Freda Twigger

My mother Freda Twigger, who has died aged 90, was brought up a country girl, although she lived most of her life in a city. Born in Blakemere, Herefordshire, she retained a great love for the county all her life. But work opportunities and family prompted her widowed mother to move to Coventry in 1931.

Freda met her husband Ron on a visit to Coventry when she was 13, and their friendship grew stronger when she finally moved to the city. They loved cycling, and their legendary trip to Bournemouth, starting after work on Saturday night and continuing until they fell asleep exhausted on the grass verge, became a story she would still tell in her last months. During the war, they wrote to each other nearly every day, and although Ron's health suffered badly when he was away, they continued to run the butcher's shop together.

My father died in 1953, six months before my birth and five years after the arrival of my sister Rosamond. Mum loved to cook, and would make birthday cakes for local children and cheesy scones for post-match Coventry City commiserations. Her favourite place was St Ives, in Cornwall, which she first visited on VE-day, and which she returned to year after year. Her memory became worse in the last two years, but she was able to stay in the home she had entered as a bride in 1937 until a few days before her death.