Open Writing

When my mum reached that certain age, she grew at least two inches taller. I’m not talking about the poise of a late pregnancy, walking offspring down the aisle, or having grandchildren, but the stature she acquired when she started collecting her pension.

I wasn’t there to see that first time. But I just know her shoulders were back, her chin up and her spine stiff, when she set off in her second-best coat, to pick up her due. Her birthday is in September so that day, the leaves would have been turning gold on the trees, the hedgerows spotting russet and the gardens full of saucer-sized chrysanthemums as she marched up to the village. I can see her in line at the post office, shopping bag still empty, stepping up to the counter.

“Bit nippy this morning, eh, Mr Mathews? Well, here I am. At long last.” I can see her proffering her book, crisp in its new plastic folder, then stepping back, smart as a soldier receiving a Bronze Cross, while her file was checked. She’d be smiling, anticipating counting the money, planning a quick trip to Marks & Spencer’s, and a nice pork pie for tea.

She’d made it! Made it through thick and thin, war and peace, raising daughters, moving house, and her husband’s retirement. She was to be properly recognised for her efforts by Her Majesty’s Government. About to collect her wages - as she came to call the weekly instalments - her recompense.

Ever after, she I know she waited for Thursday - pay day - with glee. Then, anorak zipped, hood up, or cardigan flapping - as the weather demanded, she strode the mile up the road to reap the harvest. Apart from a few years when she’d worked in a bakery during the war, and for several Decembers spent sorting the Christmas mail, she’d never received payment for working. She’d never read Marx either and wouldn’t have agreed with his Labour as Theft theory, if she had.

Mum laboured for love of family.

In a way, I always felt sorry she couldn’t have belonged to a culture that better revered age. Korean or Japanese maybe, where people look up to their elders, where oldsters - not that she would have thanked you for using that term - are kow-towed to and blessed for their experience.

Of course, I never appreciated this until after her passing, and approaching my own entry into the senior class, but we did have an unforgettable exchange, two or three years before she died. She was 84, when a chance remark, “Eeh, I don’t know, you young folk don’t know you’re born these days,” with a meaningful nod in my direction, led me to protest, “But I’m over sixty myself now, you know.” (We always spoke in unfathomable clichés.) To which she replied. “Don’t be so daft, Susan, I’m not that old myself.”

But of course, I daren’t say, “In that case, what are you doing collecting your pension?”