Auntie Jean
L-r: Jean Goodman, aged 6, Kenneth Goodman, aged 10, and Beryl Goodman, aged 8. Picture taken c.1926.
This is a picture of three of my Granny's elder siblings as children, presumably taken in Chester where they grew up. Ken died some time ago, before I was born; Beryl is getting on for 90 and lives in the Liverpool area with her husband. The little girl in the frock and wonky socks, standing to the left of the picture, was known to me many years later as my great auntie Jean: she died early on Saturday morning at her home in the Netherlands. The previous day, the 5th, she'd celebrated her 87th birthday.
She'd lived in Holland for the past sixty odd years, having married a Dutch serviceman - it's weird to think how many marriages must have sprung out of the circumstances of the Second World War, between young people who would have never otherwise even encountered one another.
It had been several years since I last saw her - her once regular visits to family in the UK had become impossible due to her age and poor health - but she and my Granny were close and in frequent contact, and often on visits to Gran I'd be regaled with news and photos of Jean and her family, which had recently got to the great-grandchild stage.
Unsurprisingly, given how far away she lived, I didn't know Jean very well, but I have fond memories of her nevertheless - of her accent, with the Cheshire vowel sounds of her youth far more conspicuous than they were in my Granny's own voice; of her kindness, bringing presents for me and my sister when she came on visits to the UK, and gratifyingly often remembering to send us cards and money on our birthdays and at Christmas; and of her sense of humour.
One of her visits back to the UK, in the late '80s, came after she'd been successfully treated for cancer (leukaemia, I think). She had suffered some hair loss during the course of the treatment, but though she had brought two wigs with her to my Granny's house, where she was staying, she only actually bothered to put one of them on when my Dad wanted to take some family photos in the garden. She laughed off his teasing suggestion that this was vanity for the camera with all good humour, and after the 'sensible' pictures had been taken, let Jenna and I fool around, posing for more photos while sporting the wigs ourselves.
I remember, too, her showing us a brooch she'd brought with her, and asking if we knew what it was meant to look like. The pearly, opalescent stones in the piece of jewellery (actually designed to resemble a sprig of heather) led me to offer, "Moonbeams?", which made her laugh and call me quite a romantic. I protested my innocence with some indignation, 'romantic' meaning only soppiness and slush as I then understood it., rather than someone of an idealistic and dreamy nature. In retrospect, I think she probably had me nailed there.
RIP, Auntie Jean.