Our Forgotten Years by Maggie Smith-Bendell

Author:Maggie Smith-Bendell
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2008-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

Saying Farewell

The days leading up to Emily’s funeral were sad. It was decided that her child – named Emily for her mother – would be put into the loving care of Jessie and Louie, as Blacksmith Joe could not cope with bringing his daughter up alone. Jessie and Louie had big gals to help with the baby and enough money that they could afford the extra little one.

We had not slept for days during the sitting-up time, as is our custom, staying protectively nearby her body where it lay in the wagon, remembering all the times we had shared. Anyone who wanted to could say their own farewell to her and all night long grown-ups went up and down the wagon steps to pay their respects. The night before her funeral, at midnight, Blacksmith Joe went up into the wagon to say his final farewell to the woman who was his mate, wife and pal. They had been together for so short a time.

On the morning of the funeral Emily’s coffin was brought out and laid on trestles. The lid was removed and we children were lifted up to kiss her face and say our goodbyes. They say that if you touch a body it will not play on your mind, so we smoothed her hair and touched her face to pay our own respects.

The funeral day dawned, clear and crispy-cold. A charabanc had been ordered to carry the mourners and many other black cars were needed for all the family and a line of other cars and lorries followed their sad journey. Flowers spilled off the tops of cars and young Romani men drove the lorries that carried the rest of the ornate wreaths.

It was a long day for us left on the common, waiting and watching for our parents to get back to us. Emmy would be taken back to the family cemetery at Paulton, a few miles from the Prince Lane. Once they returned we waited together for nightfall. As the sun dipped Blacksmith Joe set light to the wagon that he and his wife had shared and we watched as their beautiful home burned to the ground. The night afore, Emily’s brothers had cleared the wagon of anything that would not turn to ashes and had buried it deep in a secret place. I called these places our ‘secret graves’, where our china, brass, copper, candlesticks and other precious things were hidden away.

There the wagon burned, flames shooting up to the sky as hundreds of our family and friends watched on. The tears rolled down their faces as poor old Granddad cried out for the good Lord to take him out of his misery. We were filled with such pain and grief.

The next morning Alfie, Robert and I were poking in the ashes of the wagon. We found silver sixpences and threepenny bits, money that Emily had been saving but that had been missed when her brothers had cleared the wagon. The coins were taken off us and passed around as keepsakes.

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