Robert Reynolds and Aunty Audrey

Today is Robert Earl Reynolds birthday, and I wish him very many happy returns. Robert is a musician, singer and song writer, member of the Mavericks and has toured countless times with Kevin Montgomery and the Roadtrippers. Robert has released two CDs, “Wintersky Works” and “Audrey in a Dream”.

My Aunty Audrey was mum mum’s eldest sister. She was born in 1920 in Willesden,  London, the second in a family of four children. She lived in many places but settled in Cambridge and lived in Grayling Close Chesterton from 1961 until her death six years ago. She was my god-mother and a wonderful aunty to me, my sister and all my cousins. When I was about four or five she had a Christmas tea party for me and my cousin Diana. She continued to do this year after year as the family grew and now we still continue to have our annual family Christmas party each year… but more of that in another post.

Robert’s CD “Audrey in a Dream” contained a song of that name and I always thought of my Aunty Audrey when I listened to it. She had been ill for several years before she died and when eventually she left us in April 2006, we wanted to mark her passing with a celebration of her life. At her funeral, her husband, my uncle, asked me to say a few words. It was so hard, how could I express all that we felt about her? I was wondering about what to write when a poem came to me, inspired partly by Robert’s song. From writing that poem I was then able to write something for the service and I wrote a letter to her which I read out at the funeral.

I will share the poem another time because this is Robert’s day; thank you, Robert, for the title; I hope you don’t mind me using it. If you had known Aunty Audrey I am sure you would have loved her.