Here Comes Treble: A Mother To Be Proud Of
...As a mother, she was loving and indulgent. She and Dad made huge sacrifices, financially and with their time, to ensure we had music lessons from the best private teachers in Johannesburg. She read us bed-time stories, admired everything we did, and protected us from every threat, real and perceived. She taught us to laugh at life, to enjoy music, books and the company of happy people...
Isabel Bradley pays a moving tribute to her mother, Muriel.
Every daughter should be lucky enough to have a mother such as Muriel - and every mother lucky enough to have a daughter such as Isabel.
My mother, Muriel Hand, nee Bolton, is fascinated by the people around her, always wanting to help everyone, a trait she learnt from her parents.
As a teenager, Mom led a group of boy cubs, teaching them skills such as camping and fire-making and tying knots. When she left school, she studied to become a company secretary, learnt shorthand, typing and bookkeeping, and quickly found a job at a large hardware supply company, E.W. Tarry & Co. Hardware in those days had nothing to do with computers, which hadn’t yet been invented. No, Tarry’s was in the business of nuts and bolts, hammers and screwdrivers and similar items.
Mom had a lovely soprano voice and took singing lessons with one of the best teachers in Johannesburg. She participated in several Eisteddfods, winning gold medals each time.
During the 2nd World War, while her brothers were fighting ‘up North’, Mom joined the Johannesburg Operatic and Dramatic Society, known as JODS. In 1944, she took her first principal part as ‘Chloe’ in Princess Ida, continuing to take leading roles in many musical and straight plays, including The Quaker Girl, The Vagabond King, Merrie England, The Count of Luxemburg, The Pirates of Penzance, and was one of the Three Genii in Mozart’s Magic Flute. She loved the camaraderie back-stage, the ‘face-paint’ and the costumes, the fun and excitement of performing.
It was on-stage that she met Dad. They were married in 1950. After the birth of my brother in 1952, they left JODS. Mom couldn’t be without music though, and continued singing as a member of Maureen Glenton’s Ladies’ Choir. Though she no longer worked full-time at Tarry’s, she did typing and bookkeeping for them at home to top up the family coffers. I learnt to type on her old mechanical Smith typewriter, the keys slow and heavy, a far cry from the keyboards of modern computer.
In 1964, Mom was appointed as one of the secretaries at the local Primary School. This meant that she earned a regular, though small, income while enjoying the afternoons and school holidays at home with her children. She loved the bustle of the busy school reception office, learning to know many of the parents and most of the children. She was ‘the sick lady’. When children were ill or injured, she comforted them, cleaned their scraped knees and phoned their mothers to come and fetch them.
One of her favourite tales of the sick-room was the one of Stelios. “I was carrying a tray of cups and saucers down the stairs to the kitchen, when Stelios came up towards me. He was a nasty shade of green. ‘Are you sick, Stelios?’ I asked. He nodded – and promptly vomited right into the tray! Thank goodness I was carrying it at the time!”
Mom knew and loved each teacher and came to know just about every inhabitant, young and old, of the suburb where we lived. She ran the school office with the help of several ladies who came and went over the years but who all remained life-long friends. Music was a large part of this section of Mom’s life, too. She formed and conducted the excellent school choir. She eventually retired from the school in 1989 after twenty-two years at reception.
As children, my brother and I often accompanied Mom to the shops, an old-fashioned street lined with individually-owned shops including the corner café which served neither tea, coffee nor cakes, but was the place to buy emergency grocery supplies, daily bread, milk, and treats such as Coca-cola, chocolates and crisps. There was a hair-dresser, a drapers’ shop where we bought our school uniforms, the library, the book-shop, the post office and the building society. At each stop, we would wait for ages while Mom chatted to whoever was serving us, picking up the local gossip. Everyone we met loved Mom, and she returned the favour with interest.
As a mother, she was loving and indulgent. She and Dad made huge sacrifices, financially and with their time, to ensure we had music lessons from the best private teachers in Johannesburg. She read us bed-time stories, admired everything we did, and protected us from every threat, real and perceived. She taught us to laugh at life, to enjoy music, books and the company of happy people.
Mom was and is a wonderful sister. She had four brothers, all of whom lived into their eighties or early nineties. Sadly, her three older brothers died over the last six years, but her younger brother celebrated his 85th birthday recently. She still teases him mercilessly, and he gives as good as he gets.
Christmas each year was always celebrated with my Bolton uncles, aunts and cousins, and the families also saw each other in smaller groups frequently throughout the year. As long as Gran, Mom’s mother, was alive, each of the families, including ours, visited her regularly each week.
Mom has always had a strong Christian faith, which helped her through many hard times. She and Dad were members of the Parktown North Methodist Church for many years. There, as elsewhere, she used her musical knowledge and talents to run the church choir, presenting a cantata at both Christmas and Easter annually for many years.
From the core of the church choir, Mom formed The Harmonettes, a ladies’ choir who sang a mixture of popular secular songs and hymns. From 1991 until 2004, Mom organised a concert a week, taking the Harmonettes to entertain ‘the poor old dears’ at every retirement village and old-age home in and around Johannesburg. Though they were all well into their sixties and early seventies at the time choir was formed, Mom always referred to them as ‘her girls’.
Becoming a grandmother introduced a whole new set of joys to Mom. She babysat with delight and as the children grew, she read the same stories to them that she’d read to my brother and me, instilling in them also, a love of books that they retain to this day. She was thrilled to be at her granddaughter’s wedding recently and though she was exhausted by the end of the day, she declared, grinning from ear to ear, that she ‘wouldn’t have missed it for anything!’ She thoroughly enjoys her grandson’s company most Sundays at lunch.
A family celebration isn’t a true celebration without Mom. Recently, we had the biggest family celebration ever – Mom’s 90th birthday party. She sat in her chair, receiving her guests like royalty, and talking to each of them with absolute delight. It was the biggest gathering of my Bolton cousins at a truly happy occasion in about fifteen years, about twenty-five of us including my generation and our children. There were also representatives of the youngest generation toddling all over the place.
In addition there were Mom’s friends from JODS days – yes, one or two are still around; teachers and students, a lovely ex-secretary and her boss from the school where she worked for so long, friends from church, and her choirs. Several members of The Harmonettes sang for her, I played my flute, and my brother made a speech and proposed a toast to The Birthday Girl. There was enough food to feed an army, and most of it was eaten. It was a truly Grand Occasion.
Mom enjoyed every minute of her big day.
We should all celebrate those we love as often as we can throughout their lives, and let them know how much we love them.
Until next time…. ‘here comes Treble!’
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by Isabel Bradley
