Page 295 - She's One Crazy Lady!

pancreatic cancer, she moved into Sunley Court where my Mum was. I have many, many memories of the fun times Janet and I shared – one at my 60th birthday party when we all dressed up in 1940’s costume. In typical style, Janet, then in her early eighties, entered the hall, first to arrive, dressed as a housewife, with the pinny, fag, cleaning bucket and the turban hat; another when we entered a float in the Wellingborough Carnival and she dressed up as ‘Alice’ from Alice in Wonderland – our theme for the float! – she loved it and has since ‘dressed up’ at all of Sunley’s parties!
Above all though, Janet was a great listener and I will be forever thankful for the time she gave me when Marilyn was so poorly. Janet understood exactly how I was feeling her-shoulder was so welcome.
Despite such great publicity given by the Press, the
talks were vital to further promote the work we were
doing and progressed to the point that I was asked
to go along to conferences, business lunches and
dinners to speak at various functions where there were
large audiences – even at prestigious events such as
Women of the Year and International Women’s Days
where I was to meet some remarkable people doing
remarkable things. However, I always found it was the
smaller talks that brought the most satisfaction – the
talks where there were fewer people but talks that were more personal and interactive.
In time, I was finding that I was out two or three times a week giving talks, the majority of them being in the evenings; there were many late nights and a lot of travelling, often alone, over long distances, which was a little uncomfortable. It was Dr Matthew who brought this to my attention as he thought I was burning the candle at both ends and was concerned that I could ‘burn out’. He advised me to slow down. Taking his advice, for I knew he was right, I made myself available for daytime talks only – a hard decision knowing I would never get round all the WI groups, as I’d hoped, for the majority of them met in the evenings.
Although I cut back, the talks continued...
Badges & merchandise
About the same time as our first Walk, if not before, I was, by chance to meet with ‘Jayne’ who owned a beautiful gift shop in Wellingborough (Pollyanna’s – “The Enchanted Shop”) that sold a multitude of unique, unusual quality jewellery, artefacts, cards, teddy bears... one of those Aladdin’s Cave shops that you walk into and want to buy everything. We got chatting and I was to find out that Jayne had recently lost her mother
“I always found it was the smaller talks that brought the most satisfaction. ”
295