They don't make 'em like that any more
Apr. 13th, 2026 09:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseI had a great-uncle. Well, I possibly had more than one; but Uncle, as we always called him, was the only one I knew about, and he had enough character for several great-uncles. To be fair, not all of it was the sort of character you'd want to celebrate; I'm afraid he was a terrible old racist (to the point where, when my sister had a black boyfriend for a while, we were all instructed not to tell him), and he'd probably have voted for Brexit if he'd been around at the time. But still, there was a good deal about him that's worth recalling with affection.
There was never a time in my life when Uncle wasn't old. He was born in 1900 and I was born in 1964; my parents had a photo of him as a very small child, just about old enough to walk, and he was wearing a dress, because that was what you did in those days. It made sense. There were no disposable nappies and the range of available fastenings was limited, so children of all genders were just put in dresses till they no longer needed to wear terry nappies. Those were bulky, so the dress would also hide that effectively. By the time I got to know him, he was a somewhat tubby but nonetheless energetic old buffer with a great fondness for sherry, which he never overdid... except in trifle. Uncle's trifles were notorious. I think he tipped in most of the bottle. He was equally fond of butter, as a result of which his sandwiches were quite a struggle for the rest of us; I'm pretty sure he used a cheese plane. That butter wasn't spread; it was sliced.
Uncle was an upholsterer by trade, and a very good one, so he worked at a number of the large country houses, including Chatsworth. He made a fair bit of money doing that. Of course, by the time I came along, he was retired. At that time he lived in what was supposed to be a temporary prefab just outside Harrogate, which had been up since WWII and is very probably still in good condition; it had a lovely garden, which he enjoyed maintaining although it was quite large (he even had his own croquet lawn, though I don't think he played very often). He was single for most of his life, but he married for the first time in his early eighties. Yes, you read that right. You see, he proposed to this lady when he was much younger, but she turned him down, and eventually she married someone else (who was possibly already a friend of his). Uncle just continued being friends with both of them, until in the fullness of time the lady's husband died, and after a decent period Uncle proposed again. This time she said yes. While there were many things about which I didn't agree with Uncle, I'm right alongside that one; it is far better to be single than settle for the wrong person. I think they had about four or five years together before she died.
After her death he decided he was perhaps getting on a bit now, and it would make sense for him to live close to my parents. So he bought a house which was almost opposite to them. He was due to go and see them at Christmas that year, but by then, although he'd closed the sale, he had not yet been able to move in. Uncle could be an astonishingly stubborn old cuss when the fit took him, and he decided that, no matter what, he was going to sleep in his own house. So - at the age of not too far off ninety - he strapped his bed to the roof of his car and drove across the Pennines with it; and he did indeed sleep in his own house. History does not relate what my parents thought about this, but I'm quite sure that if they'd known he was planning to do that, they'd have got him a camp bed or something.
Uncle lived in that house till he was 99, at which point, very reluctantly, he was forced to admit that he really ought to be in a care home. The problem was his short-term memory; while he had all the rest of his marbles, that had failed him badly, and he'd had several near-misses through things like forgetting he'd left the gas on. So, a few months shy of his hundredth birthday, he moved into a home, and a little later my parents asked him how he was enjoying it.
"Oh, I don't like it at all, dear," he grumbled. "Everyone is so old!"
He was, needless to say, the oldest resident in the home. By quite some margin.
He reached 100. In fact he wasn't too far off reaching 101, but he died just before Christmas at the end of the previous year. He had specified that he wanted to be buried in Harrogate, but the funeral had to be postponed due to the fact that it was impossible to get the hearse across the Pennines due to heavy snow. That was something of an irony. Uncle always hated snow.
And, almost immediately after he died, my eldest niece was born, and the family saga rolled on.
There was never a time in my life when Uncle wasn't old. He was born in 1900 and I was born in 1964; my parents had a photo of him as a very small child, just about old enough to walk, and he was wearing a dress, because that was what you did in those days. It made sense. There were no disposable nappies and the range of available fastenings was limited, so children of all genders were just put in dresses till they no longer needed to wear terry nappies. Those were bulky, so the dress would also hide that effectively. By the time I got to know him, he was a somewhat tubby but nonetheless energetic old buffer with a great fondness for sherry, which he never overdid... except in trifle. Uncle's trifles were notorious. I think he tipped in most of the bottle. He was equally fond of butter, as a result of which his sandwiches were quite a struggle for the rest of us; I'm pretty sure he used a cheese plane. That butter wasn't spread; it was sliced.
Uncle was an upholsterer by trade, and a very good one, so he worked at a number of the large country houses, including Chatsworth. He made a fair bit of money doing that. Of course, by the time I came along, he was retired. At that time he lived in what was supposed to be a temporary prefab just outside Harrogate, which had been up since WWII and is very probably still in good condition; it had a lovely garden, which he enjoyed maintaining although it was quite large (he even had his own croquet lawn, though I don't think he played very often). He was single for most of his life, but he married for the first time in his early eighties. Yes, you read that right. You see, he proposed to this lady when he was much younger, but she turned him down, and eventually she married someone else (who was possibly already a friend of his). Uncle just continued being friends with both of them, until in the fullness of time the lady's husband died, and after a decent period Uncle proposed again. This time she said yes. While there were many things about which I didn't agree with Uncle, I'm right alongside that one; it is far better to be single than settle for the wrong person. I think they had about four or five years together before she died.
After her death he decided he was perhaps getting on a bit now, and it would make sense for him to live close to my parents. So he bought a house which was almost opposite to them. He was due to go and see them at Christmas that year, but by then, although he'd closed the sale, he had not yet been able to move in. Uncle could be an astonishingly stubborn old cuss when the fit took him, and he decided that, no matter what, he was going to sleep in his own house. So - at the age of not too far off ninety - he strapped his bed to the roof of his car and drove across the Pennines with it; and he did indeed sleep in his own house. History does not relate what my parents thought about this, but I'm quite sure that if they'd known he was planning to do that, they'd have got him a camp bed or something.
Uncle lived in that house till he was 99, at which point, very reluctantly, he was forced to admit that he really ought to be in a care home. The problem was his short-term memory; while he had all the rest of his marbles, that had failed him badly, and he'd had several near-misses through things like forgetting he'd left the gas on. So, a few months shy of his hundredth birthday, he moved into a home, and a little later my parents asked him how he was enjoying it.
"Oh, I don't like it at all, dear," he grumbled. "Everyone is so old!"
He was, needless to say, the oldest resident in the home. By quite some margin.
He reached 100. In fact he wasn't too far off reaching 101, but he died just before Christmas at the end of the previous year. He had specified that he wanted to be buried in Harrogate, but the funeral had to be postponed due to the fact that it was impossible to get the hearse across the Pennines due to heavy snow. That was something of an irony. Uncle always hated snow.
And, almost immediately after he died, my eldest niece was born, and the family saga rolled on.
