5 July 2006

Dear Dennis,
One of my uncles died the other day and following a week of directional @mails we went to say a sad, very fond and quite lovely farewell last Friday at the crematorium some 300 miles away. It was a “good day for a buryin’” as they say in all the best westerns. The sun was shining bright over the Cornish moors and quite a crowd turned out to see him off and at the small, local pub after. He was indeed “one of the good ones” from this world, I have many splendid memories of him – he owned and ran a couple of pubs during my late teens and early twenties (always a good move if you want to be favourite uncle) and took one of my sisters and me to motorbike scrambling meets around the south a few times. He used to race stock cars in younger days and regaled me with stories of how during race weekends his girlfriend of the time used to cook up breakfasts on a camping stove in the tent behind the paddock of the various race tracks for some of the (now/used to be famous) drivers and how, after a particularly hard crash one weekend he was so bruised on his back and legs that he couldn’t walk and could only crawl around the house for a week or so afterward. How he used to over-bore and tune his engines so much that normal head gaskets wouldn’t fit and in order to get some material between the cylinders in the block for the head to bolt down onto, he used to lay lengths of cotton between them on the block before tightening down the head to act as a gasket. I went to a Halloween fancy dress at one of his pubs once and he judged me 1st and I won a bottle of wine – he was great. I never ever heard him say a bad word about anyone. His neighbours say that in recent years, every weekend was like a party at his cottage and he made a legendary “three week casserole”. Whiskey soaked Sundays every other weekend watching the Grand Prix with mates, seven cats, three dogs and three tortoises (they played the Fleetwood Mac track as the curtain closed). A plumber by trade in recent years and one of those people who you wouldn’t think amount to much maybe in themselves but whomever they touch, their lives were made so much better. He lived his life and had a great time doing it. He was happy and everyone he met was happy. The world has without doubt, lost a good one.

I shall endeavour to return for the scattering of the ashes and hopefully it won’t turn into a dust storm like the day we scattered my mum – see 28/7/2005 but if it does it’ll make the buffet afterwards more fun and I’ll have a laugh.

I met family I’d not seen for years – how they’ve changed! I was told how proud I must be of my brother as he is so rich and entertaining. And caught up with family gossip. One of my cousins “Strawberry” used to be known by some normal name – her father used to be a naval commander and very staid (probably an admiral or something by now) – she rebelled in a most spectacular fashion, changed her name to Strawberry Blue and married a damn yank!

D.