It started with a typewriter

About twenty years ago, I was asked to type out something on a duplicating skin (the way to do copies before photocopiers became an everyday machine), and to do this I needed a different typewrite to the little one I had. There was a spare one at the church, which I could borrow, but it weighed a ton weight to carry, we had no car, so someone was asked to deliver it here for me. I naturally invited him in when he came with it, and that was the start of a friendship between him and his wife and my parents and myself.

Over the years they became very good friends, the sort who would do anything for you – and did.

I`m so grateful to them, especially for during the time my Dad was ill they used to take him to his hospital appointments and help in any way they could. Ivy would come and keep my mother company, would go with her to various appointments she had. She kept an eye on my mother for me whilst I had my first ever holiday away on my own, and on subsequent holidays. Nothing was too much trouble for her. When I was organising a sale or event at the church she was always willing to help, and did so so cheerfully too.

She didn`t treat me just as my parents daughter, but as a person in my own right. And that meant a lot.

We visited them a few months ago, and she took me to see a conservatory they`d had built and the chairs they`d bought for it, and as the two of us sat in there, she said to me, “we thought we`d have it built, so that we can make the most of what we have”. At the time I sensed there was something behind her words by the way she said it. I wonder now whether she knew then that she was ill.

Now, today I`ve attended her memorial service. I usually shy away from attending funerals and that type of service, but I wanted to be there today. It was a very moving time, and I found tears rolling from my eyes several times during the service. But, I am thankful for having known her.

And it was all through one typewriter!