My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleya remarkable woman to whom I owed everything in my early life, and to whom I waspassionately devoted until she died at the age of seventy-six years.She combined strict religious principles with a robust, realistic attitude to life. Thetenets of the Church of England were possibly modified by the long-continuinginfluence of the pagan world which can still be observed in many countries. Anabsolute morality in personal conduct was combined with a sturdy maintenance of thevalues of her own kind; an exact reversal of many current attitudes. She was less thantwenty-four years older than I, as I was born within a year of her marriage, andextremely beautiful. Yet I never observed any male influence in her life other than herfamily and an occasional preacher of exceptional gifts. She was a paragon of virtue,but as loyal and vigorous as a lioness in defence of her own. Conventional education,and appreciation of literature, the arts and music were almost entirely lacking, thoughshe played Strauss waltzes on the piano in a way that entranced me as a child. Hernatural shrewdness coupled with a clear head for figures and simple business madeher an able woman by any standards.She was popular in the country circles in which she moved, because of her evidentgood nature, high spirits and considerable humour. Our friends by reason of herbackground were almost entirely concerned with agriculture and sport, and this wasperhaps her chief anxiety: to enable her sons to take part in the sports of the fieldwhich she and all her friends felt were the only possible training for a man, and towhich almost from infancy we were ardently addicted. It may seem strange inretrospect that she should so have taxed her energies and resources to keep ponies inaddition to three hungry boys, but hunting in that world was almost a religiousobservance; and let me freely admit in another age that some of the happiest momentsof my life have been spent with horse and hound. Well do I remember as a small boythe night before returning to school, sitting all evening long in a manger weeping withone arm round the neck of some beloved pony while the other hand caressed afavourite fox-terrier. It was a ritual of the old country folk with roots deep in a remotepast; roots too which gave a certain vitality and resolution for very different purposes.All now very strange and far away, but insistently real at that time.The ponies, and a horse for my mother, were usually a gift of one or other of thegrandfathers, but their upkeep was something of a problem even with the cheap oats,hay and straw available in the country. Rough shooting was also provided close athand by my mother's father; and at Rolleston where my Mosley grandfather had somefour thousand acres there was plenty of such shooting and coarse fishing. Theholidays were simply a matter of horse, dog and gun. These were the happy crumbswhich fell from the well-laden tables of two grandfathers. It may be asked why theydid not do more in a regular way to help my mother in her daily struggle to keepgoing, for they were both kindly men. The answer is probably that it simply did notoccur to them. The shy reticence of their kind would inhibit any enquiry unless theywere asked; and to ask was out of the question to my mother's reserved pride. Theresult was that we experienced extremes of contrast in our way of life, particularly inour visits to the Rolleston grandfather.Even my mother's father - Justinian Edwards Heathcote - lived in a very different wayto us. Sunday luncheon with the family was a sumptuous occasion, presided over bythe grand old matriarch, my grandmother, square in physique and in mind with clear-9 of 424