Aunt Betty died on 19 March 2012. 'A long life lived'. Betty was my father's brother's wife and had lost a newborn child at the same time as my mother Jean died having me. She became a kind of foster mother to me until I was 18 months old, when apparantly my father suddenly arrived on her doorstep and dragged me away with me apparantly screaming 'mummy'. Christmas cards were exchanged throughout my childhood and then I lost contact with her until I looked her up 50 years later, visiting her in Dollar in Scotland. She told me that my father had severely reprimanded her for teaching me the word 'mummy' but she had told him she didn't teach me, I simply copied her own children Francis and Elizabeth!
Silly daddy for not understanding how the young infant's mind works, especially as he was a schoolmaster. Sadly he constantly compared me to his favourite ultra bright nephew (her son) Francis who could put no foot wrong and throughout my youth and despite my passing the Eleven Plus and attending one of the best grammar schools in Wiltshire, I felt completely stupid and a failure in contrast to this academically bright first cousin, who my father constantly banged on about.
I guess this is a rather poor excuse for my not keeping more in touch with dear Aunt Betty who in fulfilling her need in her hour of grief, met my need as a vulnerable motherless infant. Her daughter Lizzie, sadly a heroin addict and close friend of my late sister Veronica Jill, died many years ago. May Aunt Betty rest in peace.
