So sad to hear the loss of our lovely Auntie May,she will be very sadly missed by everyone who knew her.R.I.P.With love from Joan,Christine,Susan @ John and families xxxxxxx

May Hale: the early years…

Born in Liverpool in the twenties, to a flapper and a merchant marine, my mother, Mary Margaret "May" Kemp grew up in the depression and reached adulthood in the midst of World War Two: to be specific, in the heart of at Blitz ground zero—the suburban dockyards and warehouses just north of Liverpool, where the Mersey River opens into the Irish Sea—Bootle, to be exact.
     Here is what I can recall of her recollections: repeated over the years, expanded upon, polished—but inevitably tarnished by my own remembering…
     Of walking under a horse when she was three.
     Of jumping into what she thought was a pile of sand and discovering it was quicklime, then running home to her mother, her shoes and dress singed, ruined, but, thankfully nothing more.
     Of winning a contest in the Liverpool Echo ("Why I would love to see Cinderella, or something like that…) for tickets to a pantomime playing at the Empire Theatre. Of going to the theatre on the Big Day and being turned away from the queue because of how they looked: threadbare, no doubt — till her big brother John triumphantly produced the tickets.
     Of being used as a mule to take bets to the bookie (down an alley with coins wrapped in a note clasped in her tiny hand.)
     Of her Grandad Harris letting her sit on his knee and cut his hair with a small pair of folding scissors, which she kept all her life (the scissors, not the hair). She said he would smile and let her shear away, then just put his cap back on.
     Of how her parents survived both the Depression and the war by sending her up to the fish and chip shop just as it was closing to buy a penny's worth of "scrum ends," she called them -- the bits of batter and rock-hard chips skimmed from the chip fat—and then to the bread shop for a "penneth" of broken biscuits.
     Of her schooling, at St. Mary's on Irlem Road, Bootle; her report cards: "…splendid little worker", "not easily deterred." even after a long bout in hospital with rheumatic fever or polio (we're still not sure which). Of winning a scholarship to a fancy Grammar School, and having to turn it down because her Mum and Dad couldn't afford the uniforms and gym suits and the field hockey outfits, the tennis rackets…  At fourteen she ended up working in a bakery. 
     She would often recall that it was round about then, after following a girl in a strange uniform and bonnet to a church service miles from home, that she found her calling: the Salvation Army.
     She would tell my brother and I how her "teenage rebellion" rankled her family of smokers and drinkers and small-time gamblers (a flutter on the horses was as innocent as the football pools in the Liverpool of those days, and probably still is) how her Aunt Lizzy—how all of them—referred to her as "Holy Mary."
     Of the War Years: bombardments and barrage balloons, the bomb shelter in the backyard of 49 Northfield Road, Bootle; the blackout curtains and gas masks they all had to carry; the anti artillery gun nested in sandbags in the middle of the roundabout yards away from their front door. Rationing.
     Of her little brother Ernie being evacuated to some place in the country, the home of an undertaker; then running away, all the way back to Liverpool with tales of the undertaker's wife using a coffin lid for an ironing board.
     Of her mother taking off her shoes and running home barefoot through the pitch-black streets and the wail of sirens, convinced that the Messerschmidts flying low over the city could hear her footsteps on the pavement.
     Of seeing her cousin, Ellen Fenton, a girl of fifteen killed in an air raid, stretched out under a tarp, one hand still visible -- she remembered seeing the dust and soot pressed indelibly into the skin by the bomb blast.
     Then off to Salvation Army Training College in London. After two years Captain Mary Margaret Kemp was posted in Llanilleth, South Wales.
     Albert Veardy "Bon" Hale—our Dad—used to say it was that first sight of my mother in her uniform—when she called on his mother and sister Violet, both regular congregants of the local Army Corp—that spurred his interest.
Like his father before him and his younger brother Tom he had been a coal miner since he was fourteen; but now he was taking night classes in electrical engineering in Newport. Needless to say, he was ready for a change.
Six weeks later he and May were married; and Mum (May) was forced to resign from The Salvation Army—which was the custom in 1946 Britain: Army officers were only permitted to marry within the ranks. 
     His uniform, when he came to Liverpool on leave from his stint in the Army (the other army) "disguised him," she said. As the train pulled into Lime Street Station, with all the other women running to greet their men, picking them out from the deluge of khaki pouring from the doors, May said to her mum, "What should I do? I can't remember what he looks like." 
     "Don't worry, love. Stay right here; he'll find you."
     A year or so later, a son: Brian—and just under two years after that, another one: Me, Michael—joined the family. And then a move to Cheshire, to my Dad's new job at ICI.
   The Queen's coronation in 1953—my brother bringing home a commemorative tea mug from school: Feldy Prep School in Weaverham. Uniforms to clean and mend: red ties, grey shirts, red caps, blue blazers—our antics and demands must have more than filled her days… and then in 1956, a daughter, Margaret.

There is a thick line here, a crease in the page… in 1957 we came to Canada, to Montreal, and my father's new job at CAE.
     It was a hard time for May, adjusting to life in a new country: new customs, a new dialect and in some instances, a new language—especially when we moved to a house in a town outside the city proper, Rivière-des-Prairies. Learning to buy "oofs" and "burr" from the milkman.
     After moving to Ontario in 1959, on New Year's Eve Margaret died from complications after a sudden onset of croup.
Three months later, she received word from Liverpool that her mother had died of cancer.
     We were now in Aurora, at 32 Johnson Road, where she and Albert "Bon" Hale would stay for the next forty years.
— Michael Hale, 2013

One of the loveliest ladies I've ever met. Sweet and kind with a wonderful sense of humour. The happy couple have found each other again.

May will always have a special place in our hearts. She was a lovely lady, the epitome of kindness. Our condolences to all her family. She will be missed

We mourn the passing of a dear friend and mentor. A kind and loving friend to the Exall family and, along with Albert, a surrogate grandparent to Neil and Ewan while growing up on Johnson Road. Her life was filled with a legacy of compassion and caring and she will be greatly missed. Her life's journey is one to celebrate. Our sincere sympathy and love to the Hale family.
Jose and Paul, Neil, Janice, Malcolm and Ewan

May your hearts soon be filled with wonderful memories of joyful times together as you celebrate a life well lived.

OBITUARIO

Mrs. Mary "May" Margaret Hale

12 noviembre, 1922 – 2 septiembre, 2013

Thompson Funeral Home

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