Roxby

We drive to Roxby, a little square village beside Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire, for the interment of my cousin’s ashes in the churchyard. My main blip is of the village church, all dressed up in its Remembrance Day poppies, all of which, I’m delighted to see, are crocheted.
There is a brief little service outside around a hole in the ground, where a shoebox like object has already been placed. She is not being buried between her husband and her mother - which is what her son wanted. Some rule prevents this. She is put next to a stranger in a new part of the churchyard which is scarcely populated yet. The woman vicar (?) says some prayers without much expression or interest. My cousin Jen deserves better than this. She was an inhabitant and contributor in this community her whole life, until Alzheimer’s. We wander around looking at all the family graves which she is not near - parents, grandparents, the brother who died age 22 (went rowing, couldn’t swim, silly boy, in 1937).
There’s about 25 people (you can see some shadows at the bottom of the blip) - mostly family, some pupils Jen taught- an English teacher in Scunthorpe from the sixties to the noughties. Whenever I went to Scunthorpe with her some middle aged person would stop her in the street and say “Hallo miss, how are you?” One has travelled from Manchester.
Some of us go inside the church for a little look and a remember. So many weddings and funerals have taken place here. The sun makes it look beautiful. See collage. Jen’s sister R has been a gifted musician from childhood. As a teenager, she was the church organist. She sat down, pulled a few knobs (stops?) and played some beautiful music for a while. It’s about 60 years since she played it. Amazing.
We walk around the village - still less than 100 houses. We stand outside the old house, (in the collage) where Jen and R and their mum lived, and I was a regular visitor from about 65 years ago - at first with my parents, then by myself. Travelling on the coach from on London age 9 or 10 with the driver‘keeping an eye on me’.
The downstairs right hand window is where my aunt had her treadle singer sewing machine. They lived on what she earned as a really skilled dressmaker..
We talk about the immense social change in the village in these years. (The 4 teenagers in the group look a bit bored - but they are delightful and gorgeous deep down:-)) Then people lived there because they had some connection with the village- mostly the farms - or other services on the land eg gamekeepers. There was a tiny village school where Jen and R went til they were 11. Farmers were quite well off, everyone else was making do. One or two cars. R went to Oxford to read music - I mention this because at the time she went, there was no bathroom at the house, and an outside toilet in the yard. Quite an unusual background for oxford in those days, maybe even now. We were so proud of her. I remember when the bathroom was built onto the side. My cousin Jen and I decorated with flower power wallpaper, swirly orange flowers. I can see it clearly. It’s 1967, and we are listening to Sergeant Pepper while we work.
Now the village is a place where quite wealthy people live (you have to be) expensive cars outside each house. The village school is now a grand house.I guess you call it a dormitory village.
After we go to Scunthorpe rugby club function room and talk and talk. Memories, support in this and other losses, sharing photos of dogs and cats. Then people head back to wherever - London, Edinburgh, all over. I stay one more night with my cousin M near Gainsborough. There’s a lovely sunset.
Apologies for two things - writing so much (of course for myself really). And for not visiting people’s journals while I’m up here. There literally hasn’t been a second when I wasn’t either talking or listening.