My thoughts of Norma were always a very busy lady and good fun. Margaret and I would sew clothes when teenagers and Norma was always there helping with a smile on her face. Such a caring lady, great mum and grandmother and worked till she was past retirement age. She will be sadly missed and may she rest in peace. Sylvia Banks

Mum married very young to my Dad and by the time she was 19 she had two children and then tragedy struck, Dad contracted Meningitis. This resulted in them losing their tied cottage which went with Dads job as farm man; Dad is in hospital and I am in another hospital with pneumonia (not expected to survive) and mum, without a car at 19 had to visit both of us and find not only a new home, but a new way to earn a living. With loans from both sets of parents mum and dad bought a sweet and tobacconist shop in a town called Barnoldswick - far removed from their farming country backgrounds - so that while Dad was in and out of hospital, mum had a method to care for the family and earn a living for us all. Mum comes from the school of hard knocks but the business flourished - twice a year our living room was taken over while mum took over half the room with her presentation of christmas gifts or easter gifts for her customers to view and order from. She started a weekly savings club so customers who didn't have much money could make sure they had enough to buy gifts for their family. We had to escape upstairs, but this was business and nothing stood in the way of a good sales idea. I loved the sweet shop - every day on my way out to school through the shop the penny tray provided rich pickings to fill my pockets! oops. After many years they decided to close the shop and take over the shop room as a new lounge. Then came mums stint with Wesleyan General as an Insurance Agent - once again the dining room table was taken over as an office this time and mum received many awards for the amount of new business she brought in. A natural knack once again for seeing an opportunity to make a sale - she created relationships easily and took to it like a duck to water. However, in those days you had to collect the premiums in cash each week, walking round house to house at night on your own with a bag full of cash and in the end this was the reason she gave it up - sadly because this was her most successful career both financially and satisfying. After a stint as Wages Clerk at Silentnight, mum and dad once again took over a new business as Village Shop/Post Office in the small village of West Marton. Not satisfied with the shop, mum also started selling Pipa Dee ladies clothes by doing house parties in the evening when the shop was closed travelling to people houses and offering gits to get more bookings - again she was successful - sales was definitely her thing. Finally, while running the shop she then started doing bed and breakfast using the two upstairs bedrooms, and moving herself and Dad into the store room downstairs and turning it into a temporary bedroom. These were the happiest times for my parents, they loved meeting people from all over the world and made many new friends, the most important being the four young men who visited them each year from London - or the 'London Lads' as we called them. In later years, mum and I had a lovely weekend in London visiting the lads and they presented mum with gifts and flowers - she was so overwhelmed. And of course, during this time mum had and survived breast cancer and threw herself into fund raising for many years. What a woman - adversity knocks and she climbs over it - such strength, such determination and in among it all such caring for everyone else. No one is perfect and mum definitely wasn't, but do you know what - you have just got to admire everything she did, the way she always found a way to support her family, to be successful in every business and job she ever had, while at the same time having fun, making money for cancer and caring for every member of her close and extended family. I miss her so much already and I know how proud she was of me and Emma and Lee - may you be in a better place mum because Alzheimers is a cruel disease and you were so frustrated in the end with how this was affecting you. I am so sad that I won't speak to you or see you again but we had so many happy times and so many fabulous memories. I love you mum xxxxx

My 21st birthday party, was such a huge one at the time. My Nanna made sure she was there, even if my grandad wasn’t able to. She hated to let anyone down, least of all family. That evening I gave my mum flowers and Nanna wouldn’t let me get away without a speech using a microphone in front of everyone. I literally wanted to curl up into a ball...microphone thing in front of a huge room of drunken friends eek. I did it though and my mum was really happy (I would have given the flowers to my mum but just me and her) Nanna liked things on a big scale. Then to my horror Nanna made me ‘cut the cake’ again remember my age here...21! Friends around...lots! All interested in drinking. I was mortified...a huge knife was given to me...it literally felt like I was doing a cutting of the cake at a wedding. She loved a cake and loved that I did as she asked...it was better to go along with it trust me, otherwise I wouldn’t have heard the last of it. Nanna always did celebrations on a grand scale. Love Emma (granddaughter) 2021