IRENE BARNES October 1925 by her daughter TRUDY
SuAndi: Tell me what you do every year on Mother’s Day? I go to the cemetery. My Mum was everything to me; she died when I was twenty-one. I go and to put flowers on her grave and usually the sun always shines. I don’t often stay that long. I tidy the grave and say a few words and then I leave crying. It took me a very long time to get over my Mum’s death. Irene Barnes was Welsh and was a very strong, strong but little woman, raised in Salford. My Mum was only 5 ft 1. Auburn hair, lots of freckles; she was a good-looking woman in her day. She was the second eldest of thirteen children; she had a hard life. She was very strong headed my Mother, no one messed about with Irene (laughter). By all accounts she was a bit of a tomboy. She was very loyal, but she didn’t take any prisoners. She worked all her life and had good jobs because she was a very clever woman. Mum was a supervisor for Hals Radios, and then she was manageress of Cassons Shoe shop in the Moss Side Arndale Centre. I believe my Granddad’s family were Gypsies and that he used to have a motorbike shop on Regent Road. He was a bit of a ‘Kaganana’ by all accounts. Kaganana is an Italian phrase for someone who is a bit of this and a bit of that – could be a bit shady you know. He drank quite a bit and had that Gypsy tendency to wander off, so he wasn’t home a lot. But apparently, which I was really pleased about, my Mum was his favourite daughter and he brought her a horse (laughter). It was a hard life you know, they were very poor. It was hard for all the kids; they were all working from the age of twelve. My Gran wasn’t very nice to my Mother so when Mum got pregnant, she took her daughter. This meant
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