Friday Photo #9

I've written about my Great-Aunt Maud before. It was she, standing all of 5ft tall in her stockinged feet, who peered up at me as I shot through the 6ft mark in my teens and exclaimed '...blimey, I reckon I'm growing downwards...' From the end of the 1970s into the early 1980s, the last few years of her long life, Aunt Maud lived in a care home on the coast, a few miles away. Most Sundays Mum and I would pick her up and take her out for a drive, along the seafront, round the country lanes or up to the old part of town to enjoy an ice cream as we watched the boats coming and going. One day, our impromptu jaunt happened to take us down a remote lane, past a small plot of land where a rather forlorn old donkey stood in the corner. We pulled up and wandered over to the fence  to say hello. The donkey was initially wary and kept its distance, but the spot became a regular stopping off point over the weeks and in time it got used to us and trotted over to us when we arrived, attracted no doubt by the carrot Aunt Maud got into the habit of bringing along in her cardigan pocket. I snapped photo above as Aunt Maud was giving the donkey a telling off, after it'd tried to help itself to the carrot one day, while it was still in her pocket! The poor thing looked so chastened and thoroughly ashamed of itself that both Mum and Aunt Maud burst into fits of laughter, which is when I caught the second shot.

To soundtrack the photos, 'Ride your Donkey' a classic by The Tennors from 1968, covered 21 years later by Joe Strummer on his 'Earthquake Weather' LP.

The Tennors - Ride Your Donkey