Simon aged 2 - on the beach at Filey in 1958.
The image was captured by our father, Philip.
Of course the dead are dead and there's no use in appealing to them. They have gone. But if I could, I would like to say sorry to my brother Simon with regard to some photographs.
Let me explain.
For several years he lived with our aging mother following the break up of his relationship with Linda. They had bought a home together and it seemed that Linda might save him from himself. She wanted babies and a normal life in her hometown on the Yorkshire coast but Simon couldn't handle it and everything fell apart.
He went back to our mother's house and at the same time lost his job. He became reliant on Mum who gave him shelter and put food on the table. Sadly, she was rather afraid of him. He became quite nasty to her and was frequently threatening. It stressed her out but he was her youngest son and she felt it was her maternal duty to help him - come what may.
Simon as a baby in 1956 with my oldest
brother Paul who died in June 1010
Mum died in an old folks home in September 2007 but Simon continued to live in her house and one of my other brothers was most unhappy with this arrangement and wanted Simon out so that the house could be sold. In due course that is what happened. Simon left the house in late 2010. Mum's belongings had to be stored or rescued as Simon didn't yet have another place to live even though by now he was back in full-time employment.
I picked up some of Mum's stuff and shoved it up in our attic before heading off to Thailand on my first temporary teaching contract in Bangkok. I forgot about the stuff but in early 2019, Simon began asking about it. He claimed that I had all of the family photographs and he not only wanted them, he needed them. We looked all over our house for the pictures he was talking about.
Simon as some sort of cowboy when he was perhaps four
In the last five years of his life, he never phoned me unless he wanted something so it was down to me to phone him and whenever I called him he would always bang on about those bloody pictures. I really thought he was mistaken but it turns out that I was wrong.
We did have those pictures after all. They were kind of hidden up in our attic - the jumbled contents of which we tackled just last month ahead of the installation of our new roof. The photos were in a white plastic bag with the name "SIMON" written upon it with a permanent black marker pen.
So yes, now is the time to say "sorry" to Simon and to share with blog visitors four of the photographs I found in that bag. Sadly, I cannot turn the clock back and tell him that he had been right all along. That is how it goes.
Simon in the school football team at Beverley Grammar School
when he was fourteen or fifteen
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/aGH5SPh
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