Life Choices
Having talked about what my dad did for a living for most of his adult life—and yes, while it's true he once kicked a bomb, the truth is he worked as a Master Armourer in the military. My mother, on the other hand, was the homemaker. Partly because having six kids meant my mother was never going to have a career beyond fabulous baker, great cook, and amazing wrangler of three kids too many.
But things could have been so different if her life had taken another course, and her mother had been more supportive of opportunities offered my mother. And, as a young women, if the war hadn't come along to derail everyone's lives when it did.
My mother was 15 when she started working in the jute mills in Dundee, Scotland. It was during her time after work that she was discovered to have a natural talent. She had a fabulous singing voice. And while she was supposed to be too young to be in a bar (pub) it didn't stop my mother from singing there, even at the tender age of 16.
And no, before you ask, she wasn't discovered by the usual vocal scouts of the day looking for the latest pop singer. Don't forget this was just as war in Europe was breaking out. The person that heard her sing was from the Scottish Opera and saw her talent. He approached her thinking she was probably 18 or older, and was both sad and happy to discover she was much younger. This meant involving the parents, and getting permission to have her audition with a view to a possible career singing in the Opera.
Sad to say that within the six months that things were happening for my mother's hoped for new life, Britain was dragged into Word War II and her own mother refused to let her audition let alone consider a life in the opera. However prestigious that path might have been.
What could have been was a crushed dream. And, instead of that life, or even continuing to work in the mill, my mother ran away from home at 17 and joined the WAAFs to become an MT driver.
She told me that, in the end, she had no regrets at the way things turned out. Instead of a life singing on stage for others, she sang for the sheer joy of it, in a life that was, as she says, full to the brim. And in a way she could never have imagined as an innocent 16 year.
All the what could have beens are just that, she made a life for herself and made the most of that life right on through to the end. And she did it her way, always singing, right on through to the last note.