Growing up my parents were not much ones for going out, so lots of weekends were spent being dragged around DIY and Gardening Centres and visiting relatives was always a treat, and especially visiting Aunty Josie and Uncle Dennis.  My brother and I spent many hours running around and kicking balls around the huge garden.

Stopping away from home was even rarer event and a real treat.  As kids there were never babysitters and on the odd occasion my parents were away, we only evert stopped with Nan and Gangy or Josie and Dennis.  I have memories of Josie doing anything she could think of to keep us occupied, mostly sending Dennis to the loft to retrieve Mark and David’s toys for us to play with.  This was a real treat, as Mark and David were a generation before us the toys where fascinating, tin trains and toy cars with so much more detail than ours at home.

Its was on one of these weekends while eating dinner, my dear Brother Andrew, who is a little more to the point than me commended half way through “we usually have gravy with this at home” (it may have not been gravy) at which point Aunty Josie rushed off to the kitchen and returned with the missing item.  This became a standing joke for many years.

In later years Dennis spent many hours fixing my first cars when my Dad’s spanners where just not enough and we needed his expertise and diagnostic equipment.  Nothing was too much trouble for Dennis, once Josie had told him it was not!

I’m sorry we cannot be there, despite best efforts and time of work booked Covid once again thwarts the best laid plans.

Rest in peace and God bless.