busy, never stopping from morning till night, always having her sleeves rolled up, ready for action, cleaning, cooking, washing, baking, looking after my grandma when she was ill, and managing to go out to work.

How she did it I’ll never know, but she even managed to fit in her Christian duties, going to church two evenings a week, Confession on Saturday, Mass on Sunday, the Mother’s Union once a month, and helping at the church bazaar.

She still found time for a few simple pleasures of her own, like going to the pub on Saturday night with dad (she was no saint) and going to the pictures once a week, always with one of us in tow.

Mother’s Christian faith always came first. She fell asleep clutching her Rosary beads and woke up with them still wrapped round her fingers.

Throughout Lent she prepared for Easter physically by cleaning the house from top to bottom and spiritually, by giving up smoking or denying herself some other earthly pleasure.

Soon, with millions more, I may be called upon to “self isolate” for a few weeks, and I won’t be doing it voluntarily for Lent.

But when the time comes, I will try and take a leaf out of my mother’s book and roll up my sleeves and just get on with it.

Happy Mothers’ Day.