Albert.

Something triggered my memory of Albert today.  What it was is not important.  But I do know that this is going to get a bit convoluted.

Albert was the second husband of my Mother in Law from Hell, although, in fact, she wasn’t that bad.  Just a Yorkshire woman.  And how she acquire Albert is probably best not gone into.  I was a Londoner.  No contest.  All London women are tarts, and I was after her lovely boy, so we never did get off to a good start.

Both of our houses had Outside Lavatories in those days, although at least mine was in our garden.  Their’s was down the road a bit and involved falling over dustbins on the way,  in the dark.  Shock, horror.  What a turn up that was.  Find the Lavatory was the funniest bit.  Mucky Hunslet, if anyone can remember that.  Keith Waterhouse knew because he was born there.

The fact that I was a Wren Air Mechanic didn’t actually wash, although I thought I was the bees bloody knees in those days.  And I was.

But then came Albert.  A Yorkshire Miner, who survived most of the ills of coal mining.  But such a kind man he was to me.  I was always Thee and Thou to him.  I still miss the importance of the personal.

He once slipped me a couple of bob to buy new shoes for my eldest son when his step son was being particularly parsimonious yet again.  I only bought Startrite Shoes in those days, which weren’t actually cheap, but Albert knew the cost.  He would sometimes put his arm around me and tell me that things would be, ” All rite, our Lass”.  He knew who I was.

I am so sorry that I never told him.  I never so much as invited him to my Wedding, because I didn’t know that he even existed.

I did say that this would get a bit convoluted.  My future husband did not want his mother invited to our wedding, but I wasn’t having that, so I invited her anyway, and  she duly turned up.  But I didn’t know about Albert.  I am so sorry for that.  That could have been the unkindest cut of all.  But it didn’t stop Albert from being kind to me.

Actually, the whole thing was a horror story.  My husband’s sister hated her mother, and they were both there, on opposite sides of this very little room in a house that was no better or worse than they knew off.  Billy and I were two of a kind.  Just from different Counties, of which I knew nothing.  I thought that The Navy would tide us through.  But it didn’t.  I was Fleet Air Arm and he was General Service.  Both of which needed each other.  Sadly, Billy couldn’t handle that I was a person in my own right, and nor did I for a while.

I don’t actually know if I got there in the end.  It no longer matters.

But once upon a time a very ordinary Miner was very kind to me.

Bonsoir, Albert.  I remember you.