THE END OF AN ERA

Sally Jones' family home was filled with the happiest childhood memories

- SALLY JONES

When my dauntless widowed mother. Christine, died, still sharp as tacks, aged 94, I reflected on her incredible life. A school cook, she had reigned as matriarch at our childhood home in Coleshill, near Birmingham for nigh on 60 years and I dreaded the inevitable task of chucking out a lifetime's clutter and sentimental 'treasures'.

My parents had run everything that moved in Coleshill: the church fete, the WI, the Country Market and the tennis club teas. Ledgers, cookery cups, family photo albums and dozens of jam jars and labels covered every surface, while suitcases of carefully folded clothes from earlier generations half-filled the loft.