Dena

When I was a child my uncle Jim divorced his wife and went to live with a woman from South Yorkshire ! The woman was twenty five years (?) his junior and hailed from a family that was colourfully working class and I remember so vividly just how shamed my grandparents felt at the news as they talked in hushed tones and cried together in the privacy of their bedroom.

Yesterday that woman, my aunt Dena from South Yorkshire died . Peacefully in a local hospice 

I still love my grandparents so very much and it's nearly four decades after they died, but I know that they could not have coped with me being gay, not in the early 1980s. They thought and were shamed by things that shamed and upset people from another era........we don't live in that world anymore .

Having said this, my grandparents eventually came around to my Uncle's new life, much younger wife and bonny baby grandson. They did this because my new aunt was and is a decent woman with a warm personality. My cousin was a delightful little boy and my Uncle was loved so very much.
Loving him, for them, finally out weighed any prejudice they felt.

I would have liked to have come out to my grandparents. I would have liked to have come out to my
mother and father too, but it was never to be and it was never the right time........ c'est la vie as they say in Frenchland.......

I did come out to my Aunt Dena who wrote to me often, enquiring about my life, loves and news. 

She sent me a gift when I got married, a vase which sits on my bathroom window ledge 

When I told Auntie Gladys that The Prof was my partner ( before we all met up for one of my first Flower Show Meetings) I was acutely aware that in some small way I was "re-living" a moment I
wanted so much to have had with the matriarchs of my old family all now deceased .
It wasn't rocket science....in homespun psychology terms!
I said the words that I really didn't have to say and waited with winced eyes for the reaction.
Gladys was 86 back then.
"Will he be coming to the meeting too? " She asked me, her eyes were bright and interested
" I don't think it's his cup of tea" I told her
" Right O " she said busying herself with a tea towel " " I'll wrap up some scones for him to have later"


And she left him scones, tied in a bag to our front door for the next ten years!

Christmas Week 2004

A memory flashed into consciousness after a patient watched a film full of bonnets and tailcoats.

Christmas Week 2004. I was at work at the Spinal Injury Unit in Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital . My husband was off work and had gone for a riding lesson, so had strode onto the ward in riding boots and tight fitting jodhpurs. He also was tall and often held himself with a slight imperious air, so when he asked for me, a wisecracking Yorkshire nurse called Alexa scurried from the nurses station into the ward round multi disciplinary meeting where I was busy with the consultants and psychologist and physios and hissed at me

“ There’s a Mr Darcy to see you John” she shared rather breathlessly “His breeches are magnificent !”

 

Towering Quake '75 - (Stanley Baxter)

Christmas Specials on the tv were kind of special in the 1970s

God love Mr Baxter

On the Nature of Daylight

I’ve delivered most of the village Christmas cards today

Lots of walks up to postboxes and to doorways decorated with wreaths and ribbons.

With the sky turning opaque,

And the temperature dropping considerably 

It was cold 

by mid afternoon.

Mrs Trellis was sat quietly on her sofa,

I saw her through her living room window 

Hands neatly on her lap. 

Eyes off on some distant thought

And my heart broke for her, just a little.

I prepared  a beef stew with dumplings made from scratch with suet and herbs and flour and salt. 

And found a tablecloth and napkins in the back of a drawer,

And lit candles in holders as Weaver watched, with narrow eyes

And the German man I know cancelled supper far too late with a brief text of explanation but with no apology. 

I could weep a little.

Tough

 Auntie Glad’s daughter emailed me today wanting Village Elder Islwyn’s address. She wanted to thank him for the work he had organised for some of her family graves which had been recently damaged during the recent storms “  What a hero he is to me.  He's 75 and still physically working.  His knowledge of who's who there was quite entertaining!” She wrote with clear affection. It’s nice that Islwyn is being celebrated…………

Jackson’s Shop and Nursery lies a stone’s throw east of the village. Every year they deliver a small plant to every house in the Trelawnyd which is a lovely gesture and mine turned up today

How sweet…….

Animal Helper Pat had a stroke last week. She told me this troublesome news herself, only this afternoon , after delivering a still warm home baked bara brith loaf wrapped in silver paper with an accompanying Christmas card. Apparantly she had been hospitalised for four days and was somewhat upset in missing the village show, 

“Where are you off to now ?” I asked her

“ I’m off the deliver Christmas Cards “ she said brightly

They breed them tough in Trelawnyd .

A Christmas Story

 An old post

“In between nursing jobs, I labelled some tins of gin and tonic for the day staff and wrapped a few gifts of my own.it was then I remembered Mrs Trellis.

On the way to work I spied her on London road her head down against the cold dark wind. Her bobble hat sticking out defiantly ahead of her

She was heading for the cottage

I stopped the car and she dropped a gift, through the window and onto the passenger seat with all of the aseptic technique remembered by the retired midwife .

The gift was wrapped a green felt and was tied with garden twine fashioned  into a bow 

“ You always giggled at Christine Davis bringing in the baby Jesus” she said in way of explanation

And as I drove away I remembered  all too clearly being in fits of giggles when Rector Robert commanded rather  theatrically for Christine the Church Warden to “ Bring In The Baby Jesus !”

The small figure , being transported in an upturned palm towards the nativity scene laid out before the pulpit.

The Christmas Eve carol service with nativity was an old tradition I always went to in Trelawnyd.

Last night the Church looked old  and cold and lonely.

As did Mrs Trellis 

and I wished I would have thanked her more when I finally got around to opening her gift from my place behind the nurses station .

For wrapped in tissue paper inside the green felt was a rather naive but charming Baby Jesus alongside a plump and cheerful Virgin Mary, splendid in blue.”

Ursula

 It’s not been all Trelawnyd Productions this week.

I’ve managed to fit in Chic Eleanor for brunch and another friend for breakfast at Bryn William’s.

Today after a couple of hours sleep another friend and I are off the the Lowery in Manchester to see the camp as Christmas Unfortunate Ursula- The Untold story of Ursula the sea witch

It’s filthy, I’ve been told…what fun

No Egos

 

Powerhouse Gina and The Velvet Voiced Linda

Well,I’ve said it this morning and I will say it again, that Linda sets the tone when it comes to teamwork. She is the voice of optimism and of sanity and of order, and this morning she rang me to express just how happy she was that the show was a success. Linda is an old hand at smoothing the waters when it comes to teams, but in this case , last night she acknowledged that there were no egos in the production, no personal dramas, just “people getting on with the jobs they needed to do.

“ That is down to you, you set the tone” I told her and I meant it.

A lot of people worked together well last night, and it may sound corny, but even the slightly cynical Jason was caught up in the bon Vivre of the night, likening it a film script. Director Kira was beaming 

And the two readings one by Filapina Nina ( a tribute to her love for wife Chelsea ) and the other by Linda ( A Child’s Christmas in Wales) were incredibly moving.

 The hall was packed, its numbers swelled by the acts and the Gwaenysgor Community Choir, who jumped into the show, filling a major gap in the second half. They closed the show with a bang

My job, was taking tickets and manning the main entrance, which proved to be rather busy given the number of vapers, a drunk from outside who wanted a free admittance and a rather assertive woman who had been blocked in the car park by an audience member. I managed to watch most of the acts but as Imogen finished her Anastasia piece, a messenger note flitted over my iPad screen. 

It was from my cousin Mathew ( my mother’s brother’s son) who said that he was in Rotherham Hospice with his mother Dena, my aunt, and that she had just opened the Christmas Card I had sent her.

I am the only one of the my family to keep in touch with her and although I hadn’t seen her for a decade, this news literally took the wind out of my sails, 

So  I sat quietly, for a bit in the quiet , cold foyer  of the Memorial Hall, 

And folded my hands into my lap, 

And thought of my aunt

As the applause grew and the acts sang their best….

My aunt Dena