My mother's voice

My mother’s speaking voice was beautiful and has always been associated in my mind with comfort and peace. Some of my earliest memories are of gently waking as a small child with sunlight and birdsong coming in through the old windows and hearing the murmur of low conversation in the next room, the kitchen. The high, wooden ceiling in the farmhouse would amplify the sounds. My mother, speaking with a visitor, perhaps her brother, John, or one of her sisters, Kay or Mina, who might sometimes travel up to the fields to meet her and speak about grown-up things.

Laying at rest in my bed in the other room, the sounds of quiet activity would filter through: a soft footfall on the linoleum floor, the muffled clang of the galvanised bucket as the last of the drinking water was poured into a kettle; a lid being replaced; a drawer of cutlery rattling open and closing; teaspoons in cups; milk pouring; a breadknife sawing through a hard, dark crust of fresh loaf bread. And finally the gentle rattle of the smooth, brass knob as my smiling mother peered around the door to see if I was awake yet and announced in her soft, kind voice that breakfast was very nearly ready…