Kathleen Morgan

“Forever in our hearts.”

Kath sadly passed away on 21st February in the care of Leighton Hospital, aged 90yrs.

Kath will be dearly missed by all her family & friends.

A service to celebrate Kath’s life will take place on Wednesday 10th March at Crewe Crematorium Chapel.

Donations in memory of Kath will be gratefully received by Christies Hospital & The Methodist Church.

Kath was born on May 29th 1930 – known as Oak Apple Day, a public holiday to celebrate the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 – in a house that had originally been a ’house church’, before the chapel was built, for the village of Ettiley Heath near Sandbach in Cheshire. The midwife said to her mother, “She is ugly, Anne, but maybe she has all her faculties…”

Anne, her mother, must have been a bit of a character – she already had two children by different fathers before she married her father, John Patrick, a handsome Irishman, a former RSM in the Royal Enniskillens. And with him she had five more children – Kath was the second youngest. When she was five the family moved to a house in Broughton Road, Crewe, where John got a job in the railway works.

She left school at 14 to work in Woolworths – they couldn’t afford the book and uniform to let her take the 11 plus. She would have liked to finish her education. She wanted to study languages so she could be an interpreter and travel. She was very bright – nowadays she would have gone to the university – and the family know she was so pleased that her grandchildren had – in fact Mimi is still having – a good education.

She married her first husband in 1953. Alas, like too many women, she became trapped in an abusive relationship. He was an alcoholic and a bully – not violent physically but emotionally; jealous and controlling. She stuck it out but eventually her mother said the family should leave and live with her back in Broughton Road. Even then, a few days before he died, he visited the house – the only time he did – and told her what a good job she had made of bringing up her children alone.

She got a job at Rolls Royce and had a hugely enjoyable career there in the Planning Department; found a lover,  a gentle chap called Gilbert, a saxophone player, and was much happier. After his death she was lucky enough to meet and marry Harry Morgan, and it was wonderful to see how much happiness that gave her. And, of course, she acquired two step children, Dave and Sharon. And as Dave said, she became like a second mum to them – they thought the world of her and she of them.

Then, sadly, Harry died in 2006. But she had so much love and support from Dave and his wife Kath, and Sharon, and especially from David Watson, who became her carer, and her companion, and enabled her to live at home so that – to use Penny’s father’s phrase – she would only leave the house feet first.

Kath liked a glass or two – or three – of wine and it was lovely last summer to sit in her garden and have a long liquid lunch, granny and her grandchildren getting tiddly together, and listen to the cut and thrust of their wit and repartee.

Kerry-Ann, Andrea’s oldest, said she was the story teller of the family – what the Irish call a shanachie – and she regaled us often with tales – John’s open house and hospitality for the German prisoners of war housed in Warmingham; the quadraphonic speakers in the sitting room for radio and records; the first house in Broughton Road to have a ten inch television – bought, like so many were, to watch the Queen’s coronation, with the whole street invited.

She was open minded and generous of spirit, jumping at the chance to fly to Chicago to give away her great nephew when he married his boyfriend.

She had a stock of pithy aphorisms which she would trot out when required. On being offered a vegetarian meal – “I’d rather have something that’s cried over a gate”. On expressing surprise – “Well I’ll go to the foot of our stairs”. And Penny and the girls’ favourite – on avoiding violence – “If you can’t fight wear a big hat”.

She was the best kind of optimist – a stoical one – she had a laconic wit, she was droll, she inspired love and devotion, she was the most resilient of women, she was as tough as old boots – she had Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder – crappy lungs to you and me – one kidney, survived breast cancer, had vascular dementia, had a heart attack a few years ago, and then, finally, her heart gave out on February 21st.

She was extremely matter of fact about her death – indeed, one of the first things David found in her effects was an envelope marked “Information of who to inform when I pop my clogs”. At the long liquid lunch last summer she wagged her finger at the girls and said, “Don’t you dare be sad when I die – I’ve had a long life and loved every minute of it.” So today – and in an entirely fitting way later this summer in a local hostelry –  the family will get together to celebrate the life of Kathleen Morgan – a wonderful mother, and step mother, and mother in law, and grandmother, a loving Aunt, a warm friend – altogether an extraordinary woman.