A few years ago, we decided to hire an outfit who sends a "biographer" to interview someone about their life and then compile a biography complete with photos.  When it was finished, Mum finally settled on the title Making Tea From Snow.  This was something she resorted to during the terrible winter of 1947 when she and our father were newlyweds and the pipes in the little flat they were living in froze.  I had not looked at the book (now one of my most prized possessions) since I first read it some 17 years ago, but I got it down from the bookshelf to jog my memory for an appropriate anecdote and quickly found myself alternately laughing and crying as I read it all again from cover to cover.  So many stories.  From volunteering to being posted overseas at the age of 20 during the war, to the sit-in at the gas showroom, the campaign for resident's parking permits (which she ultimately won), which saw her in magistrate's court and featured in the the local newspaper.  Through it all what comes through is not only a funny, resourceful, intelligent, determined and resilient human being, but a fiercely protective and unwaveringly supportive mother.  How lucky we are that she was ours.