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My mother's best advice

Writers on the words that will always stay with them

  • Composite image of a young Morwenna Ferrier and her mum.

    My mother’s best advice: talk to your children like old friends

    She treated me and my sister as her friends, and said it meant she rarely felt lonely. I see now that she wasn’t telling me what to do with my life – but expressing how much she loved us
  • G2: The best advice my mother ever gave me - Simon

    My mother’s best advice: go in to bat for the ones you love

    She wasn’t a great one for dispensing wisdom. Instead, she fought for me whenever I most needed it
  • Emma Beddington with her mother in Greece circa 1980

    My mother’s best advice: you’re allowed to enjoy nice things

  • Laura when she was a toddler with her mother

    My mother’s best advice: the secret to good pastry is cold wrists

  • Rich Pelley and his mum at the Black Swan in Bristol, Christmas Eve, 2025.

    My mother’s best advice: always play it by ear

  • A photograph of Dale and her mother at Dale's wedding. Standing beneath a tree, they are smiling and looking in the same direction, but not at the camera

    My mother’s best advice: keep short accounts – in other words, forgive easily

  • An older woman with white hair sitting on a chair wearing brightly coloured dress and black scarf with a younger women with long dark hair sitting to her left on the arm of the chair wearing a netted black outfit

    My mother’s best advice: wear bold, bright colours

  • G2: The best advice my mother ever gave me - Tim

    My mother’s best advice: learn to raise one eyebrow at the world

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