While It Lasts

I reckon I got thinking about Dad's lack of attendance of football matches in his middle age yesterday because somewhere in the back of my mind was the fact that today is the anniversary of Mum's death. She lived almost four decades longer than her husband (sounds odd to me, thinking of Dad in that way) but I don't think she ever got over losing him - though she did find plenty to enjoy in those years.

I'm guessing she really enjoyed her final job, as a barmaid at Denton Working's Club, for example. She only started that job after his death, actually partly as a way of being allowed into an exclusively 'men's club', where a lady had to be in the company of her spouse to get in. Part of her enjoyment was being good at the job - a natural for the banter at the bar and brilliant at serving quickly, and working out the cost of a complicated round at high speed. I watched her in action more than once and was impressed.

And another thing. I think she got a kick out of being a very senior barmaid in terms of her actual age, being aware that nearly all those customers who didn't know her well, and hadn't known Dad, thought she was a lot younger than she was. If my calculations are correct, she worked until at least 70-years-old. Possibly longer. She once told me about joining in gleefully with some fellows at the bar in praise of a lady, who was younger than her, as 'wonderful for her age'.

Sad, but inevitable, that age caught up with her eventually. At some point the job just became too much for her, I think. But it was good while it lasted.