Socorro Dhaliwal (17 May 1932 - 23 Dec 2015)

Our mum Socorro Karandang Dhaliwal passed away on 23rd December 2015. She was 83 but everyone thought she looked and acted 20 years younger. In September this year she was diagnosed with an aggressive stomach cancer -she really fought it and it made us realise what an amazing woman she really was. It gave us the opportunity to discover new things about our mum's life and retell family stories that we may have forgotten over the years. It made us understand how precious time was and remember the wonderful, exciting and sometimes hard life she led.

She was part of a family of 13 brothers and sisters. As one of the younger children she was allowed to carry out errands for the family, ducking and diving when the Japanese invaded the Philippines thereby protecting her older sisters from Japanese soldiers. In her 20's she worked on an Amercian air base in the Philippines for the World Health Organisation as a lab technician - on her first day she was given red lipstick by her bosses as they thought she looked like a child and needed to look more grown up. Her love of dressing up and looking fancy had begun. She was frequently asked to play the piano for the officers as she was a mean piano player, we loved it as kids when she played her boogie piano and we were allowed to press the pedals. She met my dad there as she worked with his sister my aunts Gloria. He must have seemed dashing as he had come to visit and had already been living in England. By 1961 they were married and my big sister Chez was on the way. Our dad had to return to England and my mum lived with family - she didn't see my dad again until he had saved enough money and mum arrived in England in 1963 by boat, travelling on her own with a small baby. She always told us she was expecting snow and thought she would need skis .... what she got was a good looking Englishman offering to take her to the pub - lucky my dad was there to greet her! My brother Mark and then me (Terry) followed and we were brought up in a small town Leamington Spa. As kids we remember always being dressed smartly and stylishly - all hand made or parcels from home. I remember holidays around the UK, camping, Butlins and the holidays abroad with other families. Little did we know our parents had saved and found ways to find the money for all those lovely experiences. As adults we discovered that mum had collected metal to take to the scrapyard as well as being a glamorous Avon lady and working in a chippy. She later became a nurse but always had that entrepreneurial skill - getting my dad to buy cars and do them up and she would polish those cars so that you never wanted them to be sold, buying property doing it up and making a bit of extra money to see her kids through the next stage of their lives: getting into university. She now has 3 grandchildren Bryonny, Louis and Leni - she is their Lola- Filipino word for granny. All her kids are doing alright and her youngest grandchild Leni is very like her which makes us very happy. I filmed mum a couple of weeks ago and she was playing the piano for us. On her last days we replayed this to her which she loved, watched an old movie with Cary Grant and David Niven and watched the final of Strictly Come Dancing and she wanted to know who won the final of X Factor.

We love you mum and hope you are now with dad having a high old time. Take care and we hope to give you the funeral you want. Brought up as a Jehovah'sWitness, your faith has been your rock and the Leamington congregation have been true friends and supported the whole family - you are truly loved.