My ex mum-in-law Minnie was written up today in "Lives Lived" in the Globe and Mail. 

LIVES LIVED

Lillian Elizabeth (Min) Baughn

DAVID BAUGHN

Wife, mother. Born March 17, 1925, in London, England. Presumed drowned in Westgate-on-sea, Kent, England, as of Oct. 20, 2005, aged 80.

Min was the youngest of eight children born to Jack and Louisa Reddin. Her dad was a bookmaker when that occupation was illegal and his nickname -- Black Jack Reddin -- hinted at darker deeds.

During the war the East End of London took most of the bombing and the Reddins were bombed out twice. Min was sent to join the Land Army where she drove tractors and horse-drawn equipment on farms and learned to ride. She met an American officer and almost became a war bride. (Min once said that she should have married that American soldier, ". . . in which case you horrible lot would never had been born.")

Back in London at war's end she met Dave, a young man who had spent the war on the streets with a gang of thieves "liberating" scrap metal. They fell in love, Min got pregnant and was sent away but returned to marry Dave and have the baby, my brother, Nick, born in 1946. Min's family disowned her. In 1948, second son David came along. We lived in poverty; one cheap room and little food in a landscape of smashed buildings.

Min was the sun around which Dave revolved, his recklessness and imagination, compassion and comedy encompassing all around him. He created for his sons a glorious, magical and Pythonesque carnival of an upbringing; Min was the damage-control officer when it would invariably fall apart. Liberating scrap metal and other useful stuff, and poaching fish and fowl for Sunday dinner were all part of the fun along with food fights and kippers under the pillows. Collapsing with laughter was a constant theme of our childhood. When I was about 10, the Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door. Min and Dave greeted them, she in curlers and bathrobe and he in a long-tailed white shirt barely concealing his privates, cigarette dangling from his mouth. Nick and I looked on. The witnesses spoke and then Dave held up his hand. He said to the visitors: "Look mate, in this house we are sun worshippers, and it's raining now, so piss off."

Min was christened "Spotty Minnie Bannister" by her husband and sons after the character of the same name in BBC Radio's The Goon Show. She carried the moniker her whole life, never going back to the more dignified Lillian.

When their sons grew up, Min and Dave retired and moved to Dorset and bestowed upon their grandchildren much of the same gift of irreverence and silliness. Min and Dave travelled to Canada often where they made many friends and all who came in contact with them have strong memories. They had struggled for most of their lives, sometimes winning and sometimes losing, but they laughed at it all and loved their family well.

Min soldiered on after Dave died in 1993, taking great pleasure in her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She continued to visit Canada often and travelled in Northern Ontario with her Canadian family; she fell in love with Manitoulin Island. She made many friends here and her sharp observations of the human condition and often deadly sense of humour will be sadly missed.

As Min grew older her body deteriorated and she said that when her quality of life became unacceptable she would end her life as she saw fit. Her chosen method was to walk into the sea and float away and after one aborted attempt when she said that the water was just too cold, she did indeed . . . just float away.

I understand now that it was not the betrayal of her body that caused her to take her own life, it was the loss of Dave.

David is Min's son.