Ivy May Biddle nee Fox

Born in Birmingham, England in 1916 Ivy was my Mum and a member of a large family. She was trained at a secretarial college and was a member of the Emmanuel Church in Alum Rock, Birmingham where she met Leonard Biddle who she was eventually to marry.
They both had an interest in cycling and bought a tandem on which they explored the lovely Warwickshire countryside before buying a new house in Castle Bromwich after marrying in 1937. I was the first born in 1940. She lost a baby a few years later before Susan was born in 1945. Towards the end of that decade the family moved down to Somerset for my fathers health where wages were poorer than in Birmingham and then my younger brother Steven was born in 1952 which made the family finances even worse.
Our house in North Petherton was sold and we moved to Keenthorne near Nether Stowey and a cottage which was established as a guest house doing Bed and Breakfast which Mum ran while Dad commuted to work in Bridgwater. The move rescued the finances and were happy times for all of us until I went off to college in London and eventually away to sea as an engineer cadet.
While I was away the family bought a house in Cannington and Mum obtained a position with Sealed Motor Construction in Bridgwater until she and Dad both retired and they moved to Brecon in Wales. Mum was active in the Trefoil Guild in Brecon and with Dads increasing deafness they both became members of the Deaf Club. She was responsible for getting Dad a war pension as a result of his deafness caused by his anti aircraft gunnery during the war.
Mum was hit hard by Dads death in 2000 and it affected her mental health. We moved her to South Petherton to be near us in sheltered housing but she never settled and wanted to be near her daughter Susan who was then living in Devon. We manage to get her into a nursing home near to Susan but she was never really content and finally died in 2006 while we were away in New Zealand.

Created on April 30th, 2015