Hello, thanks for calling in. I'm sorry, I meant to be back here sooner, I seem to have quite a lot to share with you but it's all tangled up in my head and I can't unravel all the threads. I think I'm a bit out of sorts. I know I need to finish off my summer list posts but I can't get to them yet. I think I need to tell this story first.
Opposite the church which I used to attend there stood a bungalow. It was large, built of dark grey brick and looked sombre and imposing, standing on top of a mound like a Norman motte, tall hedges surrounding its large, well-kept garden. I knew the elderly widow who lived there as I saw her in church with her cousin twice a week until she became too frail to attend, when I used to visit her in the bungalow. I would share Holy Communion with her, setting out the vessels on the pristine, white tea towel which she would place on the dining table for that purpose and she would give me the little square brown envelopes, each with a date stamped on the front, into which she had carefully placed the coins which were her weekly offering.
She told me how she and her husband were married in the church a few years after the end of the Second World War and when we had a wedding fair at the church, she lent me her wedding photograph and her wedding dress to display, a tiny dress with a halter neck which her mother had shortened so that she could wear it to her employer's Yule Ball, but by the time Christmas came, she had put on so much weight that it no longer fitted her. She told me how her husband had bought the land on which the bungalow stood in the 1950s from a woman who kept chickens there and how he had built the bungalow himself, from foundations to roof tiles. When I asked her how long it had taken him to build it she said, "Eighteen months, and he always said that it took his youth!" She told me that he called their new home Greyfriars because it was built of grey bricks and it was near the church.
The last time I saw her was at the funeral of her cousin's husband. Her son and his wife brought her across to the church in a wheelchair which she insisted on leaving at the door so that she could walk down the aisle, slowly and purposefully, supported on each side. She didn't recognise me. "Is it Helen?" she asked. No, I am not Helen.
Last week I drove past the church and as I looked to the other side of the road, I noticed that Greyfriars has been demolished; I felt sad.
See you soon.
Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x
Such a shame I was hoping for a young family moving in and revamping.
ReplyDeleteIt was a lovely family home with a large kitchen, a separate dining room, a lounge with large windows and several bedrooms as well as a large garden and parking for several cars. I think it's a shame, too. x
DeleteOh my days! I am so sad to read this, I too visited our friend in her lovely bungalow to take her a cake I'd made for her. It's such a shock to hear it has been demolished x
DeleteShe was exceedingly fond of cake, especially yours. Isn't it sad? x
DeleteHas the lady died or moved to a nursing home? So sad about her home, hopefully she doesn't know. x
ReplyDeleteI think she's in a nursing home. I do hope she doesn't know, too. x
DeleteHow sad that the bungalow which took so much hard work and dedication to build has been demolished, I wonder what kind of building it will be replaced with?:)
ReplyDeleteI've looked it up and a planning application was submitted to build a terrace of five two- and three-bedroomed houses with five parking spaces but very sensibly, the parish council objected. The space and location is far too small and the gardens would have been even smaller than pocket handkerchiefs - goodness knows where they would have been able to put the three wheelie bins we have to use now! x
DeleteThis is a sad end to the story of her home. It is probably best that she doesn’t know what has happened to it. Also, it is good to hear that the parish council objected to the proposed development - there are far too many homes being built on lots the size of a handkerchief these days - talk about overcrowding! Marie x
ReplyDeleteI agree with every word you have written, Marie. x
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