Uncle Allen
Had a phone call from Mum - her brother Allen has died.
In fact, she was phoned by Allen's doctor who was passing on their condolences and was shocked that the police hadn't contacted mum as yet. It seems that Allen hadn't been seen for almost a week, and when the police checked they found his body. It may have to have an autopsy to determine what he died of, though the fact that he has type 2 diabetes would have affected things. He had several cats and they are running wild now. Mum phoned uncle Steven to tell him about the death. Today was Steven's birthday - some news to get! Mum and Allen's sister - aunty Glennis - died in 2007.
The odd thing is that this mirrors what happened to uncle Brian who was dad's brother. In each case they were allowed under the will of their parents to stay in the house as long as they wanted to. The only difference was that Brian paid some of the rates, whereas Allen didn't (and this was a point of contention). Looks like they both died alone, to be discovered about a week later. At one point there were plans to sell the house as the it was behind the royal show grounds and they were interested in expanding, but that fell through.
I have fond memories of Allen. when my family would go on visits I would talk to him a lot and we'd listen to his collection of stage musical LPs. As I got older I suspected that he was gay, but if he was, it was a "Peter Allen sort of gay", if that means anything to you (and in fact uncle Allen looked and sounded a bit like him as well). Didn't matter to me either way though when my sister-in-law asked directly about this recently he was offended. I hadn't seen Allen in years since the start of my transition, though when I visited my family in 2008 he had lunch with mum and me. Wish I could post a photo but I don't have any of him, and we didn't want me to take any on that occasion.
Will miss him.