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Dear Mum,

For your 60th birthday, I’d like to share a few words with you on what it means to me to have you as my mother.

I can’t seem to resist starting off with a mention of music. From the respective ages of 5 and 35, when you placed a cornet in my hands, we have shared a love of music and music-making. There have been a few bumps along the road (I think I once threw my trumpet on the floor in frustration), but throughout you have supported me in my musical development, not just with your presence and encouragement, but through your continuous attendance to my musicianship. You’re unafraid of challenging me, nor do you dish out cheap praise. At the same time, even if I do sing a duff note during my 3 seconds of fame in the St John Passion, performed in front of 500 people at St Martin-in-the-Fields, you’ll calmly tell me how proud you are of me, totally accepting of the experience.

I think this speaks to an attitude towards life that I’ve seen you slowly master as we’ve grown up together: not becoming too (or even at all) fazed by life’s challenges and opportunities. I feel that you respond peacefully, and philosophically, to the bigger moments in life, allowing you to explore them at a profound level. I think you aim to live a felt life, one not overly dictated or influenced by too much theory. I often think about the conversations we’ve had about concerts at the Wiltshire Music Centre, or books we’ve read, or places we’ve been to, as well as harder conversations we’ve had about family, jobs, relationships – and my overriding feeling when I activate these memories, is of our attention to the experience, the sensations.

You’re helping me ground my life in the felt experience – and I give immense value to this. I think this accounts, as well, for the ease with which we can lose ourselves in a bit of casual hysteria!! Mad, Britten-esque vocal improvisation; contorted kisses on the cheek; our refusal to end a phone chat without a flurry of tutti-bye-byes. We share these simple, effortless joys for what they are: fun, funny, feely, foolish.

I am thinking as well of other areas through which we’ve discovered a deep bond. I vividly remember the hours we spent together working on your master’s thesis. It was a life-changing moment for me in which, by letting me in to the quite private world of writing, you empowered me as a very early-stage teacher and coach. I also distinctly remember you telling me that reading my master’s thesis had you choked up by the conclusion. It makes me reflect on your heartfelt passion for people and how small moments of communication and collaboration can actually be massive in furthering our collective understanding of life and humanity. Writing these words now brings to fresh memory the early descriptions you’ve recently shared with me about your PhD research – how the basis of great education must be the meaningful (i.e., creative) communication between the various stakeholders of a school.

And so to education – another of our shared experiences – where it all comes together doesn’t it? Curiosity about the world; human beings coming together to create and explore; a space of felt experience as well as intellectual development; an arena for listening, respect, play, creativity, challenge, resolution, and progress; a communal space, but not without the freedom to be private, or quiet.

60 years of life. Six decades of existence, three of which I am so grateful to have shared with you. And now I wonder what the next few decades will bring? What changes might happen to you? What will you further consolidate in your life? What frailties and strengths will surface and need attending to, or embracing? What unchanging threads will pierce through the coming years, holding everything together? What adventures will we have and cherish?

Whatever comes, I hope you feel them deeply, ponder them profoundly, and listen to them carefully. And with some luck and effort, I’ll share plenty of them with you with great pride and joy.

All my love to you Mum, on this special day.

Patrick

Dearest Mannie,

As time continues to fly, please know that you have been, and continue to be, an inspiration.
I’m so deeply proud to have you as my sister, and thankful that lucky Ava has you as her Aunty Mannie!
Thank you for always being there, always open, loving, and never demanding, disappointed or dissatisfied (at least not with me).
I wish we could see each other more. I miss you very much x
The way you have held yourself through parenthood is a true inspiration to me (and Nicole), and we can only hope to emulate the way you (and Richard) have raised such wonderful humans.
Sending so much love, and wishing you a wonderful year ahead.

With love
Ed

Dear Mannie
Happy Birthday ........ 60 Wow!
It doesn't seem all that long ago that we would race our tricycles in Stoke Mandeville, Me on my first set of wheels, red frame, yellow wheels with pedals on the front wheel , yours soooo much bigger, with proper spoked wheels and a chain, far too big for me to ever try to ride. Needless to say that you always instigated the race, and you always won.
Although only 2 years older, you were half of my life older, and I always thought of you as very grown up, knowing all, what to do and when to do it, it was good to have an early mentor. Not too much changes, you are still 2 years ahead of me, still all knowing, ..... although I'm up for a tricycle race and might be tougher to beat !
Although we spent most of our later childhood apart, I always felt you were there for me if ever I needed someone, and I still do.
With the experience you have gained through life I admire your calm demeanour and thought process, and how you seem to come to conclusions to any problem presented to you, having taken into account how it might work out for everyone, it's quite a skill.
Have a great day, and I will see you for our meet in the Autumn, if not before.
love
Chris

Remember those naps that we used to have together when I was a baby; that time you pointed out the mice on the Northern Line train tracks to me; the time we built and painted the shed in the garden at Dartmouth Park, bought for us by Grandpa; that time that you single-handedly took us kids camping in France; ‘pudge-em’ fingertips; the times when I used to warm my hands up at the end of infant school ready to hold yours on the walk home; that time that you went berserk after eating a cream egg; the exceptionally rare moments when you’d take us to a service station for a Big Mac; the time you told me not to pick the fuchsias form a neighbours garden and dangle them by your ears, an impression of all your wonderful earrings; that time that I hid under the table when you cut your hair; the time we took the ostrich-egg chandelier to the auction house in Bath, hoping it would be worth millions; that time we all played dares around the kitchen table at Widcombe Crescent and yours was to go to JCR to buy sweets and chocolate; ‘here come the pirate the ships!’; the time you selflessly got up at 06:00 to take me to a car boot sale to sell second-hand jeans; the ‘50p for a massage’ years; walks in Rainbow Woods; the time I was told off in food tech at Ralph Allen for grating butter when making pastry, following your stella ways; that time you made the polenta fish and tomato dish and polenta cake, which at the time I hated but now crave because it makes me think of you; the times I would, with immense pride, make you and Dad gin and tonics after a long day; that time you kindly drove me to university and had a snooze on my new halls bed whilst Patrick and I went to the student union; the first time you told me about Aesop, the smell of which I will always associated with you; ‘Wazuuuuuuuuuup!’?
Happy sixtieth birthday Mum! I love you and I can’t wait to add more memories to the list in the many years to come.
Joey
x

To my mum at 60
Kindness; creativity; seeking of calm and quiet; rolling with laughter and fun; showing us the value of compassion; appreciating the beauty of the world; making it more beautiful with paint and colour and music and love; knowing the value of hard work; connecting with people young and old, alive and gone; being careful and gentle with ourselves; loving life as it is and as it can be. I wonder how you have become so wise. Perhaps 60 years just does it to you? But I think there must be more. You connect with people, with our family and friends, you think carefully and practice your life with conviction and inspiration. You are a guiding light for me, and for a lot of people. You have learned so much and you share it so lovingly. I love talking and listening and making and playing with you. You've shown me how to love these things and you keep discovering and showing me more. I love you Mum. Happy happy happy happy birthday. Always your loving son.
James