Mothering Sunday 2020
Sunday 22 March 2020 Today is Mothering Sunday in the UK, and I am sitting at home in self-isolation because of this awful war the world is waging against an invisible enemy. It gives me time for reflection. My mother, Gwen Anderson, born Gwen Starbuck (1916-2006) in Sheffield, England, was a Salvation Army officer for almost 70 years, which is as long as I have lived. She gave birth to me four years after the Second World War, in what was then the Salvation Army Mothers’ Hospital in Hackney, London, which makes me a Baby Boomer! I want to concentrate on the qualities that my mother showed in this blog. Firstly, she was courageously resilient. She was born to Salvation Army officer parents during the First World War, and was an officer in the Salvation Army during the Second World War, particularly serving in the London Underground bomb shelters at a time when people lived in great fear of the ‘Blitz’ bombing of London. Many live in fear of the coronavirus today as it sweeps thr...