Or just Auntie Winnie as she was to us.
The eldest child and only daughter of Frederick and Beatrice Blyth, Winnie was born on September 21 1909, not long after her parents’ marriage – but we’ll skate quickly over that….
The family were farming at Gissing, where Frederick appears to have taken over from Winnie’s grandfather Edward Blyth when he died in 1907. A couple of years after Winnie’s birth, her brother Maurice arrived, but there was then a long gap before the family was completed by the birth of Charlie in 1921 and Cyril in 1924, by which time the family had moved to Dickleburgh Hall.
Winnie talked little about her early life, although one tale was oft related: as was customary at the time, as a girl Winnie wore hair in two long braids. She had asked her mother’s permission to have it cut, but had been refused.
Nothing daunted, Winnie concealed herself beneath the kitchen table armed with a large pair of scissors, and sheared off each plait in turn. However furious Beatrice may have been at her daughter’s action, there was nothing she could do but allow Winnie’s hair to be cut short as she had wished.
As Winnie grew older, and with the arrival of the two younger ones, she took on a lot of household responsibilities, for Beatrice was far more a farmer’s wife by nature than a domestic goddess. Indeed, Winnie took such a major role in the upbringing of Charlie and Cyril that as she reached the age when she wished to go out for the evening she could not leave the house until she had put her two brothers to bed and read them their bedtime story – no one else would do.
Her responsibilities increased after her mother’s early death in 1935, and it may be that she remained single longer than she might have done because of her usefulness to her family. There is also a family story that she lost her first love, her cousin Joe, when he married elsewhere – ironically, to another Winnie.
Whatever the reason though, when she did marry it was understandably to a farmer, Stanley Russell. Together they kept Manor Farm in Weybread for many years: it was here that Frederick ended his days, and here where Cyril came to live when he was demobbed after World War II – sadly Charlie never made it through the war or he would no doubt have come to live with his sister too.
It was also at Manor Farm that I first knew Auntie Winnie and Uncle Stanley. I visited regularly with my parents, and remember Honey, the huge Great Dane, slobbering all over the couch while I, aged no more than four, sat at the kitchen table with Uncle Stanley and rolled his cigarettes for him. A skill I no longer have, but a habit which sadly contributed to his early death in 1964, after which Auntie Winnie had to leave Manor Farm.
Much as she loved the farm, Auntie Winnie’s great and enduring love was for her dogs. There were always, apart from Honey, a pack of dogs in and around the farm, most of them Clumber Spaniels. A relatively little- known breed, Winnie became very well known in the doggy world for the Clumbers she bred. Gundogs, they tend to be shaggy and white-haired, rather clumsy in appearance but gentle – traditionally they were used to fetch the kill at hunts and would carry a dead or injured animal in their mouths to this master. Winnie owned a Clumber ( or two or three) almost all her adult life, though she never hunted to my knowledge, and they were some of the most loyal, good-tempered dogs I ever knew.
So when her widowhood forced her to move to a caravan in Weybread, as long as she had her dogs and a large garden to tend, she was happy.
Her other love was for her family, and though she never had children, her nephews and nieces adored her – she was more than an aunt to us – more like an extra doting gran! She would drive over to Dickleburgh every Saturday afternoon and take us kids off our parents’ hands while they were busy in the shop.
These afternoons were spent doing whatever we wanted – shopping for the latest records in Diss (as a lifelong Queen fan, I remember fondly that it was Auntie Winnie who ordered and gave me several of their LPs as soon as they were released); standing at Diss Station watching the trains – that was my brother’s idea, not mine! Playing in the quarry pits at Weybread – unlike Mum, Auntie Winnie seemed not to worry about the possibility of us breaking our necks climbing around; walking the dogs and scouring the hedgerows for primroses or blackberries according to the season.
We would then go back to her caravan for tea where the first challenge was to find somewhere to sit that wasn’t full of old newspapers or dog – Winnie must have inherited her domestic skills from her mother. We ate watching the shows of the day – Mary Tyler Moore and Dr Who were favourites I recall – on her small black and white TV before she took us home: we never really wanted to go home and always looked forwards to our Saturdays with Auntie Winnie.
Auntie Winnie was also an integral part of Christmas – she always spent the day with us and relished Christmas lunch, especially my Dad’s own recipe for rum butter, which basically he saw as a challenge to see how much rum he could beat into the mixture – it was pretty heady stuff!
After allowing him – under token protest – to ladle the butter on to her pudding, we all waited, every year, to see if she would be drunk enough to talk about her rich relations…… she never did, but the family joke was repeated every year without fail.
Only once did Auntie Winnie deviate from her devotion to her Clumbers: this was well into her middle years, after her reputation as a Clumber breeder had been rewarded by her appointment as the President of the Clumber Club of Crufts.
After her sole remaining Clumber died, she decided she would go for variety and have a different breed this time. Hence the appearance of Benji the basenji. Smooth haired where Clumbers are shaggy, fleet of foot where they are clumsy and highly strung where they tend to be placid, a more different dog would be hard to find.
You never took Benji for a walk – he took you. And if he saw or heard something that spooked him, he took you for a run. And boy was he strong, despite his small stature.
About the only time I saw Benji not in charge was one afternoon when he had been turned out into our garden during one of Winnie’s visits. Benji wasn’t sure about finding himself in a strange garden so he ran – and since it was a small garden he ran in circles.
Suddenly our cat Susie appeared on the garden wall. She was clearly about to jump down into her territory but stopped short at the sight of this brown whirling dervish. For a minute or two she crouched as still as only a cat can and watched.
Then, seizing her moment, she leapt from the wall as Benji passed, landed square on his back and dug in all four claws. Poor Benji didn’t know what this thing was, or what to do, so he continued more and more frantically to run round and round trying to dislodge his rider, who only held on more firmly, until we took pity on him and opened the door to shoo her off.
Needless to say, within a few weeks Benji had been found a new home and Auntie Winnie had another Clumber.
In later years age and failing health meant Winnine had to give up her caravan and her independence, much as she baulked against it, and after living with Ruby, her brother Maurice’s widow, for a short time she moved into her own small bungalow in a sheltered housing development. Cosy as her new home was, with no animals allowed and only a small strip of garden it was not her natural habitat.
By now in her late eighties, Winnie knew that her mind was failing and her independence gone, but her strong body kept her going and looked likely to do so for some time, until she suffered a fall and broke her hip. Even then, she came through the operation well, but shortly afterwards a blood clot, probably formed during surgery, switched her off. It was the best way for her to go – painless, dignified and quick.
She was greatly mourned and we still miss her indomitable spirit, strong personality, good advice and wicked sense of humour, as well as her quaint turns of phrase. What the writingpaperblottingpaperpenandinkandsealingwax would she think of this article I wonder?