My mother, Maud, was born into a strong Roscommon farming family. They bought and raised young cattle in the west, and with a number of strategically located rented farms, the cattle were walked ever eastwards as they grew.

One of the farms they rented was Grange, Co Meath, where the Teagasc beef farm is today. This was the fattening farm before the final drive into Prussia Street and shipping to Birkenhead.

On a sunny evening in early May 1968, Thomas, aged nine and me, aged eight, were in the bath together. I assure you we don’t do this anymore. Dad suddenly appeared in the bathroom and firmly told us to tell Mum we were sorry that her father had died.

We were surprised because we weren’t in the least bit sorry, as we thought our grandfather to be very strict and very cross. It was, nonetheless, our first exposure to a family death.

While not a farmer, she greatly appreciated the beauty of the countryside

Mum, the only daughter, was left a useful amount of money in her father’s will and Dad said that she should invest it sensibly. Dad had a young brother Alan, who, ever the entrepreneur, happened to be setting up a farm machinery hire business, perhaps the first in the country.

Alan was, it should be said, a very flamboyant cigar-smoking and completely charming young man who drove cars faster than Jackie Stewart and was always brimming with business schemes. Nonetheless, my father thought Alan’s latest venture should be a good investment and Mum was persuaded to invest in the new business.

Within a year the business went wallop and Mum’s funds disappeared. But Mum, while shaken, was forgiving and laughed it off. Alan duly moved on to concentrate on his other interests, like women, motorsports and farming – in that order – all of which ended in disaster.

Luckily, mum had some of her father’s money left, with which she bought a single field, which we jokingly referred to as Mum’s Ballivor estate. I think she would have preferred if it was surrounded by Roscommon’s dry-stone walls.

But Mum wasn’t too bothered about farming. Yes, she’d be well aware of what was going on outside, but she left that to others. While not a farmer, she greatly appreciated the beauty of the countryside (especially the west) and was in tune with the seasons and nature and loved her garden. Every spare summer moment – and there wasn’t a lot with six children and a very busy husband – was spent in her beautiful garden and in the greenhouse.

Once I moved out, I always came back for coffee, where homemade brown bread and raspberry jam were always on offer, or in the summertime, fresh tomatoes, lettuce and cucumber from the greenhouse.

Tomato crop

Some of you may recall the story I told years ago about how I annihilated her tomato crop one year due to residual herbicide damage. But again, Mum quickly forgave me and it became a family joke - Mr Sprayer himself and all that.

However, there are always dark clouds in every long life and Mum was predeceased by both Dad and her daughter Libby over 20 years ago, but she never faltered and bore her grief and failing health with great dignity, strength and faith. She never ever complained or questioned.

Over the Easter break, Mum slipped quietly from our midst and we laid her to rest on a lovely warm and blue-skied April day. It was also an ideal spraying day for the T1 fungicide on the wheat, but the spraying would wait. Burying your mother is the most important task you can ever do.

May she rise to take her deserved place in the eternal sunlit gardens with those she loved.