So long, Uncle Ronald

A sad few days really as I went to my wonderful Uncle Ronald's funeral today. He was everything that an Uncle should be - he was a Cornish fisherman on a massive trawler. He had adventures galore and tales that got bigger everytime we saw him - did he really ever fall through someone's roof onto an old lady sat in bed, wish her Good Morning and then walk out the door, after the Roof Running game went wrong? Probably. He apparently did used to tie my two-year-old dad to the OAP's bench in the mid-winter if he had to babysit for him, that is true. But I am not sure whether I got the tractor tyre running down the hill and through someone's front door story correct. However, I do know that anyone who moans about the Youff of Today should listen to my dad after a few pints of Cornish Ale...

Funerals are never fun and aren't supposed to be, but if I ever have to have one (and I don't intend to) then his is what I want it to be like - there was a lot of love in that chapel coming from hundreds of people. Lots of smiles and lots of tears from old and young alike.

I learnt many things today, perhaps the two most important:
1) live a life you want to be in and you will enjoy it and people will enjoy you
2) don't give your baby the house keys to play with in the car when she gets fretty, if you are intending to get home to a dark yard in the rain several hours later.


On a different note, when we got home to a pile of post, there was a letter to me from my publisher, Honno. Huw waved it at me and my heart sank - I assumed it was a pleasant note about my recently-submitted manuscript, wishing me luck (elsewhere) in my future writing career, and asking could they keep it as what a great doorstop it was making. Instead - it was my first fan mail! A letter from someone who sounds like a lovely lady in Dorchester and I don't even think we are related!


Post Script:
My Uncle had apparently just read my book, and that showed what a good bloke he was as I am sure that he wouldn't usually be in the demographic for that kind of thing. I only hope that he enjoyed it and didn't notice that I got my bream and my dogfish mixed up...

RIP Ronald Jenkin, xx