Family life

Readers' favourite photographs, songs and recipes
family life scotcher
Ann Scotcher, Kerry Morton's nan, in her garden in the late 1950s. Public Domain

Snapshot: Nan Scotcher modelling a colander

This is the nan I never met sitting with a colander on her head. Her name was Ann Scotcher, it's one of the few photos I have of her, and I love it. The picture was taken by my mum, aged 16, in the late 1950s, both sharing a lighter moment. But things weren't so easy for my nan. Widowed and in a loveless marriage (her first husband and father of her two young children had died young), her life was hard. Welfare as we know it today did not exist, so, like a lot of women in her predicament, she married again in order to survive.

One day she opened her door to a young man selling bread. He charmed her and, in time, she decided to run away with him, leaving the second husband and, much harder, leaving her two children with her mother. Her family disowned her and she had to pretend to be married to avoid social stigma.

Either he had some very good qualities so she could have made such a decision or life at home was intolerable, or possibly both. She had two more children with him (he was a soldier, a bread man, a boxer, a home guard volunteer during the war and a postman until retirement; and in his spare time he was a drinker and a compulsive gambler).

Her first two children would visit when they were older, although there was some bitterness and pain with these visits. I look at this photo, and I feel sorry that she wasn't born in more forgiving times. Today she could keep her children and not have to marry for survival. The most she would suffer is disapproval for claiming benefits. I thank her for making such a brave, heartbreaking decision. I wouldn't exist if she had not. Kerry Morton

Playlist: David, the love of my life

There Must be an Angel by Eurythmics

"No one on earth could feel like this / I'm thrown and overblown with bliss /There must be an angel / Playing with my heart"

Early summer, London 1985. I'm 22, barely a year out of uni, an aspiring actor with his first (fringe) theatre job, and I've just met the love of my life.

He's 15 years older than me, an impoverished jewellery designer living just off Portobello Road. He's handsome, sexy, intelligent and kind, and from the off we know we're made for each other. Really.

This man I was going to be with for ever.

I bought cornflowers for him from the market one sunny Saturday morning and he said they were the colour of my eyes. He wasn't feeling too good, so he went back to bed while I spring- cleaned the windows (had to let all that sunlight in) and sang along to the Eurythmics on the radio.

I felt like the song was written for me and I can still picture myself, doing such a mundane job yet feeling ecstatic, like I was in heaven.

Six months later he was dead, after a drawn-out agonising illness, that horrible new disease called Aids. I was bereft, and hoped it wouldn't be long until I was next.

More than 25 years later and I'm still here. I've got a lovely partner, a lovely family, yet tears roll down my face as I write this. Yes, because I still miss you, David, but more because I miss the way I felt then. Every time I hear this song, I try to remember that feeling, but I can't really. I think that part of me died with you. An angel hasn't played with my heart since. Adrian Hardwicke

We love to eat: Red azuki bean nian gao


300g glutinous rice flour

200g red azuki bean paste

135g brown sugar

350g water

40g vegetable oil

Pour the sugar and half of the water into a pot and melt the sugar completely, then turn off the heat. Pour the flour and remaining water into a bowl and stir until well mixed. Add the vegetable oil, sugar water and red azuki bean paste into the same bowl and stir until uniform.

Pour the batter into a pot. Gently stir and cook the batter until it has a custard texture, then turn off the heat. Pour the half-cooked batter into a cake mould and steam in hot boiling water for 35 minutes until firm.

My sister and I would eat this rice cake straight off the steamer as we like the sweet, sticky and messy structure on our hands and chopsticks. My grandma would let the cake cool completely as it is much easier to cut and serve. I would get my mum to take this back to our house and deep batter fry them or pan fry them, which gives them a burnt-crispy, chewy texture.

Every Chinese New Year my grandma would steam her red azuki bean nian gao to bring good luck to her family. She hoped that eating her nian gao would allow us to raise ourselves higher in the coming year. Nian means sticky texture, and sounds the same as the symbol meaning "year". Gao means cake, which sounds the same as the symbol meaning "high". Her adding the red azuki bean gives a reddish colour to the cake, which also brings good luck. This is just one of the many variations of nian gao made throughout the Chinese populations.

As Grandma celebrated her 100th birthday on the third day after Chinese New Year, I thought I would steam her favourite nian gao to celebrate her lifelong journey from the end of the Chinese Qing dynasty, through the first and second world wars to her migration and settlement in the United States in the early 70s and now into the era of technology.

I was planning to bake the nian gao instead – the alternative western way; however, I'm afraid she would not recognise it. She has Alzheimer's disease. But my dad has the same birthday as Grandma, so every Chinese New Year we would always celebrate both of their birthdays together.

I'm trying to come to terms with Grandma not remembering any more. She has difficulty distinguishing me and my sister. We often try to help her with her memory by quizzing her on who is who.

Perhaps if Grandma was to eat her nian gao again, this would trigger many happy memories of her childhood and her journey from China through Taiwan to the United States. Shih-Min Yeung