It is just not done...

to write anything negative about parents, particularly mothers. Much happiness to those who have or had delightful, friendly, supportive mothers. As you might guess, mine was nothing like that. The politest epithet I can thin of is to use a dialect phrase and call her an 'owd besom'.

So, to me the people in my life who were the most motherly were my great Aunt and my Aunt. Between them they helped me in countless ways, the main ones being that they never found fault and and always gave encouragement.

Odd as it might seem, some of my friends share similar thoughts about their own maternal analogue.