The last few days ...

Have just returned this afternoon from the northeast after a three day break in which we reunited most of suzannes family and said goodbye to her mother who died ten days ago.

Its been a strange few days in which myself and the girls have played second fiddle to the family and have deliberately taken a back seat in the proceedings. Suzanne has four brothers and a sister and emotions which were kept under wraps for several weeks (and years) have broken to the surface - I believe that the term that is used in political reporting is that "there was a frank exchange of views", so I'll use that phrase.

Its a long story but one of her brothers estranged himself from the others many years ago and since then has always kept himself at arms length, in the last couple of months of his mothers illness he was initially informed but then made no contact again, its a strange situation and one that I refused to get involved with, the brothers and sisters washed their hands of him many years ago and if it wasn't for the eldest brother taking a lead and speaking to him on the phone then he probably still wouldn't know that his mother died.

He came to the funeral, as did many, many people, I'd estimate almost a hundred from the village and dozens of them couldn't get into the chapel and had to stand outside for the service. The family have always lived in what would at some point have been termed "a pit village", it was a mining community with its own pit until the mid-60's but since then has developed into the large community that it is now, its fairly non-descript and consists of several hundred private and council-owned housing estates just like most villages and towns in this country, but at its heart, and on the council estate that Suzannes family came from, it still has a small, and decreasing element of the original pit village community who turn out to attend the funerals of those original community members.

Its a very touching sight to see, we saw the same thing at Suzannes dad's funeral exactly two years ago, the floral tributes were many and neighbours constantly arrived at the house yesterday with flowers and condolences, then with a half hour to go we noticed whole families leaving the street to attend the crematorium, those who couldn't make it there stood out on the street as the hearse arrived at the house - this sort of thing wouldn't happen where we live, a funeral procession would go unnoticed in our area, but yesterday was a reminder of what communities used to be like.

The funeral service itself was superbly conducted, from one of her small grandsons placing a flower that he had picked himself onto her coffin as it arrived, to an old friend of the family giving a lovely speech about the last fifty years of their friendship and the trials and tribulations that the family had gone through in raising six children on limited means, if it is at all possible to enjoy a funeral service then this one was for enjoying.

And then afterwards, as is traditional, a buffet and an afternoon of drinking and reminiscing in the local Working Mens Club, the former mine workers club, and it was there as the afternoon wore on and the alcohol took effect that the emotions ran high between two of the brothers, one the black sheep (the second eldest) and the other his younger brother an ex-professional boxer who's grief tore to the surface late on in the afternoon as he almost came to blows with his older brother. Fortunately the other two brothers are police officers and intervened to stop any violence but it wasn't pleasant although very understandable, after an hour or so of simmering hatred they eventually agreed to disagree but I don't think that they will ever speak again, Mark still hurts very badly, a side of him that I've never seen before, you need to be tough to earn a broken face like he has but the death of both parents within two years has hit him particularly hard. He's the second youngest and he and his younger brother disappeared for a couple of hours later on in the evening and apparently shed a lot of tears together, they returned later in much better spirits and joined everyone else for some final drinks and memories.

On a more pleasant note they all agreed what should be done with their mothers ashes, when they were all kids and on their school summer holidays their mum would take them all on the short walk to the beach, and because she didn't like sitting on sand she'd take them to Old Hartley where the cove is broken down and filled with rocks and rock pools. Suzanne still talks of spending days and days playing at Old Hartley, picking cockles and muscles and what she calls "whil-acks" or whelks to you and I, and then eating them raw on the beach. For someone who spent his childhood 70 miles from the nearest beach it all sounds disgusting to me but they loved it and it was one of the things that they discussed a few days ago and then came up with the brilliant idea of scattering her ashes on the rocks at Old Hartley later on this week, I popped down there yesterday and today and took 90-odd photographs all along the coastline in brilliant sunshine, the one above is Old Hartley bay, soon to be the last resting place of Susie Jackson.