UNCLE GEORGE       [Part 1 of 10] 

by Richard Banks

 

When I stood up in church and did the eulogy it was only too obvious to the dozen or so persons present how little I knew about my uncle. We had met only three times, at my christening and twice when I was a small boy not yet at school – at least that’s what I’m told. If so, then uncle would have been in his late fifties, an unmarried man, who my mother described as a confirmed bachelor. Father puffed hard on his pipe when she said that, always a sign that something had met with his disapproval, a something that might be shared with his brothers at the Feathers but nothing that could be said in the presence of the womenfolk. Not that they didn’t have chapter and verse on whatever it was but to them the good name of the family demanded that knowledge of the miscreant, and his misdeeds, be hidden away inside them, in a part of the brain labelled ‘private, keep out’.

         Thus in 2015 when the solicitor’s letter arrived informing me that Uncle had left me his house in Norfolk, and everything in it, mother was not as pleased as I thought she would be. The property, she said, would likely be rundown and in need of repair. Uncle George had no money, never did have, was nothing more than a casual labourer working on farms when there was work to be had. He only had the house because it belonged to his father who brought it up cheap as a sitting tenant. Nothing in it was likely to be worth a penny piece and I would probably have to pay someone to take it all away. As for his papers they must be burned unread. No good, she said, ever came from reading a man’s private papers. Indeed, she would come with me to make sure this was done. Given her aversion to lengthy car trips there was little prospect of her doing so and, once she had my assurance that I would do as she decreed, her involvement was restricted to the buying of a large box of matches.

          I set out, on a Friday morning from my bedsit in Clerkenwell for the offices of Matlock & Wells in Cromer with the uneasy feeling that they might have more to gain from my uncle’s demise than myself. However, by the time I pulled into the car park at the rear of their premises I was in a more optimistic mood. The day was unusually warm for May, a clear blue sky, and the sun shining brightly on a countryside bursting into life after a long winter. The thought occurred to me that if my uncle’s house was in reasonable condition it might be possible to both live and work there. Why not I thought. Other people do it, why not me? Almost all my work was done on computer and it mattered little where it and myself were located. Even if I did have to show up at the office once or twice a week it was definitely doable and, who knows, Ally, my girlfriend of nine months, might well be amenable to life in the country.

         My meeting with Mr Wells did nothing to dent my good mood and having been given a road map of the local area and the keys to the house I was soon out of Cromer and making my way down country lanes scarcely wider than the car. Nothing in London had prepared me for this and, as I slowed down to negotiated a bend in the road, what I feared might happen very nearly did. The roar of an on-coming vehicle was followed almost immediately by the sight of a red Jeep Wrangler coming full pelt at me. There was nothing do be done but slam on the brakes and, with the driver of the jeep doing the same, we screeched to a halt no more than a foot apart.

         Four young men dressed in army camouflage tops and slashed jeans spilled out onto the road and advanced towards me shouting abuse, the most vocal of them brandishing a crowbar. With the prospect of worse to come, and neither fight or flight being an option, I locked the doors and sat tight. It was time for soothing words, but my opening observations that everything was cool and that no damage had been done were not having the desired effect. A guy with a tattoo on his face was pummelling my bonnet with clenched fists while another was threatening to break my nearside window if I didn’t open up.

         It is at moments like this that you wish you had a Guardian Angel who would suddenly appear and make everything OK. Thankfully for me such beings do exist, although not usually at the wheel of a Ford Mondeo, clad in plus fours and a tweed jacket. Having pulled up behind the jeep my saviour was now striding fearlessly into the fray demanding an end to hostilities. Remarkably his intervention could not have been more successful, my assailants now as quiet and inoffensive as a turned-off alarm clock.

         “Get back in your vehicle,” demanded my deliverer and, without so much as a whimper, they did as they were told. Having dealt with them he proceeded, stern faced, towards me.

         “You’ll have to back-up,” he said. “There’s a passing bay thirty yards back. You will need to pull into it and let them through.” He was, evidently, a man used to being obeyed and although he spoke civilly enough he seemed no better disposed to me than he was to them. It was time to put myself on the side of the good guys so I thanked him warmly for his intervention. He looked a little surprised but made no comment except to say that he would walk back with me and that I was to tuck-in as close to the hedge as I could; they weren’t, he said, likely to be too careful on their way past.

         A minute or so later the jeep roared past with my benefactor observing their departure from behind my rear bumper. “Have you business here?” he asked, his voice wary but not unfriendly. Bearing in mind that his car was still parked in the middle of a narrow country lane I wasted no time in telling him that my uncle had died and that I had come to take possession of his house in the village of Petherdale.

         “So, you’re Phillip Jones’s, George’s kin. Yes, you’re not unlike him. The house is two miles along on the right, but there’s no village, Petherdale is a row of cottages built by a farmer of that name. There’s a driveway at the side and parking spaces at the back. I’m sorry for what happened back there. You’ve just made the acquaintance of the Beale boys. They’ve been having a little trouble lately with a gang from London. No doubt they saw your plates and concluded you were one of them. I’m Roy Callow, local councillor and JP. No doubt their father will be bending my ear tomorrow telling me it was all a misunderstanding. I’ll tell him who you are and why you’re here. You won’t be bothered again. So, welcome to the district of Buremarsh, Mr Jones. Wait here until I’m past and then take it steady to your destination.”

         A few minutes later he was by and I was on my way again, thankful that my journey was soon to end. Ten minutes later I was parked at the rear of Uncle’s house and using the key so often in his hand to open what was now my back door.

 

(To be Continued)

Copyight Richard Banks