From Ed Fox

When I think about Carol…

Such a simple starting point … but one that sets off such a convoluted trail of thoughts and memories. I am also an October baby, Carol’s little cousin, born just a year later, so there is a whole lifetime of family holidays and reunions to remember. Images of these are mostly stuck in some corner of my mind’s hard drive, which has not been updated for a few decades. I think of East Yorkshire and our Gran; of Jill cooking in her huge kitchen; of endless cups of tea; of bouncing around in a beaten up old landrover; of a downstairs toilet covered in cartoon prints of duck shooting scenes; of huge open fires and Robin getting my Dad drunk on whisky; of games of charades in winter and summer footie on the lawn under the gigantic cedar; and, later, of the comings and goings of endless cool and weird people. Memories of Carol are so mixed up with family history and folklore. How much did I live and how much have I been told?  Where is she in all of this?  Even looking through all my photos I am amazed now at how few she appears in. So many events I know she was at and yet I have no record. An invisible presence, always felt, always quietly there.

But the image that comes back to me most is on a visit to Dalton when a big party was going on in the cottage, which I think involved all the Void gang.  I didn’t think I fitted in and went back to the peace of the house and the living room fire. And there was Carol sitting on the rug in front of the fire, with a second hand dress laid out on the floor, and a needle and thread in her hand. She smiled up at me through a mouthful of pins and carried on with her sewing. For some reason that image has stuck with me all these years.  Like so many others, I have discovered only very recently just how much her upholstery and weaving meant to her and how beautiful it was. There was always a creative energy there, waiting for ways to express itself.

I have been amazed at how much I didn’t know about Carol, and yet not really surprised. I always knew there was some special life force in my cousin.