Wendy's life story

A year or so before she died, Wendy began writing her life story for her grandchildren. The idea, she said somewhere in her diaries, was that the world had changed so much since she was young that she thought they might be interested in her life. A sort of social history, in other words. It began:-

To my dear Grandchildren...

I've been thinking for a while that I would like to leave you something about my life. It's been very different from yours and the lives of your children and maybe, just maybe, you might be interested in how people lived then.This is the story of just one life lived almost entirely in Melton Mowbray and the surrounding countryside. It's a rural life which has seen many changes,a s the countryside has too, and there will be other changes as your lives unfold.

She only wrote about 4 pages, and I only found it after she died. For a long time I've wanted to continue her story and distribute it to the grandchildren, as she intended. Of course, it's been changed by her death, most of all because she is not here to answer questions that they might want to ask. But I do have her diaries, which are patchy up till 2000, but quite detailed after then. And a host of other documents. I decided to make it much more of a biography, while still continuing to describe the changes between her life (and mine) and that of the youngsters. A perfect lockdown project.

Wendy always wanted to write, but never found the peaceful space she needed to complete any sizeable project. She wrote some excellent pieces of academic work for her first degree and for her Masters at Nottingham University. Now I'm reading her diaries, travel journals and coursework essays as background to her life story, much of it for the first time. I think she had a real talent that just coudn't find the outlet it desperately needed. It's such a shame that she died without leaving us more of her unique humour and insight on paper.

I'm issuing it to the grandkids in instalments, and we're now up to chapter 5. There are likely to be about 15 chapters in all. It's largely based on her personal diaries, and many of the people mentioned are still alive, so I'm not sure I will ever publish the complete story. But I may post extracts from it here later when I've delivered the final instalment to the grandchildren.