PLAN
Our introduction
The Teenage years
Flying the nest and marriage
Helping hand and advice
The final years/letting go
Understandably Lou and I were on our very best behaviour when mum took us on our first outing with Joe the butcher, license to kill! Joe had no children of his own but, from that moment on, he would be there for all three of us, working hard and providing for our home. He took on the responsibility of fathering two, sometimes difficult (*cough*), teenagers in his stride.
Joe was used to manual labour and had worked a hard six-day week since leaving school aged 15, the polar opposite of my life of Riley.
“You don’t know you’re born!”
followed by
“Andrew! Can you just …?”
It was a phrase, from his large repertoire of idioms, I would particularly learn to dread.
He built fences the length of the Forth bridge which “just” needed constant creosoting; anything which didn’t move “just” had to be painted, varnished or wall-papered. Acres of hay-fever inducing grass “just” had to be mown and endless piles of bricks, timber, sand, stones and cement, which were regularly dumped on the drive for his next project, “just” needed shifting somewhere else and, on one occasion, a flat-bed artic backed its way down the lane loaded with concrete pipes which were wide enough to walk upright in. Fortunately even Joe was convinced they were perhaps too large and sent them back on their way. I’d still be digging the trench now if they’d had been unloaded.
he’d say
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know!”
But we learned to accept our differences and get along. I did everything I was told and Joe told me what to do.
And it was, of course, a proud moment when Joe would introduce me as “This is my lad!”
“Rubbish! Absolute rubbish!”
Joe loved his football. Shame his local team was Stoke. He bought us both season tickets for the Potters and took me along with Kenny and Mike to watch several years of exceptionally wet and miserable seasons. And the weather was pretty bad too.
Joe loved watching wrestling, which rubbed off on Alannis! And darts. Every Wednesday evening he’d escort my mum to a local pub where she’d play for the Draycott Arms’ darts team.
And he and Harold used to take me and Lou to Cheadle swimming baths to teach us to swim.
But we all know Joe’s biggest hobby, obsession even, was gardening. The greenest sausage fingers in the land and, of course, dressed down in his old clothes and cap and shoes which had been rescued several times from the dustbin it proved the ideal ploy to send unwanted sales reps, or the like, back on their way.
“Is the owner of the house in?”
“No. I’m just the gardener.”
Joe loved to travel. Our first “holidays abroad” were made possible because of Joe and many were spent with John, Doreen and Johnathon. And there were lots of birthday and New Year parties with all Joe’s siblings, Harold, Lilly and Bill who’d famously start the journey from “London” more often than finish it.
I flew the nest and landed in Germany where I realised that Joe’s “chores and odd-jobs” had, in fact, been the best preparation for an independent life. Perhaps too much so. I’d tell my sister “I thought I was turning into Joe!” because I was switching off lights and closing doors to save money.
My sister’s and mine joint wedding blessing, in this very church, in 1996 brought all the (very large, extended) family together.
Despite, or maybe because of, the language barrier Joe and my mum found no problem integrating to life in Germany when they were over and found themselves joining many birthday, wedding and anniversary celebrations with my wife, Tave’s, family.
And Joe’s positive “strike while the iron’s hot!” attitude is something Tave especially dearly remembers as encouraging words which gave her extra motivation and drive in her very successful career.
When my parents came to visit I’d always have a task or two lined up for Joe. The odd-jobs culminated in our building a double-garage during a gloriously scorching hot August.
“I wish I could come across more often to help you.”
he’d say and when Joe said that, you knew it wasn’t empty words.
Then he flew back to England to help Lou out with jobs and tasks around her home and business.
Once you were “on the right side” of Joe he’d do anything and everything for you, if he could.
He was hands-on “it won’t get done by just looking at it” and he was always positive and had a smile on his face. Although that maybe because Tave was by my side, and maybe because Tave was carrying a bottle of Asbach brandy in one hand and some dark chocolate in the other.
Joe’s sage advice was always sound and based on the school of hard knocks and real life. He’d always be supportive towards things you were considering, if he thought it a good idea. “It’s no good waiting for dead man’s shoes!”
Joe bravely came to start a completely new life with my mum, Lou and myself, in Dilhorne, back in 1980(?)
In November last year Joe and my mum celebrated 40 years of marriage.
He was the ever adoring husband, a model-father and the over-adoring grandfather.
Before Joe left us in December he’d had the time to reflect on what he’d achieved.
He was surrounded by a loving family, which he’d helped nurture and grow, and of which he could be and was very proud.
Our road together may have been initially rocky but towards the end he’d taken the chance to say his goodbyes and he asked me the last time we saw each other:
“We did alright, didn’t we And?”
You did more than alright, Joe!
Beautiful singing voice
Wouldn’t cry over spilt milk (or spilt Asbach!)
Song & Verse 