Auntie in The View from the Terrace

Today, October 29, is my aunt’s birthday. She was my only aunt as my father was an only child and my mother only had one sibling. She was also my godmother. Auntie lived in Wolverhampton where she and Mum had grown up. She lived in a beautiful ground floor flat in Park Dale. Originally these had been the houses of well to do people; two long rows facing each other with a big green space between where there were tennis courts and a playground for the children. I loved visiting her there. She had a big front living room with a French window leading out to the pretty front garden. By the French window there was a baby grand piano, though Auntie’s main instrument was the violin which she played in a local orchestra.

Auntie loved children but never had any of her own and she doted on me, her only niece. Mum took me to visit her often. We would go together on the train from Shrewsbury. When I was about eleven I stayed with her for a week. I took my best friend, Georgina with me. We slept in the little back bedroom in a three quarter bed as the room wasn’t big enough for a double. I remember a funny incident that happened while we were there. On our first evening we offered to do the washing up. Auntie showed us where everything was and said jokingly, ‘If you break anything just throw it in the bin and don’t tell me and I probably won’t notice.’ We both laughed.

The next day she sent us on an errand to the butcher’s about a half mile away to buy some lamb chops for dinner. We went to the greengrocer’s for vegetables too, piling them all into an old string bag. On our way back we were crossing the main road when, half way across, the handle on the string bag snapped and the chops fell onto the road. We looked up and saw that a lorry was coming, there was no time to retrieve them. We scuttled to the side of the road and watched in horror as the wheels of the lorry went over the chops. When the road was clear we picked them up, put them back into the bag and gave them to Auntie, hoping she wouldn’t notice, as we thought we would be in trouble. It was a forlorn hope, of course.

‘Whatever happened to these chops?’ she asked when she unwrapped them.’
‘I don’t know.’ I lied.
She looked at Georgina and she put her head down, ‘Do you know?’ Gina shook her head.
‘Well,’ said Auntie, knowing full well that we did know, ‘I shall have to ring them up and complain. Fancy taking advantage of two children like this.’
Of course, I then had to tell her the truth.
Auntie reassured us that we had been right to leave the chops as our safely was far more important, but we were wrong to lie to her.
I remembered what she had said the previous night and protested, ‘But Auntie, you said if we broke anything not to tell you and you probably wouldn’t notice.’
She had a good laugh at that and admitted that I did have a point. We had a great time that week. Auntie took us shopping and to the park and the swimming baths; we played tennis on the big green in front of the houses and in the evenings I played the baby grand piano while Auntie accompanied me on the violin.

Auntie died when I was 18, but memories of her are as vivid as ever especially today on her birthday.