Kathleen Lorraine Winterflood

Kath died in the early hours of Wednesday morning, 19 September 2007. 

I never called Mum 'Kath' to her face.  That would have brought out the words "Gregory Neil - what are you saying?"  So I always called her Mum.

She began life in humble surroundings - that's her on the left in the photo with her parents - Ernest Reginald Williams, an English immigrant, and Ethel Florence Strandquist [Williams]. Grandma Ethel was the daughter of a French immigrant, Francois Peres, and Swedish born Hilda Strandquist.  I do not know much about Granddad Ernie's family although I have been to 5 George Street, Hove, Sussex, England where he was born.

One of Mum's greatest fears was that she would end up like Hilda Strandquist, her Grandmother who, in her dotage and deafness wandered about muttering only in Swedish.  I told Mum not to worry about that, for, when all things were considered, she herself couldn't speak Swedish!

However, in the end she recognized that she had the "D" word.  When I tried to reassure her that things were OK;  she persisted and wanted me to confirm her self  diagnosis of her having dementia. Her insight into her dementia caused her to be severely and sadly agitated.

During her life of near to 89 years she had often been an anxious person.  In the mid 1950s one of her doctors told her to take up smoking cigarettes to calm her "nerves".  But who wouldn't be anxious with a son who made powerful explosives in his Chemistry Lab underneath our two story family home?

One night I made a concoction which nearly took out my left hand, my left testicle and my left eye.  Fortunately I had been prescribed my first pair of glasses one month before the explosion and so my left eye was protected from flying shards of the porcelain crucible in which I was making fireworks for Guy Fawkes Night.

Mum spent two weeks in Hospital under barbiturate sedation following that incident.  However, she recovered and I was once again called "Greggie" - her affectionate name for me - when I wasn't being the terror known as "Gregory Neil".

Mum was a tireless worker. I recall her pride in being certified to dispense prescription medicines from our family business, Winterflood's Pharmacy, when Dad was absent from the premises.  She and he worked together all day in the Pharmacy and then she came home to cook dinner and catch up on housework before getting up next morning to cook breakfeast, make our beds, and set up lunch for we children to take to school when we were little.  She was always on the go - mending, knitting and making things with needlecraft. And, besides that,  she was a good cook.  To my taste her rissoles have never been surpassed.  In my early teens I used to love being in the kitchen with Mum after school.  I had the job of putting the steak through the mincer.  That was followed by bread and onions to clean out the last pieces of mince, before Mum's hands got to work kneading the mince, bread, onions, and other secret ingregients into roundish flattened patties, the recipe for which the Hamburger chains might get their hands on, if they pay me enough!

Mum and Dad began courting in Maryborough, Queensland, when they were about 16.  At one stage Dad lived in the same house with Kath, Ernie and Ethel while he was undertaking his Pharmacy Studies.

Imagine that!

Mum was always keen to point out that their first child, my sister Robin, was born a little over 9 months after Mum and Dad were married on 12 April 1942.    

The photo on the left was taken about 6 months before they married. 

The photo on the right is of Mum in her wartime wedding dress.  You might notice that Mum is wearing very high heels.

I reckon she would have given Emelda Marcos a pretty good run for her money in a race for "Who has got the biggest collection of high heeled shoes?"

Mum loved shoes and clothes and handbags; but preferred a minimum of subtly applied makeup.  She always turned herself out well until the big "D" got to her.

Dad had signed up with the Army prior to their marriage, and soon went off to the South West Pacific campaign for 5 years - which accounts for the fact that my brother Graham is 5 years younger than sister Robin. 

And then 15 months after Graham made his appearance I came along to be "the baby of the family".  And, as I approach 60, I am still treated as such.

Mum stayed at home looking after me, and chasing me around the yard with a wooden spoon when I was naughty until I began First Grade.  She had to stay at home to look after me because I was expelled from Kindergarten; but as soon as I turned 6 it was off to the Urangan State School to begin the brilliant academic career that Mum had planned for me. 

There had to be a doctor in the family - and I was it. 

I resisted by pretending to study Philosophy, smoking dope, and trying to get arrested in Viet Nam War protests; but in the end, Mum won.

Vale Mum.