Great Aunt Joan

She wasn't religious, or married and had no children. She worked and travelled, and delighted in new discoveries. She went her own way. She was small and steadfast and strong; and her strength has become mine: galvanised by the way she lived. She was witty and wise, and I will miss her. I already miss her.

We watched The King’s Speech one Christmas, which she enjoyed ‘although, I don’t actually remember the speech they’re all going on about. But then we were being evacuated at the time, so we had other things on our mind.’ She remembered singing ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Mrs Simpson’s pinched our King’. 

She went on to college and graduated as a teacher to deaf children. It was strictly forbidden at that time to use sign or even gesticulate too much so that children were forced to learn to lip-read, and she learnt to teach with her hands in her pockets.

She stayed curious and captivated by learning her whole life. There was hardly a time when she wasn't on a course, whether restoring Ancient pottery or reading Modern literature 'not really my period, I think I shall stick with my 18th century, I know all of them.'

She was stoic and private but also acutely astute and social.

Our last conversation before she went into hospital was about the trouble she was having with her iPad, which she had bought because 'as far as I can tell, if you're not on the email you may as well be dead'.

She had a smile that made her whole face turn upwards towards her eyes. Her laugh was simultaneously generous and knowing: a gleeful acknowledgement of ‘yes, I see what you did there’.

The last time I saw her was at the theatre, she had come to see me perform. At the top of the show we asked the audience to make little plasticine protestors and placards (it was a show about activism). Aunt Joan was not going to be rushed. ‘I don’t like all this pressure’ she declared to anyone attempting to badger her. I made a point of reading the placard she had given her protestor ‘No Bullying.’

She took herself to hospital during her first heart attack. On the bus. I went to see her in hospital and when I asked her what she wanted from her flat she replied 'Reading material. There's a copy of The Odyssey in the bookcase, bring that'. I laughed and asked if she wanted anything a bit lighter. 'Now's as good a time as any for Homer, don't you think?' came the reply.

I find myself wanting to use the word ‘delight’ over and over again. She delighted, brought delight, was delightful. She took pleasure, unapologetically. And was equally nonplussed about not going along with anything she didn’t want to. ‘We’re going for a walk in town Aunt Joan, fancy it?’ [Great Aunt Joan peers at the blizzard outside the window]. ‘No thank you.’ [Turns the page of her book, looks up, smiles].

She was born in Kennington, but for as long as I have known her she lived in Highgate. In a little crows nest of a flat at the top of the hill, on a clear day you could see the Eye winking from the Thames. She loved living in Highgate. ‘Victoria Wood lives in Highgate, sometimes you’ll see her out and about but nobody bothers her.’ When I lived in Muswell Hill, we would meet for lunch. She didn’t drink much anymore, ‘that’s the thing about getting old, you can’t do as many of the things you enjoy. But you must have a glass of wine, and I shall take pleasure from yours.’

She couldn’t drink proper coffee anymore either, but didn’t count instant ‘which is more of a coffee flavoured drink’.

‘Was it the years of drinking too much coffee when you were teaching that has stopped you drinking now?’

‘Yes’ and then after a pause ‘and all the gin’.

 

Have I said she was small? She was the size of a grande latte, which meant losing her in a crowd was almost guaranteed. I turned around for one minute in the British Museum, and that was it, she’d disappeared. ‘I don’t much like that photograph taken with your father, your Gran and I look like a couple of smurfs.’

 

But she was also a giant. If you try and follow her footsteps now you will see, by a trick of perspective, that in fact you can never span the full breadth and length of the imprint she left on the earth.

One of the last voicemails she left me was in typical Great Aunt Joan form. She didn’t want to make a fuss ‘we’ll revert to Plan A, I’ll give you a wave and then disappear.’ 
And then last week, she died. Suddenly, and without fuss, she disappeared.

There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.

- Homer, The Odyssey.

On you go Great Aunt Joan; I’m following right behind you, with my face turned upward to the sky.