Uncle Les

Whenever I arrived home from school and found my Mum and her brother, Les, chatting together in the kitchen, it always felt like a party.
They'd pour out  a cup of tea for me, and I'd join in with their happy, cheerful banter.
Uncle Les was the second of my grandma's three children born before the First World War. My Mum was the last of the three born afterwards. They had quite different childhoods.
Uncle Les started working when he was still a boy, he did milk rounds, and anything he could to keep the family going.
He bought the whole family a pair of slippers each for Christmas every year. He called his first family dog, Slippers. My Mum thought the world of him. We all did.
His heart was pure gold.
My Mum loved telling stories about him and his great wit and humour.
When he was a toddler, my Nana was pushing the youngest in a pram, he and  his older sister ,walking along side her. She tried to tell them in her gentle way that their Granddad had passed away.
"Jesus called him", she said. Back came the quick response from Uncle Les "He called me once, but I didn't go".
Like all good comedians, he needed a stooge. He found one in his wife, my Auntie Daphne.
She was as efficient and practical as he was warm and witty.
One day he had  a bad headache. He was lying in bed resting, when Auntie Daphne came bustling in with the vacuum cleaner. "Oh Daph, please, turn that thing off, I'm dying". True to character she replied "Well, you're not dying in a dirty bedroom." Sure enough he was at the local football match a couple of hours later.
During the war, Uncle Les had to go into hospital to have his tonsils out. He was in Scotland at the time. He received a letter from Auntie Daphne. It said, "Be careful, having your tonsils out, Peggy knows someone who died that way".
They both lived into their nineties, leaving behind a whole lot of grandchildren and great grandchildren who adored them.

My Dad and Uncle Les were best mates. They called each other up, they met in the local pub. It was a joy to see them together.

At my Uncle Les's 80th birthday, my Dad gave a speech saying how our lives were richer from knowing him.
Uncle Les sometimes picked me up from school, or took my Mum and me shopping. We'd always sing going along.
These are two of the songs he taught me:-

Goodbye ee, Goodbye ee,
wipe a tear, baby dear, from your eye ee.
Though parting's sad, I know,
I'll be tickled to death, to go
Goodbye ee, Goodbye ee
There's a silver lining in the sky ee
Bonjour, old thing,
tiddly oo, chin chin,
wam poo, diddly oo
Goodbye ee

This one has been re-vamped recently, there is a reggae version

You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine,
You make me happy, when clouds are grey,
You'll never know, dear,
How much I love you,
please don't take my Sunshine away.

Uncle Les gave a lot of sunshine to me.