Happy Birthday, Mum!

In Australia today my mother celebrates her 75th birthday. Happy Birthday, Mum!

Left: With Mum and my friend Garth in Sydney in May 2012, which was when I last saw my parents. (For more images and commentary on this time in Australia, see here, here & here).

I've said it before and I'll happily and truthfully say it again: My two brothers and I are incredibly fortunate to have Margaret Anne Bayly (nee Sparkes) as our mother. She’s a beautiful, wise and strong woman who extends care, kindness, and love to everyone she encounters.

I love you, Mum, and can’t thank you enough for who you are and for all you continue to be and give to me, my brothers, our family, and so many others whose lives are fortunate enough to be touched by yours!

In celebrating Mum's birthday at The Wild Reed in 2009, 2010 and 2011, I shared quite a number of photos from the Bayly family archives. I share this evening a few more. Enjoy!

Above: Mum with her younger sister Ruth, photographed sometime in the early 1940s.




Left: Mum and Dad, early in their courtship, in Gunnedah in the mid-1950s. Dad is in his band uniform.

Above: Mum on her wedding day – November 7, 1959. That's Mum's sister Ruth at left and their father, Valentine Sparkes, at far left.

Above: Mum with Aunty Phyllis (Dad's aunt), standing in front of Phyllis' Newtown terrace house on Union Street in 1960. Newtown is an inner city suburb (or neighborhood) of Sydney. For more recent images of Newtown, click here.

Above: Mum (left) in the early 1960s in our hometown of Gunnedah with her friend and neighbor Heather Sills.




Right: Mum doing her Shirley Bassey routine at Aunty Phyllis' apartment in Ashfield, Sydney, in 1976.

Above: Mum and Dad, December 1987.

Above: Mum in 1989 with her mother, Olive Sparkes (1906-1997).

Left: Mum with her younger sister Ruth in 1996.

Above: Celebrating Mum's birthday in Gunnedah in December 2000. From left: Mum, Aunty Val (Mum's sister-in-law), me, and Aunty Fay (Mum's older half-sister).




Right: Mum and I in January 2001.

Above: Mum in Melbourne with her daughter-in-law Cathie and two of her grandsons, Mitch (left) and Ryan – April 2003.

Above: Mum at Hanging Rock, Victoria, Australia – April 7, 2003.

For more images of our day at Hanging Rock, click here.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Happy Birthday, Mum (2011)
Happy Birthday, Mum (2010)
Happy Birthday, Mum (2009)
Thanks, Mum!
Catholic Rainbow (Australian) Parents
Congratulations, Mum and Dad!
My "Bone Country"
This Corner of the Earth
Journey to Gunnedah
Gunnedah (Part 1)
Gunnedah (Part 2)
Gunnedah (Part 3)
Gunnedah (Part 4)
A Visit from the Hometown Relatives
An Afternoon at the Gunnedah Convent of Mercy