Why mother always knows best...

Barbara Taylor Bradford

My mother, Freda, was a very quiet person; she wasn’t gregarious like my father, but she had some wonderful values and believed you could have anything you wanted in life, providing you were willing to work for it.

I was an only child and I definitely had a lot of attention lavished on me, but with no other brothers and sisters to hide behind, it also bred in me a compulsion to succeed.

My mother taught me to be disciplined, to do my homework on time, but it was also thanks to her that I got what I call my intellectual education. She force fed me books from Armley Library and introduced me to art and the theatre.

On weekends, we would take various trams and buses to the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth, the theatre in York, or some stately home where mum could spot a Gainsborough painting or a piece of Hepplewhite furniture from a mile away, ‘Barbara’, she would say, ‘always keep your eyes open and look at everything’.

She saw my first novel, Woman of Substance, published, but she died five-and-a-half weeks after my father, in 1981 and I’m sure it was from a broken heart. A lot of people say as they get older they see themselves growing into their mother. Not me, I still think I’m 39, but I also know I was lucky to have the mother I did.

Playing the Game by Barbara Taylor Bradford is out now in paperback.

Kay Mellor

Mum always worked when I was little – she had to, she was a single parent. Sometimes in the school holidays I’d go with her to the factory where she worked in the tailoring department. It was fantastic, I’d sit amid all these piles of fabrics listening to these fantastic women telling stories and smoking while they sewed. Now, they’d call it call multi-tasking.

There wasn’t much money, she never bought herself clothes and rarely had her hair done. She never moaned about money, but as I got older there was nothing I liked more than taking her shopping.

Not long after I turned 16, I found out I was pregnant. I was absolutely devastated because I felt I’d let mum down. When me and Anthony (Kay’s husband of more than 40 years) plucked up the courage to tell her I was expecting and we were going to get married, the colour drained from her face, but the next morning I went downstairs and she’d made me a boiled egg and soldiers. I never had boiled eggs for breakfast, but she turned to me and said, ‘Now you’re pregnant, Kay, you’ve got to start eating properly’. As I began to eat, she added, ‘You know, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to marry him’.

I was in love with Anthony and it was what I wanted, but I’ll never forget her saying that. I knew that whatever I did, she would be there for me.

Mum was a great reader, she could tell you the plot of any classic novel and the only thing she made me promise was that I would pick up my education. I did, and I mum was incredibly proud when I went back to college. She died four years ago, but I still hear her voice saying, ‘Kay, don’t look at people through a microscope, look at them through a telescope’.

Kay Mellor is the writer behind Fat Friends, The Chase and A Passionate Woman.

Andrew Barton

My fascination with hairdressing began when my mum used to take me along to the salon, in Royston, while she had her hair done. Setting lotion is the smell of my childhood.

My dad died when I was 16, and for the three of us children, mum became the centre of our world. She was incredibly independent and while I know she was worried when I left home at 19, I knew she was backing me 100 per cent.

Success only means something if you have someone to share it with, and when I was nominated for British Hairdresser of the Year, it was mum who was at my side. I woke up the next morning after winning and wondered why my hand was so bruised, and then I remembered it was because mum had been grabbing it so tightly.

Me and my brother, Simon, were both adopted, but it was never an issue. When my younger sister was born, I remember rushing around the school playground shouting, ‘I’ve got a Susan, I’ve got a Susan’.

We were all incredibly close and I never felt the need or desire to look for my biological mother, I already had the best mum anyone could want.

Mum often came down to see me in London and before she left she’s make sure I’d had a good dinner with Yorkshire puddings and we would speak on the phone every day, sometimes twice.

When she died recently, it was incredibly difficult, I lost not only a mum, but my best supporter and my best friend.

Andrew Barton’s salon is in Covent Garden London, www.andrewbarton.tv. He is also patron of the British Association of Adoption and Fostering.

Caroline Castigliano

I WAS born with a severe congenital hip defect and it meant I spent a lot of my childhood in hospital with my mother, and, as I lay in bed, she taught me how to sew. By the time I was five, I was on my way to making my own clothes, great big bell-bottoms which I thought were simply fantastic.

When I was well enough, mum and I would spend hours in Liberty looking at the fabric. To me, it was a perfectly normal thing to do and, fortunately, my best friend also had a creative mum. The two of us were joined at the hip, but while we made clothes for our dolls and each other, I never considered it as a career.

While I was in hospital, my mother would bring in piles of books and she inspired in me a real love of reading. It was an escape from all the treatment and really fired my imagination.

I do think I was treated differently because of the amount of time I spent in hospital and I was always told that I was very special.

Quite early on, I had dreams of becoming an actress, and while many parents worry when their child says they want to go into showbusiness, it was something both my mum and dad encouraged. While eventually I decided it wasn’t a world I wanted to be in, it gave me tremendous amounts of confidence and courage to be able to set up my own business. My mother taught me that challenges are something to be met head on, and it’s something I hope I have passed on to my own children.

Caroline Castigliano’s 2011/12 bridal collection is available at her shop in The Headrow, Leeds.

Graham Leslie

Mum was very humorous, very affectionate, but she also had a very determined streak. She was born in Glasgow in 1917 and was a great believer in equal rights for women, chaining herself to railings on various occasions in protest.

She later moved to London before marrying and moving to Middlesbrough where I and my brother and sister were brought up. It was a very traditional house, we went to church every Sunday and after lunch we would go down to the beach or just out into the garden where we would spend hours talking and playing as a family.

When she was young, mum was forced to leave secretarial college early when her parents ran out of money, and the need for education was something she always instilled in us. Sadly, I was a bit of a rebel, left school at 14 and announced I wanted to be a dress designer. You had to be 16 to go to art college, so I pencilled on a moustache to make me look older and went along with my mum’s blessing. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as it turned out I couldn’t draw, so I tried hairdressing instead.

When I got my first wage – £1.17. 6d – I went out an bought her an imitation set of pearls. That I know meant a lot to her, but after putting up with me, she deserved it. Throughout my many varied careers I had her unstinting support and she taught me that even when times are difficult, you just need to stay motivated and carry on.

Graham Leslie founded the South Yorkshire pharmaceutical business Galpharm International, which he sold in 2008 for $88m. He is currently Yorkshire and Humberside regional ambassador for the Prince’s Trust.

Brian Turner

When I was growing up, my dad ran a transport café and he’d bring home all sorts of meat which my mum would cook long and slow – it wasn’t a pork chop unless the meat fell off the bone. She made the best cheese-and-onion pie and, as far as the four of us kids were concerned, her eggy bread was to die for.

We’d spend holidays in Filey, Scarborough or Blackpool, but wherever we were, we would always be in our overcoats.

My mother had great aspirations for us all, greater than she had for my father, and so when I said I wanted to got to catering college I think she was quite anxious. When I left home for London, at 17, she was even more worried – no one left Morley in those days. I worked first at Simpsons in the Strand. Mum loved coming down to London and would tell people and how proud she was ‘our Brian’ had a car to drive her around in.

Mum only got on an aeroplane twice – once to come out and see me in Switzerland and once to come back, but she followed my career closely. She died young, at the age of 52 ,and so never saw the success which came later.

Chef Brian Turner is currently working with Butlins to create a new family restaurant at their resorts. Mike Pannett

My earliest memories are of family holidays in our ancient Morris Minor Traveller. My dad didn’t like main roads so we’d go the back way to a remote house in Staintondale, and me and brother and two sisters would have to get out every time there was a steep hill as it couldn’t cope with all the kids and the luggage. Mum never batted an eyelid.

My elder brother and sister were very academic and won places at grammar school. I wasn’t from the same mould and when we moved to Crayge, near York, I ended up at comprehensive school. My mum never made me feel like I’d failed or was in any way a disappointment, although she definitely thought I talked too much and didn’t listen enough. She was probably right because I left school without any qualifications. I ended up in a series of what you’d call menial jobs and I would have probably carried on that way, had my mum not mentioned that I might think about joining the Territorial Army, which later led to me joining the police.

Before then, I’d had been more interested in motorbikes and girls, but mum was incredibly proud and I think a little relieved when I finally got a career. I ended up joining the Met Police in London before moving back to Yorkshire with the force.

When I gave up being a policeman to become a writer, I think she thought, ‘oh no, here we go again’, but she has been one of my biggest supporters and has always said, ‘Mike, I know you can do it’.

Mum is a great believer in hard work and rising to the challenge. She is now 80 and while she has had a few setbacks in her life, she has always risen like a phoenix.

Mike Pannett’s Not On My Patch, Lad – More Tales of a Yorkshire Bobby is out now. For details of signings and readings, visit www. hodder.co.uk