Postby The Fish » 12 Jul 2021, 17:48
An interesting and emotional weekend.
I had a hospital appointmet Saturday which took me back to Shoreham-By+Sea, the town of my birth. Appointment was routine eye check up following iniital referral from optician. Last time everything was fine apart from field of vision test (the one where you click when you see the flashing light) whch was fine apart from the ones at the top which I missed due to droopy eyelids so they wanted to repeat with eyelids taped up and this time round all was fine.
That's not the story though.
I have one cousin on my Dad's side who.is 7 or 8 years older than me. I assumed he was living in the same house in Shoreham which my grandparents lived in all their married life, and then my uncle (Dads brother) and aunt. We'd lost touch and I'd only seen him once in last 40 years pr so at my uncle#s funeral some 10-15 years ago. So as I was "in town" decided it was time to catch up, albeit with some trepidation, given that I didn't even know if he was alive still ,so half expected a stranger to open the door.
So, once we got talking, it seems that there must be somethng in genetics, we are so alike (both an only child for one thing). INitially scanned the bookshelves and found loads of things I own, Gore Vidal essays, just about everything by James Ellroy etc then on to music and it seems he's a massive fan of Steely Dan and Boz Scaggs, and I mean really big Boz fan. I thought it was just me Yves and Frank.
Anyway the emotinal bit, was when I noticed some pictures on the wall including one of his parents on their wedding day which I had seen before, so asked if he had any more old famiy photos. Seems he'd scanned loads and uploaded to cloud storage, so handed me the laptop to flip through and two photos in particular just knocked me for six.
First off a picture of my cousin riding a tricycle. THe thing is when he outgrew it it came to me. My dad probably couldn't afford a new bike so he was going to givre me the next best thing and spent hours and hours clearing all muck and grease, polishing chrome, rubbing down and repainting a new colour (fire engine red) which was all no doubt going to be worth it when he saw my little face light up on my birthday. And what did I say - Yes it's Roy's old bike. I saw it hanging up in the shed. All these years later that unintentional hurt still virtually brings me to tears.
Swcond photo, was I think from uncle and aunt's wedding day again and there's my dad, in a photo I've never seen and definitely the youngest picture of him (probably 19, 20 at most) He's in service uniform. I knew he was an aircraft mecahnic in Fleet AIr Arm, so never really envisaged what uniform he wore. That is a branch of the Navy of course and there he is in full sailor suit.
If all TLDR then no sweat, but things I felt the need to share. I guess Minnie more than others will understand folllowing her recent posts of family reconnections.
We're way past rhubarb