Auntie Bridget was my mother’s younger sister. She was married to John, a small slight man with (as they say) a heart as big as a house. To look at John, one would think of him as a very “ordinary” simple man who had done nothing much with his life, one who kept his head down, a man of habits. Once, while visiting them I had occasion to go to a drawer looking for something and was amazed to find a whole bunch of war medals! I found out they belonged to Uncle John, when I asked him how he had won them he replied, “I got them for cleaning out the latrines during the bombing” so, modest with it! I never did learn how he had won the medals. This insignificant little man was not all he appeared to be. I later learned from my own father, Uncle John had taken part in most of the major campaigns of world war two!! He adored Auntie Bridget; they just had each other, never having had children of their own. Perhaps that was just as well, she did not have a maternal streak and could not stand crying babies or the washing and feeding involved in a child’s rearing! In her own way, she more than made up for this short coming by lavishing love and practical help on us, her sister’s children. Now, a short, dumpy woman, she always wore a raincoat, beret, flat “sensible shoes” and was never seen without her Rexene shopping bag. She adored my mother and saw nothing wrong in leaving her own flat (and John) every morning, not returning home until around seven in the evening. She would arrive about ten o’clock every morning with her and John’s washing remarking to my mother as she handed it over to her “Our little lot is not going to make much difference to the pile you already do” She would depart our house every evening with her small pile of freshly laundered and ironed bundle of clothes. My flustered mum would ask “What about that poor mans (John’s) dinner and back would come the reply, “Sure haven’t I left everything ready, he can see to himself” John truly did not mind, if she was happy, he was happy. Yet, for all her eccentricities, she was a most generous soul, never arriving empty handed. From her trademark bag would be brought forth all sorts of goodies my own mum could not afford. Great blocks of cheese, a whole Victoria sponge cake, biscuits for us children and even new short white socks for the girls and grey knee length ones for the boys. The journey from her house to ours should have taken fifteen minutes but she never arrived on time! She stopped along the way to gossip to every woman she knew having all the time in the world even if they didn’t!
