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

Feeling Gravity's Pull

In her final years, as her frailty and ill heath became gradually more pronounced, my Nan would quite often grab my arm for support, pull me close and whisper in despair - 'Don't ever get old'. I remember it distinctly. I also remember shaking my head at the absurdity of the very notion. I was young - I wasn't ever going to get old. Nan was living with us by then, as was her Sister-in-law, always known to me as Aunt Maud. Aunt Maud bore her own old age in a more stoic fashion than Nan. She laughed a lot, she enjoyed a drink and a cigarette and was generally the more sociable of the two, in spite of her increasing deafness and having been registered as blind for most of the second half of her life. As I went through a growth spurt in my mid-teens and shot up past them both, Aunt Maud, a Cockney through and through, would peer up at me as best she could and exclaim, 'Blimey, I reckon I'm growing downwards!'

Your humble author in 1975, aged 15, with Nan and Aunt Maud.

It would appear however, regardless of my very best efforts over the intervening 40 odd years, that I am in fact getting old. Or at least old enough to qualify for a recent invitation to our local medical centre, to have a general health and well-being check. Questions were asked, blood was drawn and readings measured. I'm doing ok apparently - BMI, weight, heart, pulse, cholesterol and blood sugar all tickety-boo. 'One last thing...' said the nurse as I was about to leave, '...step over here and we'll check your height.' 'Six foot six, I chimed confidently - I'd already told her as much, earlier in the examination. The nurse stood on tiptoe for a moment to adjust the measure so that it rested lightly on top of my head. 'Six foot four actually' she countered with a smile. 'Blimey,' I said. 'I reckon I'm growing downwards'.

REM - Feeling Gravity's Pull