meet my folks

For publication in 'The Guardian' (see previous post)

I belong to the tribe of the Cornish, though many consider us a separate country, if not nation. My native village, Carnkie, nestles under the stark boulder-scattered acres of Carn Brea, which shows evidence of once being the home of a stone-age tribe. My folks, though comparatively uneducated, knew more than most current graduates. My father, who was totally without racial prejudice or political correctness, tipped his cigarette-ash into an ashtray held by a little wooden black servant wearing a red frock-coat and breeches. Since there were no takeaways, the only Asians we saw were inscrutable, mostly sinister Chinese in the movies.

My father's cousin Bertie was deaf-and-dumb. My mother, in a scatty moment, once whispered that to friends, behind his back so that he wouldn't hear her. My Auntie Nellie, robbed of marriage by her fiance's WW1 death, was a career woman, running a sweet shop; she also fancied herself as a bit of an actress, performing monologues in a posh voice at socials. My father's cousin Jack was very theatrical. No one bothered when, quite late in life, he walked through the village hand in hand with a leather-clad youth. I don't know if he was a practising homosexual; he was just Jack, 'a good old boy'. My Auntie Susan-Jane stripped naked in front of the Methodist chapel, and was taken 'up Bodmin' for a mental health diagnosis. Both my mum and Auntie Nellie became disabled through severe arthritis, and my aunt had to be in a wheelchair.

I may have a bit of Italian blood, from an immigrant painter who became involved with a Thomas girl in the 19th century. Though now, as I'm elderly, I think I increasingly resemble my mother, a Moyle. I was a pretty dumb father, early on, and I've become a pretty dumb grandparent, though I love my children and grandchildren very much. None of them has become a terrorist.