My mother, Kathleen, was indeed born on a Tuesday, in Yorkshire, England.
Right now, you are probably picturing rolling green hills and quirky farmers with thick, barely decipherable accents. That would be the wrong bit of Yorkshire. Try picturing dirty, poor, industrial Yorkshire, slap bang in the middle of the Second World War. The accents, however, are just as quirky and indecipherable.
Mum is the oldest of 6 children, who's father, my grandfather, was in the merchant navy, and hence hardly present, and whose mother was just plain not nice. Picture Monty Python's "The Four Yorkshire men" sketch. In fact, take a moment to watch said sketch now...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo .
If my mother had wandered into the theater and had the temerity to join these four gents, her tales of woe would have beat them all hands down. I have been lucky enough to spend many hours, sitting quietly amongst my mum and her sisters, listening to them relive their childhoods, and it has always disintegrated into a dribbling giggle fest, with all of us gasping for breath, and trying desperately not to pee our pants from laughter. That's the thing about my family. Everything is faced with a sarcastic, and wry humour.
This includes when mum was diagnosed with breast cancer.
