Fourteen Prime Ministers under her belt and she's still going strong....My Mum that is!

Across the UK at the end of this week we will be blocking off our roads, grabbing our flags, bottles of alcohol, and hurling our furniture into the streets. No, its not a week of radical street protest, although, well let’s not go there, it is the Platinum Jubilee, celebrating the coronation of Her Majesty Elizabeth II, and her 70 years of dedication and service as our Monarch.

Queen Elizabeth has set many records during her reign, the one in my view she should be most congratulated and commiserated on in her role of Head of State is the weekly meeting she has held with fourteen different British Prime Ministers since her coronation on the 2nd June 1953.  Does the Guinness Book of World Records have an eye rolling self-prevention record?  Her Majesty the Queen must have better facial control than the Sour Candy testing team during the great Sour Candy innovation rush of the 1990s.  

This royal record of parliamentary parlaying got me pondering though. We all know amazing women who have lived through those same fourteen mainly tedious tenants of Number Ten. I certainly know of one such women.

So in this week’s Meanderings of My Mind [MOMM] I wanted to tell you the story of a woman who has lived through PMs from Churchill to Johnson, and celebrate somebody who has more than done her duty to her family and friends. My Mum.

Born in August 1946, Wrexham, North Wales, Jean Margaret Gibson, my Mum, is the daughter of Edith Maud and Frederick John Gibson. Fred, a Fireman then a Bus Driver. Edith Maud a school dinner lady and head of the household. Edith Maud had been brought up in a very poor but strict mining family, and her mother was a legend for her no nonsense approach to life. Fred had lost his mother then father when we was just a boy and had been brought up by an Uncle with his brother in one of Wrexham’s most famous haunted houses. A long departed head teacher used to fall down the stairs nightly with his candle pirouetting before him outside of Fred's bedroom.

My mum was the third child of four, the only girl amongst three boys. Her older two brothers were David and Brian.

David died from meningitis at the age of two, before my mother was born. Brian, born just before David passed away, became the light of my Nan’s life. At the age of 10, Brian was sent to the downstairs bathroom to wash his hands after being out with his friends playing for the day. Wanting a few more minutes with his mates, he snuck out the small toilet window, got on his bike and while my Nan prepared tea in the kitchen and my Mum, then around five played in the front room, he cycled down to the shops a few hundred yards away, and back up the main road where a lorry, the passenger window covered with cardboard hit him and killed him instantly.

So, my Mum grew up as an only child for a couple of years, until a new younger brother appeared, Ian, who of course was then idolised by her Mum.

Doing incredibly well at school, passing her Eleven Plus, she was all set to go to Grammar School when Fred lost his job, and they couldn’t afford the uniform. It was a transient time of hardship but it stopped my Mum's education in its tracks. Simply because of  the cost of a skirt, shirt and jumper. Instead of fulfilling her educational and I know career and life potential, my Mum was taken to Eric McMann Fruit and Veg shop in Wrexham at the age of fifteen and was given a job.

If I could wave a magic wand and change anything in the world it would be to have given my Mum the opportunity to go to Grammar School. That one rung up the educational ladder would have transformed her life. Born today, should have gone to University and who knows where she would have ended up. We will never know.

It was at Eric McMann’s that my Mum met my Dad. But, while courting my future father, she fell for a visiting pastor from the newly opened Mormon Church, an American, also named Gibson.  Would she choose the path of marrying a handsome American, head off to the US of A, and maybe have a middle son called Chuck who later go on to be a famous American Football player, or would she stay in Wrexham? I think we all know what happened. I think I would have made a good Chuck.

She stayed a shop worker, married my Dad, a fishmonger, from the wrong side of town, or Llay as we say in Wrexham. My Nan disliked my Dad from the moment she met him.  My Nan wanted better things for my her daughter, my Dad wasn’t a better thing. This endless animosity provided endless amusement. A heated argument over the TV remote control during a late night visit from my Nan after Bingo caused a furious walk out, Fred following behind, and a boycott of our house for a whole year. My Nan was never for turning. The upside was our grandparents dropping stuff off at the school gate, and I actually got a fantastic remote controlled sailing boat for my birthday that year. Not having a pond slightly diminished the thrill of it, but it was the best birthday present in years. My brother and I plotted to continue this falling out hoping Christmas would bring even bigger riches. Sadly détente broke out before Santa arrived, but it was only ever skin deep, and my Mum could have worked for the UN after keeping the peace for over four decades.

My Mum went on to be a Mum of three. Andrew my oldest brother, me, the good looking one, and my sister Jeanette. My Mum stayed as a shop worker all through our childhood. There was no such thing as work life balance in the 1970s; it was just work and life all in one, and my Mum like many worked and just balanced everything as best she she could.

While never well off, or poor as church mice only once or twice, she did her best at all times to give us what we needed. We had holidays in Rhyl with our Grandparents and two memorable holidays in Butlins Pwllheli  and Pontins Morecombe. I actually won Butlins Picture of Health 1978, and there is a photo of me somewhere in pair of swimming trunks holding a 1st Place sign next to two other unhealthy looking young boys. My only ever award for bodily health! Definitely my last.

There is lots I could tell you about my Mum, but the #1 fact is she is a hugger. She loves hugs. I now love hugs. Even though she is 179 miles away, I can close my eyes and feel her hugging me right now. She hugged us as children, as adults, she hugged her friends, she hugged her grandchildren, the headline picture showing her with Charlotte our oldest, she even hugged her Mum when Edith Maud would let her.

And of course, she loved hugging her brother Ian, who, after being one of the most spoiled children on the planet became her rock, and she his! Ian was a garage mechanic for the Crosville in Wrexham; we had so much fun playing in the garage pits under busses when we were kids; health and safety, pah!! Ian grew up with my Nan, got married, moved out, got divorced, moving in again, and was spoiled rotten well into his thirties. However spoilt Ian was, he was a fabulous brother and an amazing Uncle. He taught us to play darts, pool and snooker, and fixed our cars, and my Mum and Ian loved each other deeply. They looked after Edith Maud between them, and let me tell, that was a tough job.

Then, just as he turned 40, and after having his first son with the love of his life Sue, Ian was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Weeks later, during treatment, and after the tumour started to shrink, on the night the national lottery launched, and we all bought tickets praying we could send him with our millions for even better treatment, Ian unexpectedly passed away on the sofa in front of Sue and with his 2 year old son in his arms, his two step daughters watching broken hearted at their loss of their wonderful new dad. And of course my Mum lost the brother she loved dearly, and was an only child yet again.

She finished her working life at the Post Office, the best time for her as she got to use her incredible maths ability and she took up Sudoku and became a bit of a grand master. Crosswords, puzzles, brain trainer, you name it, she did it, and she was brilliant at it. Then just after she retired, and planned a life of fishing, my Dad died of cancer. My Mum then became a widow, looking after my Nan until she passed away, and slowly she withdrew socially, and it became obvious she was suffering from more than just loneliness, and a few years ago now was diagnosed with dementia and slowly but surely this disease took hold.

So today, my Mum lives in the amazing Cherry Trees Care Home in Coedpoeth just outside Wrexham, with a fantastic family of carers around her. She doesn’t quite know who I am any more, she lives mainly in the 1960s [a playlist of my Mum's favourite records is down below for those who want a bit nostalgia] and phone calls confuse and upset her.  And with COVID and distance I see her less often than I would like, or should, but she is in the best place possible for her safety and her care. Last year, one of her carers found a lump, something we would never have spotted, and she was quickly diagnosed with cancer but it was spotted early she has had treatment which is working incredibly well. So, all is good, and my Mum lives the best life possible supported by amazing people who are her new family and friends. She may well have a little Jubilee Party this weekend and I know if they put on some Manfred Mann or Status Quo she will be in her element.

And of course all of this got me thinking about and talking about digital transformation.

In a phone call last week with Abigail Allman from ERP Dynamics, we were discussing doing some podcasts together and one question Abi said she would ask on the podcast, how do you get excited about what you do every day?

How do you get excited and enthused about discussing automating an invoice using RPA or running digital systems with the very latest in ITOM AiOps? How does saying the same thing day in and day out to different people keep you motivated and passionate.

And for me it really is very simple.

I have my own Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon; that thing where everybody in Hollywood can be linked through to the film star with just six steps.  Well, I see the world through the Six Degrees of Jean Margaret Gabriel.

I simply want my Mum to live the best life possible, and here is my theory, every person and company in the UK has a role in helping her do that. And if I can influence that in any way then I will give it my best shot and get excited about it.

My starting point is all of the carers that look after my mum. If I can make their lives just a little bit better through what I do at work, they will go into work happier and that means my Mum will get a bigger smile, and for her that smile is the most important thing in the world because those carers are the most important people in her world.

If I can play any part in ensuring those carers lives are made easier then I should do that with as much passion as possible. It could be simply getting them a better customer service when buying their car insurance, or their kids get a better education, or their bank helps them better manage their finances, or their supermarket gives them better value for money, or the street they live in is safer, or their holiday is simpler to book, or their pub experience is more pleasant, or their hospital is quicker to treat them, or their train is more on time than late, or whatever it is that makes the lives of these amazing people use just slightly better. And even if it is six degrees away from my Mum, and my part is simply helping the companies or public services process invoices more intelligently that then improves their cash flow so they can invest more in making their products and services better for my Mum's carers and that just helps their lives just one bit better, then that's making a big difference to the life of my Mum.

And of course when it's a big thing it is even more exciting. I visited Bennamann Energy last week to see the future of sustainable self-sufficient energy production on farms. And as I walked around I thought, this is all about my Mum. If Bennamann can make farms energy secure and lower food costs my Mum will benefit, the carers who look after her will benefit, and that has to be an exciting thing for me to be involved in. I don't think that's a leap of imagination its just imaging a world where we all think about the difference our actions can make to other people and their lives. And to me that's exciting.

So, if you work in the tech industry in the UK and you do anything that keeps organisations operating, innovating, delivering products and services that in some way benefit my Mum, or one of the six degrees of people that contribute to her leading a great life then I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. When you raise a glass this weekend to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee, also toast what you have done for my Mum. And maybe play her playlist at your party. I know she would love to be there singing along and thank you herself.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Ar6rXgXdQiGnBEjOSqKc9?si=cec21e12081f4f4b