Favourite Aunty

Does everyone have a favourite aunty? I'd think most people do. Without doubt my favourite aunty was my aunty Doreen. The close bond with her starts at my birth, for I was born in her living room all those years ago, and we stayed quite close throughout my childhood. It helped, of course, that we ended up living just a couple of doors away from her, but even before then I used to go home from school to her house for my lunch. I think it was just one day a week, Thursday, the day she was off work, and this practice went on for a few years. I progressed from watching Rainbow & Rupert The Bear during those lunch hours, to Crown Court.

The thing about Thursdays in aunty Doreen's house though was that it was baking day. And oh could she bake; all sorts of traditional Northern fare from big plated pies filled with corned beef or cheese & onion to what were simply the finest stottie cakes known to man. And "broth", a soup made with the stock of a boiled ham bone along with grated carrot, grated parsnips, grated turnip (swede), leeks (I think) and some kind of pulse (split peas probably). It was gorgeous, especially with dumplings in it, and a bit of stottie to soak up the remaining juices (Even as the omnivore that I was in those days, I used to pick out and leave the bits of ham that had fallen from the stock bone. Don't ask me why... a portent of things to come maybe). What else was there? Leek puddings and onion puddings (huge suet dumplings filled with the aforementioned vegetables and steamed), oh and chips. The best chunky chips I ever had, always perfectly cooked despite their size. If aunty Doreen had been making something nice for tea (like any of the above) I'd ask mam if I could skip tea at home and pop along aunty Doreen's instead.

From a (shockingly) young age I'd go along to her house on Saturday afternoon and set the fire away, ready for her coming in from work (she worked in pubs most of her life). Then we'd have a cup of tea and a natter, and probably a sandwich or two.

We used to go shopping in Newcastle together too, at first on the bus and later when I could drive, by car. It was always the same routine, a visit to Farnon's to buy some balls of wool followed by a trip into Fenwick's deli to get some meats, often weird and wonderful sausages like saveloys and kabanos which we'd take back home for a late lunch or just a wicked afternoon snack. Incidentally Fenwick's still have that deli and they sell Cheese & onion pie that is the closest thing to the one aunty Doreen made, solid, thick, stodgy and totally delicious.

Other memories include enormous card schools; aunty Doreen & Uncle Henry, her son & daughter-in-law, me, my sister, mam & dad, all playing Newmarket or "31" for penny stakes, crowded around the dining table on as many chairs as we could muster.

As so often happens I saw a lot less of her once I was married and left home, though we did always go to visit a few times a year. She never changed, she was always the same "aunty Doreen" that I always knew and loved, and whenever we did visit she always managed to rustle up one of the prized stottie cakes from in her freezer.

Eventually time caught up with her and she was diagnosed with cancer. The end came pretty rapidly and I never actually saw her after her diagnosis. I don't know if that's good or bad, good in the sense that I will always remember her now the way that I always knew her. We were actually going to visit on Saturday, but time beat us to it and she died in the night. One week "doing canny", the next week gone.

We'll miss you, aunty Doreen.