Picking Up the Pieces

In the 1960s Pat Lowther and her husband Ron were enjoying life in South Africa where they were working as Salvation Army Officers. But Ron?s sudden death was to put an end to Pat?s happiness and she found herself returning to the UK with four children and no idea how she was going to survive. Those days of the early 1970s seem like another age now: a time when a woman could not get a mortgage in her own right, there was no motorway link between the north-east of England and London, and a fitted kitchen was a real novelty. Through all the hardships, however, Pat never lost her sense of humour.

With the help of her aunts, and drawing on her own strength of character and imagination, Pat found a home for herself and her children. Then she began a long career as a civil servant that was to take her from small beginnings in the benefits system all the way to the Fees Office of the House of Commons. Along the way she found unexpected love and happiness with her second husband Alex, and eventually things come full circle when they spend a happy post-retirement holiday in South Africa.