From Colin Crouch,
In memory of his mother, Audrey Eileen Crouch,
July 2011
Audrey Eileen Jackson was born 27th December 1927, in Crouch End, Middlesex, at a time when the northern parts of London were quickly overrunning the contryside of Middlesex. Her parents moved houses several times, eventually ending up in the Rayners Lane area. As a child Audrey spent many hours playing in the streams and, much more difficult these days (Health and safety, etc), wandering around the building sites. On several occasions, she saw the Wealdstone Brook being covered in various dyes, as the local Kodak factury washed down some of their unwanted stuff.
Audrey was the daughter of Joseph Jackson (who died young, soon after the war), and of Daisy, nee Dalton. Audrey was an only child, and so I had relatively little contact with her side of the family, knowing much better the father's side. It was quite some surprise, when I arrived at Cambridge, that a cousine of mine, Valerie Jackson (now Spiers) started at the same time. I had never met her, or even heard of her. In later years, Valerie became very close to Audrey. Valerie, although the same age as me, was in fact Audrey's first cousin, not mine, as Dennis Jackson, much younger than Joseph, started children in effect a generation later.
On my mother's mother's side, Howard Daulton, has remeaned in contact, though at a distance, with Audrey. I understand that some of the members of the Dalton family lasted for a long time, including two still living in their nineties. They all ended up, as with Daisy, in the Bournemouth/Christchurch area. Sadly, it was a regret for my mother that her mother went to Bournemouth at about the time that I was born.
On my father's side, John Crouch (1926-1981) and his younger brother (Colin, born 1933) grew up in North Harrow. Both Audrey and John attented Pinner County School, in North Harrow. Presumably they would at least have had nodding acquaintance with each other, but I understand that romance became much later.
Here world history hits in, for anyone born in the twenties or thereabout. The depression of the early thirties undoubtedly affected the life chances of Audrey's father, Joe Jackson, and at times employemnt was irregular. In the forties though, there was the War. Both John and Audrey were at school at the time, and John was irritated and frustrated that after six years of war, he never had the chance to battle against the Germans.
Quite possibly he might have been less emthusiastic had he grown up a few years earlier. Or quite possibly not - I do not know One thinks of the relatively slight bdifference of age between two Conservative prime ministers., Ted Heath and Margaret Thatcher. and the enormous chasm of historical attitude between the two. Heath fought through the war, as an officer, and in his politics his view was that above anything else, he did not ever want another war in Europe, and that he wanted to link all the westen European countries into a political union. Germany and France must never fight again. Thatcher wanted just to win any battles in Europe,
My father intensely disliked Heath, but in the last couple of years in his life, he started to like Thatcher. My mother, for the most part, did not attempt to make any strong political opinionss.
We are jumps the story slightly. After the war, my mother, after school, worked for a while at Kodak, in the laboratories. She did not go to university, and neither indeed did John, later his husband. I suppose that I have not have a clear vision of what happened in the next few years. All I know is that John and Audrey got married in 1952, bridesmades Eve and Viv Lucas remaining long and close friends to the end, and that John wanted to travel, working as an auditor in the Air Ministry (his father had also worked in the Air Ministry), in various parts of the east, notably in Singapore. Then somehow he found himself in the Home Office, and found to his disappointment that there is little opportunity for worls travel in this department. This was a disappointment, but he gradually made promootions, and for much of the time he was programming computers - and these were, in the 1960s massively bulky - sorting out the payrolls for the Metropolitan Police.
During this time, my mother was a housewife, with three children (myself, born October 1956), Richard (April 1961) and Elizabeth (September 1965). The house itself is in Elms Road, Harrow Weald, and Audrey lived there for the rest of her life, for more than fifty years. In the end, she felt attached to the place.
Of course, things change over half a century. I went to university, at Cambridge, then at Durham, my father died in 1981, through cancer, while Richard studied at Cambridge, achieving a PhD, then Elizabeth studied at Newcastle. I never married, and Elizabeth married Gary Smith, from York, but without children. Richard has two children, Anna and Eric, and he is married to Valeria (not to be confused with Valerie). The dark latin looks definitely come from Valeria, originally from Brazil, but who used to study at Cambridge. Anna is about to study drama in New York, while Eric is in the later stages at school. Both Anna and Eric loved their grandmother, although sadly, being in California they have not have had many chances to meat up with Audrey.
For myself, I have had an enormouse reason to be grateful to my mother, aside from the most obvious one. At the end of 2004, I suffered a major stroke. which could easily have killed me off, although still only in my forties. Had I been alone in the house, I would have died. After my gradual recovery, it was so important for me to provide as much support as I could for my mother, in herlast few years. Sometimes this was difficult for me, as physically I have not been strong.
In the last few months of her life, the decline was starting to become obvious. Whereas a year ago, she would take great enjoyment in her garden, and go to the apples,the gooseberries and the woodland at the end of the garden, she was now walking only with great difficulty. Eventually she was more or less confined to the house, barely able to eat, and in pain. Stubbern as she i
was, she did not want nedical attention. She knew that she was going to die. She just wanted to snatch a few extra days at home, looking at the garden, and hope that there was still time to see the grandchildren for the last time.
Audrey is fondly remembered.
