Dorothy Beatrice Streater (1907-1994)

My mother, Dorothy, brought up four children, three during the war period. Then or just before, a picture of her, together with a nurse and us three children appeared in the sociological volume, "Working Class Wives; Their Health and Conditions", by Margery S. Rice. This was reprinted in 1981 by Virago Press. Mum was very cross with this book: she had been told that the photographer wanted to record the district's best family, complete with the district nurse. However, when it appeared, the book was full of gory descriptions of prolapsed wombs and other disasters that afflicted very poor women.

Mum herself became a nurse several years later. Her real talent was artistic; she was a good violinist, and had a few poems published (by Blackies) as part of a children's anthology. The accompanying sketches of us children were not published. In her last days, she wrote a religious poem:

Look on me in pity
If it be thy will
Now that I am fallen
Keep me safe from ill.

Now that I am broken
I am sore afraid
Keep thy hand in mine, Lord
Till I am remade.

Look on me in mercy
As my race I run
So that when I meet thee
Thou wilt say well done.