My mother was born at home in Liverpool on 12th August 1932 in a thunderstorm!  She said it gave her headaches all her life whenever there was a storm coming. She lived with her parents Frederick Manson, an electrician and Mary Manson, a tailoress, in a house, just like Paul McCartney's childhood home, in Liverpool until the war broke out, and was then evacuated to Newburgh in Lancashire, to live with her Grandmother, Uncle and Aunt.  I think the war years left their mark.  She told stories of hitting her head on the Anderson shelter during air raids, and then only rarely seeing her parents once she was evacuated,  as they stayed in Liverpool where her father was an air raid warden, which must have been very frightening for an 8-year-old girl.  All her toys were bombed in a theatre where they were put for safe storage, and I believe there was a crack in their house due to the bombing.  She returned to Liverpool, age 11, and was successful at Holly Lodge School for Girls.  A reference from her headmistress described her as having "a very happy and satisfactory school life.  She had a lively and enquiring mind...and was punctilious in her discharge of Prefect duties. Her natural dignity and graciousness of manner helped her secure cooperation from younger girls" She was also a Highland Dancer during this time, as her father was from Edinburgh. Her headmistress described her as having a "high degree of proficiency and skill".

She was the first person from her family to go to University, studying History, English and French at Liverpool.  She thoroughly enjoyed University life joining the History Society, and the Open Air Club which took her on walking holidays in Austria I believe. She liked to keep historical documents, and so we have an extraordinary picture of her life from newspaper clippings and references from professors and employers, which you can see below.  It is rather wonderful to catch a glimpse of her as an engaged and widely read student, whose work showed "interest and freshness" and who obviously made the most of her time at University. When she graduated she became a teacher in Wallasey at a girls' school, where she enjoyed organising plays for her pupils and was a housemistress.  While there she took a trip to France in 1957, with her great University friend Margaret Green, and started a correspondence with Margaret's friends Cecile and Francoise.  She wrote to them for more than 60 years, and the friendship has extended down the generations in our family.  One extraordinary thing I found while sorting out her books was a correspondence log.  In it, she had a record of every letter, and its subject, for a period of 10 years.  I expect we will find more.  She was an absolutely faithful correspondent, writing to me every week when I was at University, and I know others will have missed her regular letters when she became too ill to write in recent years.  While teaching she applied to do her Masters in the USA on the History of Emigration to America at the College of William and Mary, where she was appointed as an assistant in the Department of History.   She sailed to New York in 1962 on the Sylvania from Liverpool, and saw West Side story when it was first out!  I find her sense of adventure extraordinary, and very admirable. She lived through the Cuba Missile Crisis while she was there, and worked as a tour guide in Colonial Williamsburg, dressing up as the English Governor's wife in 18th Century costume.  She must have looked so beautiful. Although never finishing the M.A. thesis, many years later she published some of her research on indentured servants who emigrated to the United States in The Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire journal.  If you would like to read it you can find it here.

https://www.hslc.org.uk/journal/vol-144-1944/

On returning to the UK in 1963 she pioneered the role of Schools Officer at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and started a Saturday morning club for children to explore the museum, which my brother and I later enjoyed.  The Egyptian Mummies are still exactly the same!  The Museum Director described the success of all the activities she organised as being entirely the result of her "energy and enthusiasm". While there she met my father when he came in to borrow a School's loan artefact for his primary school, where he was headteacher.  The story goes that the Museum curator took my father down a spiral staircase to show him "a really interesting artefact", which turned out to be my mother!  Dad was a folk dancer, and they enjoyed dancing together for many decades to come. My brother and I came along soon after they were married and we had a ringside seat to a truly beautiful relationship.  My father had the ability to laugh her out of her seriousness and anxiety, and I once overheard him telling her that she was the miracle in his life. They made a wonderful home for us in Witherford Way, Weoley Hill, Birmingham, putting connecting gates to our neighbours' gardens so we could freely play as children, and hosting children in our home at all times.  They helped run local play schemes in the summer holidays, helped us stage plays, and took us rambling in the English and Welsh hills, staying in youth hostels or camping.  They also took us to castles, stately homes, standing stones, and ruins of all kinds, and shared their love for history and the outdoors at every opportunity.

When Mum returned to work she taught in Further Education, at Matthew Bolton College in Birmingham, particularly those who had struggled to pass English O'level, and other subjects. Alongside their teaching my parents were very much involved in their church, St. Francis Bournville, starting a church youth group, organising prayer days, leading youth services, and hosting a home group.  My mother also started a creche and distributed bible study notes.   Keith Withington, the vicar at the time, who has written a tribute, described her as having "a deep sense of duty" and being "unmoveable in her determination!" She was absolutely devoted to her family and would do anything to help her children.  I have fond memories of her walking around the local park with me during revision season for exams, letting me explain the build-up to WW2 or some aspect of Physics.  

In retirement, when they moved down to Eynsham in Oxfordshire, to live nearer to myself and my brother, my mother became programme secretary of the Local History group and organised a medieval craft fair.  You can see the photographs here https://eynsham.org.uk/image-archive-tags.aspx?groupid=8&tagid=52. The one of her is entitled "Medieval Mastermind"!

She also wrote two articles for The Eynsham Record on the rope walks of Eynsham, because their house was built on the site of a rope walk, and also one on the Mystery of The Eynsham Cross. If you would like to read them you can find them here:

https://issuu.com/eynshamrecord/docs/eynsham_record_2003 (page 6)

https://issuu.com/eynshamrecord/docs/eynsham_record_2005 (page 24)

https://eynsham-pc.gov.uk/variable/organisation/805/attachments/eynsham_record_2006.pdf (p.9)

On top of all this she did fundraising for the church hall renovation and even produced a cookbook with a recipe from David Cameron, our MP!  https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/8163312.cameron-bit-village-recipe-book/

My father passed away, very sadly, when she was 73, but she carried on being active in village life, and there were 80 people at her 80th Birthday party. An only child, she ended up with 5 grandchildren and was especially keen to encourage them to read, and was extremely proud of each of them. Sadly the last 8 years of her life were dominated by ill health and mental illness and she withdrew from her very active social life. She came to live with us here in Cheshire just over 4 years ago, after damaging her neck in a fall.  We were glad to be able to look after her here as a family, especially during the pandemic.  It is sad that so many of her friends have passed away now, or live too far away, or are too frail to travel to a thanksgiving service, but hopefully, you will enjoy seeing the photographs on this website, and reading other people's stories and memories, newspaper clippings, and of course her articles.  We would be delighted if you could share your memories of her, or any photographs you may have on this tribute site too. We will look forward to reading them.  My brother, Andrew, and other family members will be adding tributes in the coming days that were planned for 9th April, so it would be worth checking back in a week or so, if you would like to read those.

We will inter Mum's ashes with my Father's in Cornwall in July.  His gravestone is in an extraordinarily beautiful churchyard, which is also a Celtic prayer garden, not far from where he grew up, just above Mousehole, overlooking Mount's Bay.  If you stand with your back to his stone you can see St. Michael's Mount and Marazion.  We had so many happy childhood holidays there, and every year we visit and put seashells on the grave.  We will remember them there together. 

We also invite you to watch the family funeral service we held at the Crematorium here in Cheshire, on 18th March, which will be available until Friday 15th April. If you would like to make a donation in her memory we have chosen the Disasters Emergency Committee, particularly appropriate to remember a girl who herself fled the bombing of her home town. 

My mother loved the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi so I will finish there.

Make me a channel of your peace

Where there is despair in life let me bring hope

Where there is darkness only light

And where there's sadness ever joy

Debbie de Kock (nee Hockedy)