In this Autumn’s edition of The Professional, the organ of the LIA my brother Ted contributes an article about planning a will called Where there is a will there is a way.
As the introduction to the article mainly concerns our mother I feel free to give you a synopsis of it.
Long before she or my father died they gave a lot of their possessions to their various children and grandchildren. My mother, because she had seen it happen so often, had a horror of family rows happening after their deaths.
She freely discussed with us all what we would want after her departure, (my father predeceased her by several years),and then she wrote a list.
This she hid in the “secret” drawer in the bureau and instructed my sister that as soon as she was in the ground we were to all go to the bureau together and divide her possessions as per this list.
This we dutifully did.
Every member of the family was mentioned on it , all of her seven children and their seven spouses and all of her thirty grandchildren and their spouses.
Every scrap of furniture and delft, every kitchen appliance and china ornament was so bequeathed.
On the day there was a bit of friendly swapping, I announced that , as I had just bought a dining table, I didn’t want the large mahogany one I was assigned so my sister, who’s son was looking at an empty house, happily swapped it for a large mahogany bookcase.
All happy.
It was a brilliant coup of my , always wise, mother.
She insured harmony even after her death.

In some ways I think her wisdom and tact was another attribute she bequeathed to us.
After my father died my mother was left with very little money indeed and it is a great tribute to the organisational ability for downright duplicity of my brother Ted that she never knew this.
Ted organised between her children and some of her better off grandchildren that we all direct debit, according to our means, a monthly figure into a fund which he would administrate.
This was then given to my mother as if it were part of her pension.
She never suspected.
Sometimes she would go to Ted (say at this time of the year) and wonder if she might remove a bit extra for Christmas.
A couple of phone calls later and we would all end up effectively buying ourselves our Christmas present from our mother.
This, we all felt was her due, she would have hated to think that she was accepting charity from anyone and she died never feeling that she was.
As Ted said to me recently; “We all got every penny back anyway when we sold the house after she died”
True for you, but by what a kindly path you steered us on Ted, to achieve this end.