Aunt Maureen

My Aunt Maureen passed away on Monday night. She was 59. A few weeks ago we were discussing what we were going to do for her 60th and now, suddenly, we're discussing where her funeral is to take place.
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

Great Uncle David

Saturday wasn’t a particularly good day. Ka and myself once more found ourselves standing in black in a quiet Glasgow cemetery at another funeral. Our grief from what happened at the very end of 2010 continues, although it has now been eight months, it all still feels very sad and unreal. A burden which varies in heaviness, from time to time, but is always present. We can’t seem to shake the sadness off, and we’re not sure we want to because we certainly do not want to forget. That feeling comes hand in hand with any funeral though. The sadness, coupled with the urgent need to remember.
Attending funerals certainly does not particularly help ease our troubled minds, as we still try to figure out and come to terms with what happened, but we had to attend.
Just over two years since the death of my Gran Reid, her brother, and the last Pollock of that generation, was put to rest. David Pollock, my Great Uncle, passed away a week ago on the Saturday, at the age of 78, suffering from cancer, after being diagnosed in March.
The last time Ka and myself seen old Uncle David was when he attended little Lucy’s funeral. He made us laugh that day. He was feeding Joshua Wotsits, as our nephew sat on his his Dad, Steven’s, lap. Steven hummed and hawed, unsure of what to say to the older gent who was obviously blissfully unaware of Joshua’s strict diet, as, at that point, the wee man was just over a year old. David smiled and joked with Josh, as he fed him the bright orange puffy crisps as Ka and myself looked on, unsure what to say as Joshua’s strict baby diet of healthy fruit and vegetables flew out the window.
The first time I met my Great Uncle David properly was in my Aunt Mina’s kitchen. My Great Aunt Mina had just passed away I was left work to go to her wee house in the village to see if I could help in any way. David stood in my Aunt Mina’s newly fitted kitchen, leaning against the sink, a cigarette in his left hand, his eyes, big and round behind his large spectacles, sad and thoughtful as my Gran and Granpa moved around him. My grandparents tidied, phoned and organised, carrying out all the necessary jobs that unfortunately have to be done when a close relative passes away. David introduced himself, nodding knowingly when I gave him the look of realisation when I realised who he was.
I’m sure I’d probably met David in the past, at some point in those past growing twenty eight years, but he’d always been a pretty distant relative. He had always been a bit of a mystery to me as he’d never been about when we were young.
Following my Granpa’s passing David appeared on the ‘Reid scene’ more often. Much to my Gran’s annoyance David would occasionally turn up at her door, taking her by surprise, inviting himself in to check up on his sister.
Gran, being Gran, would always act the hostess though not forgetting to complain about his unexpected arrivals later to Ka and myself when we visited. Most of the time she’d complain that David’s surprise arrival hadn’t even given her a chance to hide her whiskey before he’d sit, make himself comfortable and suggest an afternoon tipple. Not that she always had whiskey around the house in full view, I must point out, but whenever she did, it would be in the glass cabinet in the corner waiting on a Saturday night in with friends, not an afternoon drink with Uncle David.
Gran would always oblige though, and perhaps join him for a wee dram herself.
They were a typical brother and sister. Always disputing, disagreeing and jocularly shouting at one another.
From what I knew of him and what I could tell in the short time I knew him, David was a great character, always full of life, shouting, telling his stories, talking of his work, the various trades he’d worked in, his families and rolling his eyes behind his glasses at my Gran as she shouted at him, at which point he’d obediently quieten and puff on his cigarette.
Late on Saturday morning The Craigton crematorium was full, which says it all really. He will be missed.
As the supporters started to arrive up in Ibrox stadium, a few miles down the road, the curtain moved over to conceal David Pollock’s, rose covered coffin to the tune of one of his favourite songs, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘You’ll never walk alone’.

Spiders, picnics and stingrays

“Don’t forget to shake your shoes before you put them on!” Mum shouted after Kenny. “The spiders..!”
Those were Mum’s last words to her youngest, as he stepped through the entrance to the Security Gate of Glasgow Airport, beginning his journey to Australia yesterday afternoon. With a smile over his shoulder, he waved goodbye and then was gone.
Ka, Mum, Dad and myself had accompanied Kenny to the airport yesterday to see him off. After checking in and obtaining some English money for the journey, as Dubai airport, Kenny’s mid journey stop off, apparently does not accept Scottish notes, we sat in the bar to have an early afternoon beer, toasting to a successful journey, trip, holiday and whatever other delights await Kenny on his adventure. With no significant ties to speak of and some redundancy money to spend, Kenny had decided to see a bit of the world, taking some time out of Scotland to explore the Aussie continent, the world’s thirteenth largest economy, seeing the wondrous sights of Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, perhaps visiting the mainland’s the surrounding islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans, maybe popping by Australian’s various neighbours including New Zealand or Papua New Guinea and maybe even dropping by Ramsay Street to meet Doctor Karl.
Perth is his first stop where he will meet distant relatives and cousins of my Gran Reid, Donald and Pamela, off the plane. After that, the pages are blank. The adventure starts there and it’s all down to Kenny.
Scary, exciting, nerve-wracking but brilliant. If Kenny was any of the first three he certainly never let on, being his usual laid back self, as we walked up from the bar to wave him away. The experience would most probably be nerve-wracking at first, especially travelling such a distance alone, although I’ve heard it said that travelling on your lonesome can sometimes be far a more rewarding journey. Some say that you meet and encounter a whole different variety of people, and situations, when travelling alone. Look at Michael Palin and the great times he’s had travelling the world – probably not a great example, mind you, as he did have a whole film crew and a bunch of photographers following him about. I suppose he shouldn’t really count.
I know, to some extent, about travelling around on your lonesome, having moved to, and lived, in Birmingham, a loner, for three and a half years, diving around the country from my central point in the Midlands, just for a wee jaunt in the Clio, including occasional trips down to London, but Brum land, the Midlands and the big smoke is not quite the same as heading out to the Commonwealth of Australia.
“Enjoy yourself” were my last words to Kenny. “That’s the main thing”. At dinner, the night before, I tried to talk him into starting a blog about the whole trip but unfortunately he was not up for it. I’m sure he’ll be far too busy for any of that kind of ‘writing about your experiences’ nonsense. Though it would have been a good idea for keeping us up to date with his goings on and whereabouts.
What am I talking about? He’ll be fine! He’ll have a ball!
As long as he wraps his luggage around him when he falls asleep on a train… doesn’t get mugged, run over, go swimming with any stingrays, avoids sharks, gangland wars in the criminal underworld, avoids bikers on dilapidated highways, stays away from Wolf Creek, doesn’t catch a bus called Priscilla, doesn’t eat picnics around cliffs, doesn’t get stung on the neck by a bee and watches out for snakes whilst on the toilet pan.
Around the early nineties my Gran Reid went over to Australia to visit her cousins with her sister, my Great Aunt Mina. Apparently one of them was almost caught out one night by a snake in the bathroom.
Over here in Scotland, we don’t usually have to worry about that kind of thing. Our bathrooms are generally reptile free. Though there probably is a criminal underworld… not to mention muggers, hit and runners, an abundance of hills and cliffs that you could probably end up mysteriously going missing on as you settle down for a nice picnic though I’m not sure about buses called Priscilla… the number 66 on a Saturday night is bad enough.
Spiders. Now that’s another story. Over here they’re sometimes big, but not poisonous. Funnel-Web Spiders are the biggies to look out for over there. Rapid death within an hour, apparently.
As long as Kenny remembers his Mum’s last minute advise, he’ll be fine.

The notorious Mrs. Fox and Question Time

Last night I sat and watched a whole hour of Question Time for the first time in my life. With the unignorable election now in sight I must have been in a political mood and found myself unexpectedly interested in what David Dimbleby, and his panel of guest speakers, had to say about the televised debate that had just taken place between the three main party leaders. The guest speakers on the Question Time panel were Ed Balls, fighting desperately for Labour, Vince Cable doddering for the Liberals, Alex Salmond puffing shaking his jowls about huffily and a rather downtrodden looking Liam Fox for the Tories. This Liam Fox, who is the current Shadow Self Defence Secretary, recently involved in the expenses scandal by claiming over £22,000 to redecorate his house, is the son of the notorious 'Mrs Fox'.
Mrs Fox was a small woman with a temper of pure fire who lived up our street when we were kids. Mrs. Fox used to run down the street when we'd play football in the large 'Balls Games Prohibited' patch of grass directly outside the front of our house and rant at us with pointed finger. Looking back, she was probably quite right to chase us off that grass considering balls games were indeed prohibited, but it was the fact that she lived a good few blocks away and up the street and would always know when we were out kicking the ball about. She either had some king of supersonic fox sense or spies at various posts in the street looking out for us. If she did have spies or any supporters we certainly never encountered or heard of any. On the day of Kenny's Frist Communion we had the whole family round and Mrs Fox even chased all the Uncles off the grass, much to the disapproval of the female relations who started booing loudly from behind the large living room window, the booing largely led by Aunt Mina. Anyway, because of this, I always remember Mrs Fox and her rants when I see Liam Fox squirming on television.
Ed Balls, one of Labour's top Commanders and Secretary of State for Schools, was doing a fair amount of squirming at the questions from the Question Time audience too whilst Vince Cable just seemed to shrug his way through the questions in a nonchalant 'Vote for us, or don't vote for us' fashion. Cable, the Danny Glover to Clegg's Mel Gibson, inwardly sighing, "I'm too old for this sh*t". All the while Alex Salmond raged about not having been invited to take part in the televised debates like a child who hadn't been asked to someone's birthday party and went out of his way to agree with everything the audience were saying. Janet Street Porter simply seemed to moan and groan, her most common gripe being about the fact that the current leaders were all men.
The whole programme may not have helped you decide upon who your voting for but it certainly helped in getting to sleep.

Springtime and music pirates

Springtime is coming! Bono shouted this during Live Aid in 1985 during Feed the World, even though it is a song about Christmas. This exclamation is made even more puzzling by the fact that Live Aid took place in the summer, July 13th to be precise. So even though Bono was completely wrong at the time, it is an accurate assessment of the weather that greeted me this morning on leaving the flat. The sun was out this morning, at least it was up there somewhere among the clouds, and there is the growing feeling of winter leaving us once more. Hopefully. This is Scotland I suppose. Our summers usually last approximately one week, or if your thinking back to 2008, probably around three days.
As I thought this getting into my car I turned on the radio to hear the one and only Irish singer once more in another repeat on Radio 1 of the latest U2 single. 'No Line on the Horizon' hit the shops yesterday and is apparently another big seller after only one day on the shelves. Unable to purchase until thursday,however, and am steadfastly refusing to download it, unlike certain other friends of mine (they shall go unnamed). One of them has even had the album for at least two weeks. This is exactly the reason why the music and movie industry is suffering at the moment. All the pirates wandering the web, illegally plundering the downloads for their treasures. I work with a few of them too, I should know. Limping into work everyday, all innocent, as if butter wouldn't melt. I'll watch them as they go about their business, working away at their desks, growling abuse down their phones through their rotten teeth and feeding their parrots perched on their monitors. Okay, they're not all that bad. Some of them do floss apparently. Not that I'd know, of course (I prefer a simple brush with Colgate and a quick rinse with Plax myself). You used to hear of these raids down the Glasgow Barrowlands every now and again where Police would swoop in on the occasional Saturday morning and seize thousands of pounds worth of pirated material. As much as I liked getting the bootlegs I used to dread buying them. You'd approach the stall hesitantly, looking round you at all times, giving the occasional peer over the shoulder. You'd then set to work, ferociously flicking through the mountains of CDs at breakneck pace until you found the one you were after. You'd throw the money at the smelly owner of the stall and quickly hide the CD under your jacket and slink off into the Glasgow market crowds. Maybe buy some doughnuts on the way. I always hated the idea of the police disturbing me as I found the rare bootleg version of Bowie's original cut of Scarey Monsters or some lost live album from Talking Heads' past. "Officer, please, this is listed as the fifth rarest bootleg of all time!". "Put it down son, your nicked". It wasn't so much the nicking it was more the fact I'd found something worth buying.
Most of the smelly stall owners in the Barras were always suspicious at the best of times anyway. One Saturday morning, during my time at Art School, I was quietly sitting drawing a book stall when all of a sudden the lady owner realised I was there and started hurling abuse as she ran at me. Apparently she 'knew my game'? I had not been aware of playing any game at the time, though I was a bit of a Games Workshop nut at the time. Still, you don't expect that kind of abuse for that do you? Maybe a bit of a slagging from your mates (if you have any) but not an attack from a female vigilante book stall owner. Almost dropping my sketch book with alarm I just managed to get away from the crazy old bird feeling a little more hesitant to sketch the market scenes afterwards. Maybe she thought I was an undercover agent for Strathclyde police or something. Which means she must have been feeling rather guilty about something. Perhaps her books were off the back of a lorry? It was a shame really as it was a bloody good book stall. There's hardly any decent second hand book shops or stalls left. Sometimes I wonder into the Oxfams and Cancer Research charity shops for a browse though. Most of the time their shelves are only filled with fifteen year old Guiness Book of Records, Maeve Binchy novels or the Daniel O'Donnell - My Story. My Great Aunt Mina used to go to that cheery, irish warbler's concerts. We used to joke that she threw her knickers at him on stage. She would join us with a smile and laugh rather uncomfortably, then go strangely quiet...