Time is pressing before next week’s funeral. Can I post my father a letter asking for the grave rights and get a reply before the undertaker instructs a new grave to be opened? There’s no pony express despite him living way out west and we’re clean out of carrier pigeons what with having a cat and all.
My Nan said that she had asked Jenny (my sister) to speak to my father for the grave to bury my Gramps but in the end he was cremated and his ashes scattered in his beloved Belfast. It makes sense as he was never very good at being kept in one place for long and loved to wander. Many evenings when I lived with him in Belfast we would tramp the streets and visit shops, libraries, parks or simply search for bargains – usually clapped out cars or tellies that needed fixing up with his ever-growing collection of valves. He’d use a lot of shoe leather to get tuppence of a jar of mixed fruit jam.
Anyone under forty is asking themselves what a tuppence is and what the hell has a valve to do with a TV. But that’s age for you. Anyone over forty is recoiling from the horrible memory of mixed fruit jam which gramps told me was made from swedes and turnip – he’d obviously seen sugar beet and confused the two.
The majority of my family all live in one area of Pembrokeshire and I email the letter to my cousin so that he can print it out and shove it through my dad’s letter box. It’s not want I want to shove through his letter box! But then I would need a pony or a pigeon for that as well….
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