Louise talks about her relationship with her mother, Joyce
My mum was Joyce. She was one of five – so another three aunties and an uncle. They were all very close and we used to meet up on a Thursday in town, I used to take a Thursday afternoon off and we used to go up and they would all meet in town and they were hilarious, the lot of them and get them all together, the four sisters! So, we used to just – the people all around would hear us coming, because they’d be talking loud, laughing, having a joke. It was lovely being part of that close family, and I think, I miss that as well as missing my mum because a lot of time my mum when I was growing up wasn’t particularly present. My mum had an alcohol problem so a lot of the time, we weren’t close, and she wasn’t very well.
For many years mum’s alcohol problem just tore the family apart really. But, she did stop drinking and then we changed our relationship. So, sometimes things can’t be mended, but I guess in our case they were mended. I felt that I’d gained a new type of respect for her, for the battles that she had gone through and what she had survived and overcome and I started looking at her in a different light. So instead of looking at her with contempt and anger and bitterness and all of this emotion that I had spent a long time feeling, I found forgiveness and I found understanding and I changed my whole perspective and that is what changed our relationship. So, I felt like I almost – she’d worked on herself, I then worked on myself and then we came back together.
One of the best things was actually during Covid, because by this point I was I was caring for her, and during Covid I just spent all my time there. We had a beautiful summer! I was sitting outside on the lounger, so she could sit in a chair and we could chat through the window and things like that- it was just amazing and obviously when things died down and I was cooking more for her and we’re spending just a lot of time together and that’s precious to me. I was made to close my business, I’m a hairdresser, but actually it was the best of times for us because we’ve forged that really strong bond and she would say, “All I look forward to is seeing your little face coming through the door.” So, I think after all of that, everything we’d been through and how we’d mended everything and, I think that’s why, when she died it was, it was such a big blow because we’ve missed out on so many years and then made it up at the end.
She had her faults, she really did, we all do, and it took her a long time to overcome them. But my mum was a very, very generous person, very caring, very thoughtful, very, very kind and she had a wicked sense of humour. We did some laughing over that time in Covid. But yeah, she loved her gardening. The garden that we had when I was growing up was incredible. I’ve still got photographs now, the flowers that were there and I hadn’t appreciated, I think, you don’t when you’re younger.
Louise Appleby was interviewed in 2025 for the Trees of Hope Project