MM Links October 2009 [Week 4]
Hello again from Queen Christiana, the Cheerful One. To continue the ‘saga’; in due course, along came husband, three sons and an obstinate English bull terrier called Basher. That was in the days when, with the coming of children, women often gave up work and, though cash was short, I was no exception. This continued for six happy years. As Her Cheerfulness, I choose to draw a veil over the 18 months that followed. Suffice it to say that illness struck and, less than 8 years after marriage, I found myself a widow with three small children.
What to do? Eventually I realised teaching would enable me to earn enough to support my family and to be around in the school holidays. So exactly a year after the death of my husband, Tom, I found myself attending Coloma College in Kent. To my surprise, like many mature students, I discovered I had an aptitude for it. For four years I studied, wrote essays, prepared for tests, attended classes, talked, argued, and lived on a student grant, which was something of a struggle. At the end of year three I had my teaching certificate, but decided to stay on a further year to complete an English degree.