Beth and my cousin Ian's youngest, Harry
It was funny, mostly.
The service was late starting by ten minutes already when a member of the clergy began wandering about gormlessly, asking if anyone had “seen her scarf” – by which she meant a vital component of her regalia. She then realised that nobody had the correct order of service, so appointed a sides-minion to sneak about handing out to randomly-selected members of the congregation (every third pew? Very old women? People in hats?) while the rest of us made it up as we went along. Then a moment of almost unbearable spirituality to “kick things off” – notices about bric-a-brac and jam and fetes.
The bloke might have been worse: his “sermon” consisted of asking questions about mother’s day to anyone under twelve with a hand up, while the rest of us listened open-mouthed with something.
“How many Mother’s days have you had? It must be hundreds and hundreds!” Actually mate, it’s 41.
He joked about the changing of the clocks and warned us that it was going to seem like a long day. Only if I have to spend any more of it listening to you, my friend; it’s technically going to be shorter.
I took advantage of my crotchety youngest and left.
We wandered across the road to the primary school I left 35 years ago, and joyously the back gate was left open. Every inch of playground was parcelled up with memories: the bins where we recreated “Numskull” cartoons; the irregular brickwork that marked the last vestiges of the wall we lads used to piss up (to call it an outside bog would give it delusions of grandeur); the door my brother ran out of when he did a runner after Miss Wolstenholme slippered him. [I’ve asked MS Word to add “slippered” to its 21st century PC dictionary.]
It had all the accoutrements of your modern playground: plastic target “wickets” and a display of the solar system; a springy plastic floor; small picket fences for demarcation between playgrounds young and old, when it our day an uncrossable tar line had been all that was required; surveillance cameras above the door where a handbell had called us back to class. I hope someone was watching; I know my mum was.
They’re allowed to play football. I can tell because I saw one in the gutter, shinned up a pipe and retrieved it. (We weren’t allowed such dangerous pursuits, so we amused ourselves with games of British Bulldog and (memorably) Mods and Rockers.) Franklin and I kicked it about happily for half an hour then left it as a present for the youth on Monday.
After the service we buried half the ashes in the Garden of Remembrance at the rear of the church. Graham read movingly, as did my dad – some words from “Carve her Name with Pride,” one of their first films together, and possibly my wisest ever eBay purchase the week before. The woman spoke well too, and we all forgave her the fact that the box of ashes was floating in six inches of water and that she dropped a glossy leaflet in after it and had to fish around to pull the dripping thing out.
The rest of the ashes went on our roses – apart from a few small camera film canisters for the kids that wanted one. I did.
We ate at Top Brink, Lumbutts, the other side of Todmorden. The grandchildren ran wild on the moor and got covered in sheep shit. It’s what she would have wanted.
Extended daytime blog courtesy of Unison; “Play fair with their pensions”
