It's feels like it has been one thing after another, this year.
Life just seems crazily unfair sometimes.
It's only been a few weeks since my last conversation with Maureen over the phone.
Recently Maureen had been living in Knowle, the small village on the outskirts of Solihull, in the West Midlands, where I started my first design/publishing job, all those years ago in March 2001. Early on in my four years living and working in the West Midlands, Maureen moved down south to Redditch, a new town to the south of Birmingham, through work, keen for a new start with different surroundings.
Before long, and once she was settled, Maureen and myself were meeting up for Sunday dinners, hooking up for the occasional drink and catch up, shopping trip or just a day out. Obviously, I wasn’t so keen on the shopping, but somehow I felt Maureen appreciated the trips in the car. Maureen was company for me too, as I struggled to settle in with only odd flatmates for company. I'd jump in the car and take a drive over to Redditch to take Maureen out for a jaunt around the countryside hitting the surrounding towns, exploring this fantastic section of England. Stratford-Upon-Avon, Great Malvern, Warwick, Leamington Spa and Kenilworth (that name’s vaguely familiar...) were all towns Maureen and myself visited on our various weekend meetings. My first car, that wee clio, also came in handy for when Maureen flitted. She flitted around three times whilst living in the West Midlands and on all occasions, bar the last, it was the wee clio that acted as the removal van.
During Maureen’s time in Redditch relations were soon dropping by to visit, jumping on trains, planes or into automobiles. Most of them primarily visiting Maureen but probably more than aware that there was always the risk of me turning up on the door, looking for company in my lonely West Midlands existence.
Scott, Maureen’s son and my older cousin, who was living in Dundee at the time, would visit, always busy with his job, which called for much travelling up and down the country.
Gran and Granpa, Great Aunt Mina, Mum and Dad, Anne and Ian, and even Donald from Australia, all visited the wonderful West Midlands. During their stay Maureen and I would give them a guided tour in the wee red clio, my Auntie acting as navigator, as we swerved around the countryside.
Great Malvern and Stratford-Upon-Avon were always popular with the visitors. Stratford-Upon-Avon being a favourite of mine too, with it’s Shakepearian themed streets, medieval architecture, barges, canal gates, eclectic mix of pubs and shops, pleasant parks, theatres and the Avon itself.
We had some good days out in Stratford, most of them in the summertime, when the skies were blue and the streets and parks were busier with families, tourist crowds and theatre goers, looking forward to the evening’s performance. During the summertime the town centre’s parks were always colourful, filled with plants and flowers around which street performers would entertain in the sunshine, the Avon sparkling in the summer light, it’s surface littered by the swans, geese, ducks, boats and barges which populated it’s waters, gliding up and down the river, under the arches of the various bridges which crossed over.
We took Aunt Mina out on to the Avon on a barge, we drove Gran and Granpa out for dinner with Frank Sinatra blaring out on the car stereo as we sped up the country roads and we took Donald out for dinner at which he tried to talk me into moving to Oz and courting his architect/scientist daughter.
When Maureen hit the big 5-0 Mum, Dad, Gran and Granpa invaded at the same time which called for another Stratford visit. After a few hours of walking around the bustling town we had lunch in a small tearoom and inadvertently left without paying, us all believing that someone else had paid. That same night we had a drunken night in at Maureen’s flat in Redditch, which I remember turned into a fairly entertaining night, considering I was sober and the allocated driver for Mum and Dad who had taken up residence at a small B&B in Solihull.
Maureen was a gentle, kind, relaxed, quiet, generous lady who shrugged at a difference of opinion, laughed at a good joke and enjoyed a party or two. Maureen was also a proud lady, not afraid to stand on her own two feet, but unwilling to admit troubles, or the lend of a helping hand, which, unfortunately led to her untimely death.
In my ‘wildnerness years’ down in the West Midlands, when I was occasionally feeling down or lonely, Maureen helped me with good advice and friendship, something I will never forget. An Auntie and a friend.
Maureen McNeill (Reid) 26.02.1952 – 10.10.2011
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