Thora Hird was my aunt
1749-2003
It seemed to me that most right-thinking people were disturbed and/or unsettled by Thora Hird but most of them (and they should thank the blooming Lord from the lowest of their intestines for this) were not actually related to the carrier bag jawed sea-urchin. I suffered that misfortune on a daily basis.
I'm her nephew.
Most people hated her. And that's even before they heard the shocking truth about her. The shocking truth that I will reveal in the coming weeks. There were a large number of misconceptions about Thora Hird. Uppermost in my mind of these (but, ironically, lowermost in her abortive physical presence) was the wrong-headed belief that she had legs. This wasn't true.
Since 1996 when Thora was understandably hit, on purpose, by the good natured and speeding driver of a Ford Ka she hadn't actually had any legs. The lower limbs had been reduced to ragged weeping stumps which extend no further than three inches from the crotch on the inside and essentially follow the line of the buttock on the outside. Those terrifying flanks of kebab house spindle-meat you saw on television were added later by the team currently shooting to fakery with Walking With Dinosaurs. It was the experience gained perfecting the monstrous gait of Thora that was put to such good use when recreating the stride of the brontosaurus. She used to joke with us that she got royalties every time you see one take a step but we knew she was just being a stupid bitch.
The thing that bothers me was how she got around. It wasn't natural. She'd made it clear to mother in her cacky way that "normal methods wouldn't suit her". I can't say I was happy (being happy around Thora was nigh on impossible) to wheel her around in a wheel-chair but I would do it. Out of a sense of duty if nothing else. Perhaps with the vague hope that some mishap would occur on a steep hill. The thought of her tottering around on false-pins did nothing for my digestive system either but I'd much rather attach stocking to prosthetic with drawing pins than witness her chosen method of surrogate perambulation.
Listen.
It was always with a heavy sigh that myself and mother and father would gather ourselves and some reading matter into the car and head off to visit Thora on a Sunday. It was never pleasant. On this particular week, however, mother had received a phone call from Thora the previous night. Thora, mother reported to us over an evening's offal, was feeling in high spirits; she was getting around now and feeling a new sense of freedom. Father and I exchanged glances. When I looked back at my offal I noticed he'd pinched it when I'd been looking into his face. I was determined not to care but three years later I deliberately trained my son to hit him repeatedly in the knackers with a plastic baseball bat as he slept after Christmas dinner.
It was a warm day as we headed to Thora's. Mother always tried to remain upbeat. She passed father and I a sweating boiled sweet each from a tin sitting on the baked dash board. I'd taken with me John Virgo's autobiography to keep me entertained throughout the day and I sat reading it on the sticky leather of the back seat. "It'll be nice to see her up and about again," mother said. Father and I exchanged glances in the rear-view mirror and when he looked away I found that the boiled sweet had gone from between my cheeks. I asked mother to pass me another. I'd been secretly pleased that Thora hadn't been able to move because it meant I could escape to the other room with my book if I wanted to. But I tried to be enthusiastic for mother.
As we pulled up in the car with the windows open we could hear a squeaking noise coming from within the house. She lived on a quiet road. "Sounds like she has got a chair after all," said mother. Father tried but failed to exchange a glance with me and I determinedly sucked the sweet extra hard. Then I bit into it and crunched it up. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable and anxious. I knew it was more than the heat.
We piled out, gathered our things together and with the slamming of the car boot signalling we now 'had everything' headed towards the door. My father had a key and he raised it to the lock. As the squeaks agitated our ears he pushed the door open.
I looked into the house over my father's shoulder and into the passage beyond.
I recall it all now only as a series of still images:
The first appears very much like an empty meat locker but with regularly spaced stirrups suspended near to the ceiling, some with chains, others with rope, yet others with what appewered to be dressing gown cord. They threw eerie dangling shapes upon the banal lavender wallpaper.
The second image, again, evokes a meat locker but with one beaten up and distressed mangy animal strung up by the wrist, the body contorted as if in desparation to escape. The angle suggesting inertia; a conveyor of some kind bringing its grim cargo in an arc from living room to front door. Thora's nostrils flaring, chin-wattle horribly askew like a pelican standing side on in a wind tunnel. I was sent careering backwards with shock.
The third image I remember most vividly as if from the perspective of someone who has just fallen against a garden gate about fifteen feet from an event and was looking upwards toward it; which was precisely what I was doing. It was of my father's head clamped between two mis-shapen and slippery stumps, Thora's skirt billowing at the front and trailing like a floral stingray behind.
I remember thinking very solemnly at the time: "There was no reassuring glimpse of M&S white cotton."
The stench of cowboy plumbing flooded my nostrils and I knew that my father would never be the same. After that day I didn't exchange glances with my father ever again. But not because I wanted to protect my offal or boiled sweets. Looking at him I felt he knew that something vital had been taken away from him and no amount of petty pilfering was ever going to restore it.
So don't tell me about fucking Thora Hird. You don't know the half of it.
But you will if you tune in... NEXT WEEK: Alan Bennett and the real reason for his visits. Until next time: Bye Bye!
Thora Hird's nephew was talking to Marge Eye-Nap. "Enrage my ape!", urges Ms Eye-Nap.