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Feb. 11th, 2005 03:41 pmI'm not going to do the whole meme, for a whole host of reasons, but the question about one person from my past I'd like to go back and talk to got me thinking about something I said in mid-rant a while ago and only then realised I really meant.
My Uncle Clifford was my mother's eldest brother. He was born in 1904 and inherited the Mesney adventurousness gene. He served in the Navy, went all over the world and was at one point disappointed in love, though I never got the details. When I knew him he was already in his fifties and sixties, and working for a local brewery (now long gone) and he introduced me to The Hobbit and, later, to The Lord Of The Rings, which was a passion of his. He painted some illustrations for it which were at least as good as Tolkien's own, and many other pictures. He wrote, or started to write, a children's story about a sailing ship. When Grandma died and we had to move out of the family house, he got a pokey little flat down an alley in Tiverton and painted himself a window with a sea view.
As time went by he got Menier's syndrome and lost his sense of balance. He became very deaf and forgetful, and I lost touch with him except for very occasional visits. When he died I think it was a relief for him. I have some of his amazingly eclectic collection of books, a couple of pictures, and my own passion for LotR to remember him by.
And I would really like to go back and find him when he was still fit and active. He wouldn't have had any problem with me showing up from the future: he was, I think, our kind of people, just fifty years early. And I'd take him to a cinema that I'd hired for the day (hey, it's my fantasy) and I'd screen all the extended editions, one after the other, with appropriate breaks where necessary, just for him.
I think he would have enjoyed that. He'd have complained about the changes, of course, but I know he would have loved the films anyway, as I do. And I would have loved sharing them with him.
My Uncle Clifford was my mother's eldest brother. He was born in 1904 and inherited the Mesney adventurousness gene. He served in the Navy, went all over the world and was at one point disappointed in love, though I never got the details. When I knew him he was already in his fifties and sixties, and working for a local brewery (now long gone) and he introduced me to The Hobbit and, later, to The Lord Of The Rings, which was a passion of his. He painted some illustrations for it which were at least as good as Tolkien's own, and many other pictures. He wrote, or started to write, a children's story about a sailing ship. When Grandma died and we had to move out of the family house, he got a pokey little flat down an alley in Tiverton and painted himself a window with a sea view.
As time went by he got Menier's syndrome and lost his sense of balance. He became very deaf and forgetful, and I lost touch with him except for very occasional visits. When he died I think it was a relief for him. I have some of his amazingly eclectic collection of books, a couple of pictures, and my own passion for LotR to remember him by.
And I would really like to go back and find him when he was still fit and active. He wouldn't have had any problem with me showing up from the future: he was, I think, our kind of people, just fifty years early. And I'd take him to a cinema that I'd hired for the day (hey, it's my fantasy) and I'd screen all the extended editions, one after the other, with appropriate breaks where necessary, just for him.
I think he would have enjoyed that. He'd have complained about the changes, of course, but I know he would have loved the films anyway, as I do. And I would have loved sharing them with him.