The Six Floral Chance Sisters

Having had the bad news yesterday that my last aunt had died and it did cause me to have a bad night sleep. The aunt in question was my aunt Bet who was the youngest of my mothers five sisters. My mum was always telling me about her life and that of her family. My grandmother loved flowers; who doesn’t? She named each of her daughters after one of her favourite blooms, sometimes as a first name sometimes as a middle name. The eldest daughter was called Lily, then came my mother who was Winifred Rose but most people called her Rose and to all her nieces and nephews she was Aunt Rose. 

Then came my Auntie Violet and Uncle Reg, who was away a lot in the merchant navy and with whom I had many holidays as a child, this was a reciprocal arrangement and sometimes my three older cousins from Southampton would be delivered by Aunt Vi who would visit overnight, catch up on all the gossip because we did not have a phone; nor did anybody I knew. Then she would go home and Pat, Audrey and young Bobby, who was my age would stay for a week or so before being put on the train at Worthing Central Station to go home. I had been threatened enough and drilled on my travel instructions enough that even though I was younger, I was trusted to go on the train and then the bus to Swaythling, Southampton on my own.  There were no spare rooms and we kids all slept together, and when they came to stay with us that was a bit of a squeeze with four of us in my single bed, two at the top end and two at the bottom end of the bed.

I saw most of my other cousins more often because two more Aunts lived in Worthing also and in easy walking distance, though kids today would expect to be driven that distance. My mum’s three younger sisters had the same mother but a different father. My mother’s father, was a granddad I never knew since he was killed in Palestine in the army with a photo of his three lovely girls in his pocket when were still at junior school.

My Aunt Nan had the full name of Nellie May, still with the flowers and she was married to Uncle Jim, they had three kids, the eldest was Maureen who was around my big brother Peters age, John who was a few months younger than me and got me into all kinds of trouble. The younger child Christine was too little to play with us. John and I were at school together as well. My older brother was a proper clever clogs as was Johns sister Maureen both of whom went to Worthing High School. John and I got more got thrashings at school than some people have hot dinners as they say.

The aunt I have not mentioned was Aunt Glad, Gladys Ivy, who lived near Portsmouth, and Uncle George who brought the family down (one child Barry) with his motorbike and sidecar that I was not allowed to even touch when it was outside our house.

The recently departed Auntie Bet, Betty Pansy…. Yes, she had some teasing over that. Was not much older than my brother and after our grandmother died from Cancer she was left looking after her father quite young. She married Uncle Bob quite young and had three children. It was the eldest of those, my cousin Carol who rang me from Scotland to tell me the sad news. Bet had been in nursing home in Littlehampton suffering from Alzheimer’s for some time which is so sad, although as I told Carol this morning, once when I went to see her she greeted me by name and told the staff member who had shown me in that I was her sister Rose's girl Daphne.

During my mother in laws long demise I went to visit Bet less and that of course I deeply regret now. I did enjoy chattering to Carol on the phone when I replied to her message this morning. She is married to the head gardener on a massive estate in rural Scotland and she loves that life. She could not get down here in the South too often, however she has two brothers who have been the main visitors at the nursing home.

The funeral will not be until March 28^th at Worthing Crematorium, where I hope there will be donations to an Alzheimers charity rather than flowers. That is what I will do anyway. It will be a chance to talk to cousins that I have not seen in quite a few years.

The news hangs upon me heavily because I suppose Betty was the last of my mum’s sisters, she who was always very kind to my mum and dad who lived near to her. The youngest is often the most put upon in a large family and I should have found more time for her.

When I was young she worked in the cash desk of the Odeon Cinema in Worthing and I have a picture of her there so clearly and now I will have to think of her charging for entry into the great movie house in heaven.