Memories of my big brother Terry
You, the tallest guy I knew, up a ladder, often
Marina
High Noon and the song, ‘Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’
You and Dad, at the new house, mixing concrete on a board in the back garden and laying it, shored up by planks at intervals while it dried, to bury the maggot farm that the last people left there, because it was freaking Mom out
You knocking down the outside loo and coal house and building a bathroom on the back of the house to replace the tin bath arrangement
Walking to the Post Office to send you postal orders
Painting and decorating
The 20 questions game
Secretly bursting an insect bite blister on my leg with a concealed needle
Bonfire Night, crackling fire on concrete, freezing cold weather, broomsticks to stoke the fire, roast potatoes, oxtail soup and you lighting fireworks including jumping jacks which made us all scream and run
Trooping the Colour
Walking to the Post Office to send postal orders
Having an illusion shattered: the day you told me you’d seen her up close and Marilyn Monroe had poor skin, lol
Insider knowledge: at Buckingham Palace, the Queen Mother was a stickler for detail and reported anyone she saw on the parade ground out of step, out of line, or just out; not at all the sweetie she became later!
LPs of Buddy Holly music, and The Allisons’ album, ‘Are you sure?’– Britain’s answer to the Everly Brothers, only better
Scary films
Coming home late with fish and chips and sharing the chips out on pieces of newspaper, no chips have ever tasted so wonderful
Guinness
Running errands to fetch 5 o’clock razor blades from the paper shop up the road on Friday evenings
Enid Goodwin’s Dance School fight night
The nail varnish and other assorted cosmetics
The kitchen window shattered by a blue pop-up book about a dog called Bimbo
Playing cards
Kitchen tears
Press work, summer ’68; you on the power press, me on the hand press, ‘Workers’ Playtime’ on the radio at 3 o’clock every afternoon, good times
Your collection of Superman/Wonder Woman/ the Fantastic Four and Twilight Zone/Tales of the Unexpected comics, most of which I sneaked out one by one, read and returned, becoming a Comic Con geekette about 50 years early
Ditto reading your collection of Parade
The brown leather purse
Our Jack Russell, Whiskey
You and Mom on New Year’s Eves
Standing in the middle of Salford Bridge, turning over the engine of your Austin A30 van with one of those cranking handles, while you tried to get it started one cold morning in the rush hour traffic
The knitter and the sweater
Zooming through unlit country lanes in your Ford Zephyr at midnight one summer on the way to join everyone on holiday in Mablethorpe; so thrilling, the best rollercoaster ever; ending up in someone’s farmyard when one of the lanes ran out
The skinny pencil skirt
Birmingham Register Office, summer 1974
Weekly letters exchanged when you lived in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, after the mining accident
Your garden at Browns Farm, Stragglethorpe on an August afternoon, overflowing with so many good things to eat, I never ate so much salad at one meal
The beautiful flowers for my birthdays and at Christmas
Funny stories and cheerfulness
Acceptance
Courage
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