THE PHONE RANG SHORTLY BEFORE five o’clock in the evening. It was 1979 and the thirtieth day of July had been an occasion to celebrate. It was my fourteenth birthday, and almost two years since I had enjoyed my eventful fortnight in Cottingham; mum and I had just returned from a shopping trip which had secured me a pair of much-needed football boots. We were in a jovial mood. A feast for two beckoned, which included a Knickerbockerglory. Alas, the telephone call quickly put paid to our good humour and all thoughts of food. I heard mum’s voice falter just seconds after she lifted up the receiver. The subsequent silence, and sniffles that became heart-wrenching sobs, told me something serious had occurred.
“How did it happen?” I heard her say to the caller. “What time was it? Was she alone?”
The conversation lasted a little over ten minutes, yet it felt like a lifetime had passed by the time the receiver was replaced in its cradle on the wall. After mum had composed herself, she told me that my Auntie Kathleen had died peacefully at Castle Hill Hospital, which is located on the outskirts of Cottingham. As we were paying for my boots a couple of hours earlier, she had taken her last breath. Thankfully, she wasn’t alone. Uncle Jim had held her hand throughout, and her son, John, was also present.
Mum had been aware of Auntie Kathleen’s deteriorating health for a while. But she hadn’t said anything to me because she didn’t want me to worry and be upset. It seems her health had been a problem for a considerable period, yet she never let it get in the way of her enjoying life. In the end, her heart simply gave up and she passed away peacefully, in the company of the two men she loved the most. For me, it was the first time I had really experienced the trauma of death. My grandma died when I was five years old. My family shielded me from the pain and grief, and I emerged relatively unscathed. Then, some sixteen months after my 1977 vacation in Cottingham, Uncle Fred suddenly died. Nobody knows precisely what happened. His body was found at the side of the road one January morning. He had been cycling to RAF Leconfield when he collapsed. A ruptured spleen, no less, was the official cause of death. His passing was a sad occasion, but it wasn’t an event that devastated the family. The death of Auntie Kathleen, just six months later, was a wholly different story. Losing her had a profound effect on us all, and although we didn’t know it at the time, nothing would ever be quite the same again. Uncle Jim was devastated by the loss of the woman he adored. After Auntie Kathleen’s funeral, he quickly became a recluse, and mum and I rarely saw him. Number thirteen was suddenly off limits, and then one day he just upped and moved away. On the rare occasions we did spend time in his company, he was not the man I knew and loved. Grief had taken a firm hold on him and, less than four years after her death, he followed Kathleen to the grave. Officially, he died from liver failure. But the family knew a different truth: his heart had been broken.
Auntie Jessie was devastated by the loss of her sister. They had a special bond that only the closest of sisters know and treasure (my wife is blessed to enjoy such a relationship with her sister). But she soldiered on, adjusted to a new life without her younger sister, and managed to live healthily and happily well into her mid-eighties. Thankfully, Kathleen’s loss was cushioned by the devotion of Auntie Maureen, my mum’s youngest sister, who put a protective arm around the last surviving Foster girl. But life was never the same without Kathleen in it, and she passed away in the summer of 1992 while sitting in a rocking chair at my Auntie Maureen’s home. Her death signalled the end of an era.
Such grievous losses are hard to come to terms with. But gradually you do, as time’s healing powers work their wonders. And so it has been for us. The family has regrouped and, as one year merges into another, we have found peace, increasingly remembering and celebrating the contributions of these people. Like so many, my aunts and uncles didn’t have much in terms of material possessions. But what they did have was much more important. They were proud, working class souls who tried to get the best out of life every day. They were ‘pint half full’ types and their enthusiasm and zest for life were infectious.
Never was their kindness and selflessness more evident than when the family came together.
My holiday in East Yorkshire left an indelible imprint on my life, and even after so many years have elapsed, it is a happy period I often think about. Several decades after they happened, the events of 1977 continue to make me smile and, on occasion, make me weep. But more than anything, they leave me with a lasting sense of gratitude. To have had these people in my life means everything, and even though the passing of time has dimmed their faces and hushed their voices, it is only right they continue to live on.
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