My (great) uncle Jesse

I had an uncle once who had a sausage dog draught excluder. He was my great uncle, actually. On my dad’s side. He had a very tidy garage (unlike my dad). He lived in a bungalow, which smelt of Tupperware and cold tar soap. My uncle very much liked to watch tennis on the television but he would sometimes say terrible (unrepeatable) things about the players. When we were little, my uncle made everything fun. He would often give things to me and to my brother. Ordinary things that would seem like treasure to us. He would talk in funny voices. I thought he was a wizard. At the weekends, my uncle would drive me around the countryside, helping me to find good things to draw for my art homework. My uncle was very patient and very encouraging. He drank milky tea and holidayed in Malta. He told me he had been in love with a lady who married someone else whilst my uncle was posted overseas by the army. My uncle’s vegetables had to be well-cooked. He could always be persuaded to have second helpings. According to my uncle, women shouldn’t mow lawns or become priests. He always had a stash of boiled travel sweets (those ones rolled in icing sugar) in little tins in his car. There was a compass on the dashboard. My uncle insisted that he could never eat garlic (although he didn’t seem to mind it in the chestnut stuffing at Christmas). He had five different sets of coffee cups stored in a table drawer alongside dark brown sugar crystals in a china lidded pot shaped like a sack. My uncle was born into a huge family, which, he claimed, could be traced back to the king of Bohemia, pre 1526. He always smelt nice. My uncle was a solicitor. He wrote up my first will, which was (implausibly) witnessed by a widow and a magician. He was a keen sportsman and an exceptional badminton player until the onset of arthritis ground him to a halt. And when he couldn’t move anywhere much anymore, when his walking sticks and flat caps lay untouched in his den, my uncle travelled in his dreams, always talking up big plans to go away somewhere. He loved to be by the sea. He yearned constantly to be in Norway or Portugal or Torquay. My uncle was of ample girth, a colossus. My uncle was a Freemason. My uncle helped me to learn to drive and sometimes fell asleep in the car. I took this as a compliment. My uncle was almost always in pain but only occasionally grumpy. He called me ‘flower’ and loved me dearly. I loved him back big time. He made me feel special. My uncle was always there. Always somewhere I could find him. And then my uncle died last Wednesday when I was very far away and worrying about someone else. I miss him terrible much.