My mother, Ruth Campbell, who has died aged 87, lived life at full pelt, her hard work, energy and unconditional love putting her at the heart of our family.
She grew up in North Kyme on the Lincolnshire fens where her parents, Ernest and Elizabeth Skelton, were the village bakers. She trained as a teacher, but when her sister's husband died during the second world war, she returned home to help look after her twin nephews – a "family first" sacrifice that would characterise her life.
She met Alex Campbell at a dance in Plymouth just after the war. He subsequently turned up at the Skeltons' house unannounced. He was a meteorologist who had taken a job in Lincolnshire and gone looking for the woman he had met fleetingly a few years earlier.
Ruth took on the role of mother and homebuilder with a no-nonsense stoicism, relishing each move that came with Alex's job. Over the next 25 years our family would live in Malta, Shetland and all over Britain, my mother steering the Campbell ship, leaving each house with a beautiful landscaped garden. Many of these horticultural monuments still stand (I drive past one of them regularly), rising above their suburban status, all created by her, with my father as her able assistant.
Growing up was a wonderful journey only marred by my brother Alistair suffering from schizophrenia, something that would change the course of my parents' lives – and it is testament to their love and support that Ali is now in the best health of his life. In the 1980s, my mother set up a National Schizophrenia Fellowship group in Lincolnshire, applying her energy to improving mental health services. She also had a stint working for the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at its headquarters in Westminster. But the real job in her life was home and family.
When grandchildren came along, the sheer joy in her face let them know that here was a place where they would find unconditional love – a smile welcoming them in, setting them up with a sandwich and drink, listening intently to any snippets of news.
Alex died in 2011. She is survived by her sons, Andrew, Alistair and me; four grandchildren, Leo, Donal, Jamie and Bebhinn; and nephews, Nick, Chris and John.