Uncle Godfrey RIP

Uncle Godfrey was a timeless part of my childhood Christmases. After the set daytime ritual of visits to various relatives around the village (pressies, sherry, family banter), at around five o’clock we’d walk from The Green (first from School Lane, then from Church Farm, then from Mulberry Cottage) up Frog Lane to Aunty Iris and Uncle Jack’s handsome farmhouse. In the early days, there would be, in addition to Aunty Iris and Uncle Jack, my paternal grandparents Phillip and Olive, and Iris’ mother Mrs Maund, a perfect Grandmother figure with little round glasses and a warm smile. Iris’ children Andrew and Jackie would be in the main living room by a roasting fire. There would be the inevitable James Bond flick on a large tv in the corner.

After festive banter lubricated with sherry or beer, we would eat jacket potatoes and salad and sausages and pork pie, polished off with a trifle. After dinner, we’d move down the hallway to the back living room (past the separating door with the atmospheric stain glass window and the old servant bells), where another fire would be glowing the room with warmth. The back living room was a more formal space, dominated by a huge and elaborate bar cum dresser, all rococo carvings and dark wood and a huge solemn mirror. Uncle Jack would sit nearest the fire, stoking and turning and feeding the flames with the occasional new log, comfortable in his agricultural girth. Granddad, Godfrey and Jack would reminisce about people from the village, and quickly modulate into a rural village brogue probably unique to Wheaton Aston. After a while, Uncle Godfrey would bring out his slide projector, the lights would be turned out and we would sit and listen to his slide show. We were treated to photos from his latest travels (most of the time in New Zealand) – flower gardens in Napier, road trips to distant beaches, rugged coastline shots. I recall one embarrassing moment: a shot of a woman draped over Godrey’s car. He fumbled to click the projector around one more slot. There was always a small sense of loss when the show was over.

After the slides, the cards would come out and we would sit around the table. This was when Uncle Godfrey came into his own. He would lead us through Manchester Rummy using two packs of cards; an absorbingly enjoyable game which went through an elaborate sequence of stages – round one would be the first to get a run of 3 and four of the same (eg, 3,4,5 of Hearts as well as four aces). This game would last at least a couple of hours. And then, when the grandfather clock struck midnight, Uncle Godfrey would say what he always said, ‘Now we are the furthest its possible to be from Christmas Day.’

As the years passed, Mrs Maund passed away, as did Uncle Jack, as did my Grandparents. As I hit my twenties and came back home for Christmas, it would be my sister Victoria, Mom and Dad, Iris, Andrew, Jackie (plus boyfriend Andy) and Uncle Godfrey. We would follow the same sequence of events: first the front living room with 007, then food, then move to cards in the back living room. And we would play Manchester Rummy. And Uncle Godfrey would remind us that we are yet again a full 355 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes away from Christmas Day.

Outside of all those Christmases, we saw Uncle Godfrey occasionally: a Sunday dinner at Church Farm, a wedding or a funeral. I would also see him riding his bike from place to place in the village. He was a man at one with nature: he could tell how old a hedge was by looking at it (something to do with the number of plants intertwined within a space of yards). It’s impossible to have an image of him other than that of a calm and gentle face. When I became self-conscious in my adolescence and fussed about my hair, he gave me a great tip: don’t use brylcream, use rape seed oil. I tried using the oil for a while – it made my hair look jet black and shiny, but it was difficult to avoid it staining one’s clothes (or the pillow). Yet Uncle Godfrey carried it off with great effect: with his trademark slick and wavy hair.

He must have carried many memories of times beyond imagination. Uncle Godfrey had been touched by the lighthouse sweep of history: he’d lain injured in a ditch for three days in Normandy towards the end of the war. Fortunately, the Germans didn’t find him. He went back several times with other veterans to revisit the fields were tragedies’ blood had irrigated the fields with sorrow.

Above all, he was a sweet and gentle man. A man of the fields and of the place that bore him, my village of Wheaton Aston. The evening before he died, he was doing the crossword, his mind still curious and active, at the age of 87. He went gently into the night. Rest in peace Uncle Godfrey: 1919-2006.