10-02-2018, 10:29 AM
4828
Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)
UNCLE BOB
My late uncle, Robert John, known to all & sundry as “Bob” spent 52 years at sea.
Sunk 3 times in WW2 , survived & later served in Korea.
Bob ran away to sea aged just 14, I use that term “ran away” loosely because he was a little “snot” as granny used to say. I guess she knew him as well as anyone can & was probably pleased to have a spare bed, for she had 8 other kids to struggle with. All these mouths to feed, often with the addition of a lodger or two. That 2 up 2 down terraced slum, along with hundreds of others in this Port City were condemned in 1936 & demolished the same year. The horses, kept in the back garden went to knacker’s yard, poor things.
Uncle Bob was my fathers’ next up older brother. There were 3 brothers namely Joseph Edward, known as Ted, then Robert John, known as Bob, and lastly my dad William, known as Bill.
Bob was a clever man, but he wasn’t clever enough to keep the fortune that he earned during his lifetime, or rather, amassed from his mainly gambling activities. He joked in later life that 90% of his income had been lavished on cigarettes, whiskey & wild, wild women. The remainder he just squandered. Although he probably didn’t coin that phrase he was the living embodiment of it.
I have led a sheltered life & am still amazed at the number of times uncle Bob was entrusted to babysit young Robert. Having been named after him, I would like to think he regarded me as somewhat special. It was a long while before it twigged that the dogs & horses which he generously gave lots of his money towards their care & upkeep was in fact gambling.
He took me to the Greyhound Racing, the Football Ground, and the Races & once to the Speedway.
Unsurprisingly he lost me every time.
Bob tagged onto my dad when his brother Bill married my mum Olive. It was an odd arrangement, Bob was at sea most of the year & lodged with us when on leave. This went on until I was 5 or 6 years of age.Bob was sick on mum’s lino once too often & dad was given an ultimatum.
“Either he goes or I go”.
Bob went to stay with his older sister Amelia, known as Sylvia & a widow at quite an early age. Bob was completely undomesticated & relied on my aunt Sylvia for everything. Many years later when they were both in their eighties Sylvia died. Bob was bereft, lost all interest in life & took to his bed. He died 2 weeks after her.