From Facebook Archives
Learnt today of the death of our oldest relative, Auntie Eirlys, aged 102.
She wasn't strictly our aunt, she was my grandmother's cousin (Auntie Polly)'s daughter.
Granma was brought up by her uncle and aunt so considered her cousins as siblings and females of clan have kept in touch.
Auntie Eirlys called Dad "my favourite cousin"; she and husband Johnny would visit every autumn for 'windfalls' from our orchard.
She was not universally liked, perhaps because she was an intelligent woman with a very sharp tongue who told it like she saw it (maybe it runs in the family).
Her sayings were much appreciated by our mother.
Especially "Hard as the Devil's toenails that one" and
"One week they're best of pals and the next they're calling each other things a dog wouldn't lick."
I didn't see her as often as I'd like as a grown up but she'd always have something encouraging to say
like "You've lost weight - mind you needed to"
or "I'm glad to see you've had your teeth done. You should look after your teeth.
You've got good teeth".
Caring but seldom complimentary.
At Dad’s 90th birthday party she answered something that had been puzzling me (and possibly the rest of the family) for years.
Sitting beside me she asked “Do you know why your grandmother was sent as such a little child from Gloucestershire to her grandparents in Carmarthenshire?”
I replied “Well Mum said Grampa told her that she’d been sent to live with relatives because her father had been run over by a horse and cart on the way to register the birth of his thirteenth child”.
She muttered something about “Uncle Alec’s stories” then said “No, there was smallpox in Gloucester and they send her here to get her away from it.”
When I got back I googled “Gloucester smallpox” and “1896 epidemic” was automatically added.
Granma would have been six at the time so it’s more feasible than Grampa’s story.
But it still begs the question of why she never went back.
My favourite memory of Auntie Eirlys is at my brother's wedding in October 1964.
I was 8 and had a growth spurt between fitting and wearing my flowergirl's dress;
it was tight and short and was made of some pale blue nylony material with short puffy sleeves. In late October!
As the photos were being taken Auntie Eirlys noticed I was turning the same colour as my frock.
"The child's freezing!" and, crossly, "Come 'ere girl".
She wrapped her mink coat around me so that my head was poking out like a joey's.
I have an abiding memory of welcome warmth and perfumed silkiness.
Cysgwch yn dawel Auntie Eirlys xxx
I believe this is the only photo I have of Auntie Eirlys, but it's a good one, taken on Dad's 90th birthday when she was a mere 94. (Auntie Eirlys is the one on the far right with white hair)
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