Great Uncle George

 

I started this post back in late December when my Great Uncle George passed away but with all the home schooling going on and completely forgetting about keeping my blog up to date it stayed in the ‘drafts’ folder.

My childhood home is one field, as the crow flies, from where Uncle George lived. My childhood is full of memories of this quiet and endearing man. Often on a Saturday he would arrive in our kitchen, stand at the kitchen window looking out over his field of sheep, commenting now and again on what the weather was going to be like which depended on how the sheep were behaving or the smell in the air. He would then join us for a ‘scupful’ of soup at the kitchen table, slicing the butter like cheese and placing it on his wheaten bread. 

As I look back over his life, it is only now as an adult I realise how difficult his life must have been. His wife died of cancer when his third child, a son, was very young, leaving him with three young children to care for. His Son in law and granddaughter were killed in a car accident and his second daughter also died of cancer. 

As attending his wake and funeral due to Covid-19 was forbidden, his extended family and friends stood at the end of their lanes or driveways as his hearse slowly drove past. Then some of us got into our cars and followed the hearse to his local village church where he was buried. It was quite beautiful to see his country friends paying their respects as they stood by their farms or houses. 

As a note of sympathy to his family I did a sketch of his house, a house that was so familiar to me as a child and where Uncle George lived his whole life.