An East End Farewell

by Yvette Venables

  ‘Oh, please don’t cry, Auntie. I just thought that . . . I’m so sorry,’ she trailed off, looking helpless and embarrassed.

  ‘No, I’m sorry, Amelia. I know you only did it with the best of intentions, but Bertie to me was . . . irreplaceable,’ she said, wiping her eyes.

  I stood listening to the conversation going back and forwards. I could understand how she felt, having just buried Bertie. I thought it best not to get involved, though, so I let them sort it out between themselves.

  The puppy was eventually handed back to Amelia, who climbed back into her car and Father Goose, Mrs Joy, her brother and wife climbed back in with me. I then took them home. All the while the conversation was about Amelia and the puppy. It was decided that her brother would take it home and they’d keep it for themselves.

  It was around four months later. I was walking along Rathbone Street when I saw her looking through the butcher’s shop window, and next to her was a young Pekinese. It had a pink collar and lead and looked delightful.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Joy. How lovely to see you again, and who may I ask is this lovely little girl?’ I said, as I bent down to pat her.

  ‘Oh, Stan, how wonderful to see you too. This is Alberta. She’s the puppy Amelia brought to the cemetery the day we buried Bertie. As you know, I couldn’t take her that day, as I felt as if I would be betraying him. I’ve been visiting my brother regularly and he’s been coming around to my house and of course I’ve been spending a lot of time with the puppy. Well, one day he says to me out of the blue, “Eliza, why don’t you just take the puppy home with you. Bertie knows you loved him and he’d never want you to be at home all on your own. It doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten about him or betrayed him. Please take her with you now.” So I did! I thought, he’s right, Bertie wouldn’t want to see me alone and sad. So, here we both are. She is lovely, isn’t she?’ she laughed.

  ‘She certainly is! You’re both very lucky to have each other,’ I said and smiled.

  ‘I said when I first met you, Stan, that you resembled Tom, but now I know not only do you resemble him, you’re as charming too.’

  ‘Well, I’m lost for words! But thank you . . . you’re very kind,’ I answered.

  So I was as ‘charming’ as Uncle Tom. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry! When I got back to the shop, Uncle was sitting at his desk, engrossed in his newspaper.

  ‘Come over here, boy,’ he said, waving his hand at me.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, as I pulled our dictionary off the shelf.

  ‘Just come over here and look at this, will you,’ he said, tapping his finger on a photo.

  I glanced over his shoulder and there, on the front page, was the newly elected Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

  ‘What do you see, boy?’ he said, not taking his eyes off the photo.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. What am I supposed to be looking for?’

  ‘Just look . . . look at his face and tell me what you see.’ He was getting agitated, and I still didn’t have a clue what he was on about.

  ‘I don’t see anything except a picture of a man,’ I said unproductively.

  ‘Exactly! Now that’s the problem, boy, and that’s what most people will see – just a man – but I want you to remember this moment. There’s an old saying that “If you put the Devil on a horse he will ride it to buggery” and that,’ he said, tapping his finger on the photo, ‘is exactly what’s going to happen to this country. You mark my words. Anyway, what d’you need that dictionary for?’ he asked, pulling it out of my hand.

  ‘I just wanted to look up a word,’ I said.

  ‘No. Fancy that, using a dictionary to look up a word; who’d have thought of that. You silly sod, you amaze me sometimes, you really do. What’s the word?’

  ‘Charming,’ I responded.

  ‘Charming? You obviously know what it means; you’re not that daft! Delightful, pleasant, charismatic, fascinating, polite, attractive, to name but a few. Why are you looking that up, for heaven’s sake?’ he said, looking at me in amazement.

  ‘Well, Mrs Joy said before I left her just now that I not only resembled you, but I was as charming as well. I just wanted to double check that charming was what I actually thought it was, and she hadn’t got the wrong word.’ I waited for the barrage; I couldn’t resist it.

  ‘Eliza said you were as charming as me? That woman is one of the nicest, most intelligent women I’ve ever met. Now she optimises the word “charming”.’ He just sat there looking at me, strumming his fingers on the dictionary. ‘You know what, boy, I think you’re right this time . . . she has got it wrong.’

  I looked at him with wide eyes.

  ‘In life we have to face up to some cruel truths and this is one of those times,’ he sighed. ‘It’s an unfortunate fact of life, and we have to accept these things. The fact is, boy, no matter how hard you tried you could never be as charming as me.’ He stood up, walked over to the shelf and replaced the dictionary, giving me a gentle squeeze on the shoulder as he passed.

  What I have witnessed over the years is the way bereavement brings out so many different emotions in people. Each person deals with it in a completely different way: some want to talk about the person all the time and have photos around them, whereas others don’t even want to mention their name. This seems foreign to some but, listen, if that’s the way they deal with it, then let them do it. There are no set rules to bereavement; you deal with it in whatever way you can and, as Uncle Tom would say, if they don’t like it, then ‘sod ’em!’

  Mrs Joy’s Bertie was my one and only animal burial, and I often think what an enlightening experience it was. After conducting Bertie’s funeral, and seeing Mrs Joy’s grief at his loss, I’m mindful now when I meet people who have lost beloved pets who have been constant friends and companions over many years. I now know their grief is as real as any other.

  16

  Uncle Tom

  1972–1977 (age 44–49)

  I was standing outside the office, sneaking a look through the glass panel, watching my wife and Uncle sitting by the desk. She had gone in there to help him with the books. I couldn’t make out what they were saying but he was chain-smoking his Woodbines. This was never a good sign, as it always meant he was getting worked up.

  The day before, he’d been in the office going over the books, cursing under his breath, when Joan had gone in to see if he was OK.

  ‘Can I help you, Tom?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he answered brusquely. ‘You wouldn’t understand. Just leave me alone!’

  She walked away, looking over at me and rolling her eyes whilst I polished a coffin in the window.

  I’d been going home to her virtually every night for the previous couple of months, getting increasing stressed by Tom’s behaviour. He’d become volatile, not physically but verbally. He’d always been impatient, as you well know, but over the past year or so I’d only have to put a tin of polish down in the wrong place and he’d have a go. It had been getting me down. I was at the end of my tether.

  I also discovered that while I was out of the office visiting clients, ‘walk-ins’ or phone calls were either not being written down or written incorrectly, so I couldn’t call them back. If I questioned him about it he would go berserk. I just didn’t know what to do. The business was starting to suffer, as people who had called in were not being got back to, and the tension building up between us was becoming intolerable.

  After discussing it with Joan, she offered to come and give me a hand while the children were at school. She would keep an eye on Tom when I was out and try to answer the phone before he did. It seemed like a good plan, but I would have to get him to accept Joan into the office.

  Amazingly he was OK about it. Maybe he was secretly relieved that someone else was going to be there to give him a hand, but he would never have admitted it or asked for help.

  The following day, after he’d told her she ‘wouldn’t understand’, he headed back into the office
to confront the books once again, but he was obviously still having trouble. Joan knocked on the door and, on the pretence of taking him a cup of tea, offered to help him once more.

  ‘I told you, you wouldn’t understand!’

  ‘Well, why don’t you explain to me what to do and I’ll give it a try. Two heads are better than one, Tom; once this is sorted you can get on with something else.’

  ‘Alright, alright, we’ll give it a go,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Pull a chair up and I’ll try to explain.’

  They’d been in there around an hour when he slammed the accounts book shut, shouting, ‘Oh, you’re so sodding clever, aren’t you! Well, you’d better take them home and do them yourself from now on.’ He then pushed the chair away and stood up.

  I turned and walked quickly back to my polishing. I didn’t want him to know I’d been watching them, as he would kick off again. The office door was flung open and he stormed out, holding his overcoat and hat.

  ‘I’m off!’ he said, as he slammed the door.

  ‘What on earth are we going to do?’ Joan said.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ I answered.

  Would you believe that we carried on like that for nearly five years? It was tough, as during that period he tragically got worse and worse, and gradually stopped coming into the shop altogether. We now know he was suffering from Alzheimer’s, but in those days it had never been heard of. We called it senility or senile dementia.

  It was during this time that my sons Graham and John started to work with Joan and me. After leaving college they both decided that they wanted to join the business. I’d been slightly apprehensive about it, as you hear a lot about families having problems when they work together, but with Joan there to sort us all out it worked.

  It was the early hours of the morning when the phone rang. I ran downstairs to answer it, thinking for the hundredth time that we must get an extension by the bed.

  ‘Stan, it’s Bert. Sorry to call you at this hour,’ my uncle said apologetically.

  ‘That’s OK, what’s happened?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘Tom’s gone missing,’ Bert said, his voice shaky.

  ‘Missing! What d’you mean, missing, what’s happened?’ I was still half-asleep and it wasn’t registering.

  ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘I heard a noise and thought it may have been a burglar, so I grabbed my walking stick and headed downstairs. Frightened the life out of me when I found the front door open, so I had a look around but there wasn’t any sign of an intruder and nothing had been taken, so I locked the door. It really shook me up. As I was going back to bed I thought I’d check on Tom, and when I looked in his room I saw he was gone. His clothes were still hanging behind the door, so he must still have his pyjamas on.’ His voice had started to tremble.

  I did feel for him. Poor Uncle Bert. As well as looking after Tom, who was now clearly in the grips of dementia, his wife of forty years, Lottie, was also suffering with it too, so he certainly had his hands full.

  ‘I’ll be right over,’ I said. ‘Have you called the police?’

  ‘No, do you think I should?’

  ‘Absolutely. Call them now and tell them what’s happened, and I’ll see you in twenty minutes or so. Don’t worry, we’ll find him; he couldn’t have gone far.’

  I quickly got dressed and headed over to their house in Leyton. The police were now out looking for him too. Uncle Bert decided he wouldn’t come with me, as he was worried about leaving Lottie alone.

  I drove around and around. I couldn’t think where he would’ve gone. About half an hour later I saw a police car parked up at the roadside. I pulled in behind it.

  The policeman was standing outside the car taking down some notes. I wound down the window and called out, ‘Excuse me, I’m looking for my uncle. He’s gone missing. He was only in his pyjamas. You haven’t found him, have you?’

  ‘I think we have,’ the policeman answered, looking up from his notes. ‘He’s in the back.’

  I got out and went up to the police car. I looked in the back and saw him sitting there, holding a cloth up to his head – it was covered in blood.

  ‘What on earth’s happened?’ I said, turning to the policeman.

  ‘We found him lying on the pavement. He’d fallen over and banged his head. We were just about to take him along to the hospital.’

  ‘Has he said anything?’ I asked.

  ‘When we picked him up and sat him in the car he said he was looking for his horses, but there aren’t horses round here,’ he explained.

  ‘No, I know,’ I said. ‘He’s very confused. I’ll have a word with him.’

  I knelt down by the car door. He looked such a sorry sight.

  ‘What you been up to?’ I asked softly, placing my hand on his knee.

  He turned his head and looked at me with such sorrow. ‘I can’t find the horses, boy, they’re on their own, they’ll need feeding and watering. I’ve got to find them, where are they?’ He moved his legs, as if he was going to get out.

  ‘Don’t move, Uncle, just stay there, the horses are alright. I’ve just been to see them. They’re fine, all fed and watered and looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.’

  His eyes lit up. ‘Really? They’re really alright? I’ve been so worried about them.’

  ‘I promise you they’re fine. Let’s just get you home, you can get some rest and you can see them tomorrow.’

  ‘OK, boy,’ he said, smiling.

  I was overcome by sadness. I’d come to accept over these last few years that I’d been losing him, but at that moment I knew he was gone forever.

  I turned back to the officer. ‘I’ll take him home.’ And with that we moved him into my car. He never said a word on the way back.

  Bert made him a sweet cup of tea and I cleaned him up and then we put him to bed.

  ‘What are we going to do, Stan?’ Bert asked anxiously when we were back in the living room. I knew he couldn’t carry on like this for much longer.

  ‘Don’t worry, Uncle Bert, I’ll sort something out,’ I said. I then left him and went home to tell Joan what had happened.

  Over the next few weeks it was decided between all of us that it would be better for everybody if Uncle was put into a home. He was becoming a danger to himself, as well as putting an enormous strain on Bert.

  Joan, having been backwards and forwards to the doctors and Social Services, had secured him a place in Claybury Hospital in Ilford. This was classified as a mental hospital.

  ‘I don’t want him to go in there. I can’t do it!’ I said angrily when she told me.

  ‘Where else can he go, Stan? I’ve been sorting it out for weeks and there isn’t anywhere else. I don’t want him to go in there either but we’ve no option!’

  I knew deep down she was right.

  Nowadays there are all sorts of different homes where Alzheimer’s sufferers can be admitted, but in our day they stayed at home or went into a mental hospital. We had no choice; we couldn’t have him live with us. Now Joan worked in the business there was nobody at home to care for him and it wouldn’t have been fair on her or the children – even though they were now grown up, they still lived with us at that time. So the decision was made – he would be admitted into Claybury.

  Uncle Bert had packed his things. He didn’t have much by then, just a small suitcase.

  ‘Where we going, boy?’ he asked, holding onto my arm as I led him to the car.

  ‘Just for a drive, Uncle,’ I said.

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ he said, turning to me and smiling.

  I drove around for a while, trying to prolong the inevitable. I wanted to talk to him but he just became confused, and when he was confused he became agitated.

  We eventually pulled up at the hospital and I walked him in. It was only a short distance but strangely felt so far. I suddenly felt like a drowning man, my life flashing in front of my eyes. I had feelings of overwhelming betrayal, similar to the feelings I’d had when we took the horses to t
he Elephant and Castle.

  How I wanted to save him! I would’ve done anything absolutely anything to stop him from going in there, but there was nothing on this earth I could do about it.

  The nurse came out the front and welcomed us in. I got him settled into his room and then the time came when I had to leave him. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow, Uncle,’ I said. I was distraught.

  ‘See you then, boy,’ he smiled, giving me a little wave.

  My heart was breaking. How I walked away I don’t know.

  I went in to see him every day for the first few months, as I was so worried about him. He gradually settled into a routine and thankfully seemed very content. A nurse had befriended him and in his free time would sit and chat to him about the old days and the horses. Not our horses, but the original set my grandfather had kept, where Uncle had started out at twelve years old, like me, on the horses’ hooves.

  I was as happy as I could be. As long as he was content, then that was good enough for me. Ironically, soon after he was admitted, I was in the shop one afternoon when the door opened and a distinguished councillor who was well known in the area walked in.

  ‘Hello, young Cribb,’ he said.

  Even though I was nearly fifty some people still called me ‘young Cribb’.

  ‘Hello, sir,’ I answered. I walked over to him and offered my hand. He took it, shaking it vigorously.

  ‘Everything to your satisfaction here?’ he said, as he walked around inspecting everything. ‘I must admit, it all looks lovely. They did a good job, didn’t they? You must be so pleased with it. I’m surprised the old one didn’t fall in on you!’ he said, looking at me laughing.

  Oh God, here it comes . . . all these years . . . Tom said this would happen. Thank goodness he’s not here to see it. I couldn’t even imagine what he would’ve done or said to this man if he’d seen him. I was wracking my brains thinking how much cash I had in the safe.

  ‘We’re thrilled with it, sir; they’ve done a fantastic job.’

  There was a pause while he kept looking around.

  ‘Is there something I can help you with?’ I said.