In Praise of Aunties and Uncles

These long summer days and my ever lengthening years have put me in a somewhat melancholy and introspective mood. I miss my aunties! I suddenly realized I only have one aunt and uncle left and they are becoming increasingly frail and also lives thousands of miles away in England. Once upon a time I not only had several aunts, uncles too of course, but also Great Aunts and Uncles, the siblings of my grandmother. I miss the weekly visits from them at first my grandmothers house (she raised me), then later mine and turn about when we visited them. There was always tea and scones of course and lots of gossip. As a wee girl, I’d sit quietly on the floor, playing with my toys while they chatted with my gran, gleaning nuggets of family history and sometimes, gasp, a scandal or two! They always brought a supply of cream cakes with them and of course, sweeties for me and when they left, they always gave me some “pocket money” to spend. As I grew up, I was allowed to join in with the adults and later when my daughter arrived, she in turn loved their visits with the candy and cash being for her this time.

From time to time we would all go through to Stirling to visit an old friend of my grandmothers, who was an honorary aunt! Granny, two aunts, my daughter and I would board a train for the 40 minute trip to Stirling where we would be met by a nephew of my “aunt” and whisked off for an afternoon of blethering with a lovely “tea” spread out for us. When I was a girl, I loved to visit there because there was another girl, a relative of theirs who I could team up with and we would go off exploring the countryside. When my daughter’s turn came, she loved the visits too because of the delicious home baked treats laid out for tea and because behind my aunt’s house there was a field of cows and she would go out feed them over the fence.

Aunties and uncles are important members of a family; I only wish I had many more of them and that they were still with us. I’m an aunt myself but alas don’t have the same close contact with my nephews that I enjoyed. I wrote the following story as a writing exercise a while ago but it recalls a happy childhood memory of a different era. I hope you enjoy it.

My Secret Garden

I was raised by my grandmother in Scotland in the early 1950’s and have fond memories of visiting her sister Bell and my great-uncle Frank Bunn at their little home in a village just outside of Edinburgh called Loanhead.

Theirs was an old terraced house with a long, narrow garden which backed onto a railway cutting. Every time we visited in the summer, Uncle Frank would say the magic words “want to go down to the garden Maxine?” This eight year old had no hesitation, and off we would go my young hand tucked in his old gnarled, gardeners’ one.

We would walk slowly down the long gravel path, stopping to admire the neat rows of vegetables; carrots, beets, turnip, lettuce and peas with me listening politely while he extolled the virtues of this variety or that. Then we would come to what we both knew was the real goal of this sedate stroll…..the strawberry patch! Uncle Frank would say with a twinkle in his eye, “well Maxine, and let’s see if there are any ripe berries today”. I needed no second bidding! And of course, there were always berries, large, luscious, sweet strawberries, ripe and warm from the sun. I would just brush off the soft, brown soil and pop them in my mouth, savouring their sweet juices. Uncle Frank and I would just grin at each other as he helped me eat my fill. Then with a satisfied sigh, we would move on to the raspberry canes, my next favourite stop!

When we reached the end of the garden, there was another source of satisfaction and not a little morbid curiosity on my part for I knew that under the beautiful rock garden there, lay the remains of their beloved pet dog “Tippy”, who had died many years ago. Uncle Frank would always stop for a few minutes here and pick out a tiny weed or two that had the temerity to take root.

Just over the rough stone dyke was the railway line. Uncle Frank had a bench here and I would stand on this and peek over the wall while he puffed away on his old pipe. There were steam engines then, great black puffing noisy monsters chugging by, what a thrill for a child! I would wait patiently for one to come by, belching out clouds of black smoke and would wave wildly to the engineers and passengers as they passed, they always waved back. Later, my pockets stuffed with peapods and my face stained with berry juice, we would return contentedly to the house and join my aunt and granny for tea and scones with strawberry jam of course!

The house, the people and the steam trains are long gone now but not my happy memories.