Joy and Breasts
Without Prejudice
My half Sister, Joyce was the oldest of us "Brucks", we knew of her but had never met her. She was raised by my Maternal Grandmother. Dad had married "some nutter" before my mum, the marriage only lasting a year and producing a child, Joyce or Joy. Dad was away in the war and found out his wife was cheating on him behind his back and was some sort of "nutcase" psychic person, a bit of a gypsy.
Dad must have contacted Grandma Bruckshaw and she went around to the house in Edinburgh and peered through the window. She saw the psychic woman half naked dancing around the room and Joy was fully naked dancing too. The lady went out of the room and Grandma literally reached in and grabbed the baby through the open window and took her home and wouldn't give her back.
Joy was about two at the time. No doubt Grandma contacted the authorities as Joy was allowed to stay. Mum and Dad wanted to adopt her but Grandma wanted to keep her so that was that. By that time Joy would have been about 7.
I heard so much a bout Joy and was dying to meet her and did when my oldest Sister was married in the UK. What a great wedding it was. We had a double story house, an old mews house built of centuries old stone in Ossett near Wakefield. The house was grand with a central staircase coming down, proper landing at the tops, big bedrooms with their own fireplaces, two reception rooms at the bottom, huge kitchen, cellar and a cold larder.
It looked and felt like something out of Downton Abbey. there were stables to one side that had been converted to garages in the twenties. It even had a name. Roseleigh. We loved it there and from there Jackie was married and before the wedding everyone that was coming from other counties stayed there. The house was mad, full of people, and we finally were introduced to our precious half sister we had never met.
She was married by then and had a handsome hubby who at 14 I immediately had a crush on and three children. Joy was beautiful, literally stunning in a Liz Taylor sort of way and looked a lot like Jackie. Joy was also a singer and sang on the BBC, she was a lady, really posh as apparently was My Granny Bruckshaw who had died when I was about 6. I was so sad to not meet my Grandma Bruckshaw.
But there were other relatives there I had never met before, My Uncle Ian from Glasgow, his wife Eileen, and kids, Auntie Gladys and Heather from Scotland, too. It was a real gathering of the clan and I found out I came from the McKenzie Clan. My great grandmother being a McKenzie. My Grandad Bruckshaw I didn't get to meet. He was a grumpy old thing and didn't get on that well with my Dad. He was a bit of a brute and used to hit his kids so I wasn't that keen to meet him, anyway.
Jackie did. Her and Dad did a show up near Scotland, Sunderland, I think, and Jackie said they went to the door and Grand Dad Bruckshaw said to my Dad who he hadn't seen in years,
"What the bloody hell are you doing here ?"
So I was glad I hadn't met him. I had heard he saved a mans life once with his brute strength. Lifted up a car when a man was pinned underneath it, so he was brave but I didn't like the fact that he hit my Dad as a child. Dad said a rude word at the dinner table once when he was about 15 and Grand dad Bruckshaw knocked him across the other side of the room. That day, right then and there my Dad decided he was not going to hit his children and he never did. Well maybe George every now and then, but everyone wanted to hit George as he was so annoying.
But my big half Sister was a gracious lady, with a soft Scottish accent that had never left her. She now lived in Surrey. Later on I was to meet her again and this time she had divorced Ray and had been on her own for about 10 years as a Single Mum, then married her Band Leader, John Fox who was about 20 years older than her. I asked her what had happened to Ray and she was circumspect about the reasons. I had heard through my Yorkshire Aunt that she had found him in bed with another Man and I didn't dare ask her if that was true. By then there was just her and John and they lived in a beautiful house in Banstead.
John was her Composer and Arranger and she and him lived this incredible lifestyle of flying to Europe and performing concerts. He composed and she sang and they gave me a copy of her CD, which I still have. She was lustrous the first time I saw her in 82 and the next time had just had radiation treatment for breast cancer. She was very upset by the whole thing as it was invasive and painful.
I will never forget her asking me to look at her breasts to make sure they were still OK. I was gob smacked at her request but I did it more for her own personal sake than anything else. She just wanted to know if they "looked OK" still and I said Yes. They were exactly like mine except for a smallish scar from the radiation. She said radiation was like a proper tissue thickness burn.
The day she had come home from the first treatment burn John had asked what was for dinner as he couldn't even boil an egg. She said she was livid at his thoughtlessness and sore and upset dragged a dressing gown on and went down to make his dinner. We chatted about that for a while and then she mentioned that John's sister, (The one with all the family money) was a traitor and gossip. When I asked her why it turned out to be quite a story but I'm glad I heard it, sitting on the bed as we were, chatting and giggling like girlfriends.
She had gone abroad with John's Sister to Italy. I can't for the life of me remember her name, but she was a weird one, looked like Mary Poppins and spoke with Joyce Grenfell's Trilling tones. I'll dub her Mary for the purpose of this story. They stayed in a sumptuous hotel on the Italian Riviera, somewhere. Joy and Mary there for three weeks. They dined on the most lavish food and sunbathed at the sparkling pool day after day.
Every night there was dancing and a band. Joy had never felt better and the nights and days were full of magical times, wonderful tours and rays of sun beating down on fair English skin. Joy enjoyed every minute, the wine, the food, the music. Mary and Joy opened up like flowers in daylight and were serenaded by Italian singers every night. Joy said she was so brown as to be almost black and the thought of grey cold England and John seemed a million miles away.
The Hotel Manager ensured the two ladies had the best of times, the most courteous attention from waiters, it was divine and Joy said she didn't want to go home. Mary was funding the trip, it had been her idea. She was a spinster, never having married or had children but she was good and intelligent company. Joy said. One night the Hotel Manager called Joy aside and asked her as a matter of some urgency to come to his office.
Joy was a bit alarmed as to what could be wrong and followed the man dutifully. As soon as she entered the office he asked her to sit down, which she did. He had locked the door behind them with a tiny snap. She wondered what on earth he was doing and what he wanted. He came around to her side of his desk and asked her to stand up. As soon as she did he gathered her into his arms and kissed her. She said it was the most amazing kiss and her toes curled.
He told her he had been watching her and thought she was the most amazing woman, beautiful, soft and he kissed her again and this time she gave back with passion. They had the most torrid 5 minutes or so before someone knocked at the door and they pulled apart. He was handsome, her age and she was breathless from the passionate kissing and sat back down in the chair a little stunned by everything. He had to go he said to her but wanted to see her again.
She dazedly made her way out of the office and down to the dinner table where Mary had been waiting for her impatiently. Sharp eyed Mary looked at Joy and asked her what the Manager had wanted and Joy found her voice and said ,
"Oh, he just wanted to know was everything OK with the room"
Mary had glanced at her shrewdly and said nothing.
The Manager followed Joy around, finding excuses to get her on her own. Joy said it was the best time she had had in 20 years and took her back to her youth. Apparently John was not a romantic in any way shape or form and nothing like this had happened to her since she was a girl. like me she had been fairly protected and chaperoned most of her life. But the kiss she said to me that day we sat on the bed in Banstead, that kiss, was dazzling and she would remember it the rest of her life.
When she arrived home Mary told her Brother all about that had happened in Italy, the Manager, his attention and that she had suspected something had gone on between Joy and him. Joy was so upset as there was hell to pay from John and he was very jealous and spiteful to her for about 12 months. Mary had no reason to do it other than jealousy and I don't think the two women spoke for years.
The next time I was to visit the UK, Joy was better and I was with my husband then. He thought Joy was beautiful also and she took us around to a Castle and a pub and we had the best time. The weather was hot and we did a tour of the castle with her. Apparently Anne Boleyn had lived there once and my Husband was fascinated with all the history of the place and could not get enough of it.
I met Joy once more on 2001, when I was on my way to Ireland, she was still well and on a follow up medication for the breast cancer and was just about to make her 5 year survivor deadline. She was doing all sorts of healthy things as well. Yoga and Tai Chi and she had a man that did some special sort of technique of healing by running his hands around her "aura" of her body.
That time John was a nightmare, very demanding for some reason. Joy was a fabulous cook and made us pineapple meringue on half fresh pineapples. I had not long arrived had gone to bed early as I was so jet lagged I didn't know whether to eat, shit or die. Suddenly there was a screaming of what I thought was an old lady coming up the stairs. It turned out to be John and he was telling off one of the dogs. I sat bolt upright in bed, startled out of my wits.
I thought what a selfish prick he was , he was yelling at Joy as the dog followed her up the stairs and stumbled. The way he was carrying on you would think the house was on fire. I beat my pillow with my fist and knew I would not be getting any sleep that night. Later the next day we went swimming and he asked for a pensioner discount and when he came out of the changing rooms I saw his spindly old mans legs and shuddered. He looked like Montgomery Burns from the Simpsons and I wondered how my half Sister could be married to what was as I felt an "Old Man", rich or not.
I had to go to Yorkshire the next day and they took me to Kings Cross Station, John sat in the car and Joy ran with me down the stairs and waited as I bought my ticket. . I gave her the biggest hug, glad she was on the mend at last and out of the woods with her cancer. I almost pitied her life, here I was flying off to Ireland to see my 12 year virile younger fiance and there she was with an old man, and she was unhappy. I knew it, felt it.
She waved me off and and I her and it was the last time I was ever to see her. The cancer came back and she died very painfully and not that quickly and John remarried in 18 months.. I'm glad she told me her story of the kiss, though, at least I knew she had some true romance as a woman and at the end of the day that is what we women crave. To be swept passionately off our feet and into the arms of a good looking man who kisses us and kisses us, in sunny Italy.;
Love Janette
My half Sister, Joyce was the oldest of us "Brucks", we knew of her but had never met her. She was raised by my Maternal Grandmother. Dad had married "some nutter" before my mum, the marriage only lasting a year and producing a child, Joyce or Joy. Dad was away in the war and found out his wife was cheating on him behind his back and was some sort of "nutcase" psychic person, a bit of a gypsy.
Dad must have contacted Grandma Bruckshaw and she went around to the house in Edinburgh and peered through the window. She saw the psychic woman half naked dancing around the room and Joy was fully naked dancing too. The lady went out of the room and Grandma literally reached in and grabbed the baby through the open window and took her home and wouldn't give her back.
Joy was about two at the time. No doubt Grandma contacted the authorities as Joy was allowed to stay. Mum and Dad wanted to adopt her but Grandma wanted to keep her so that was that. By that time Joy would have been about 7.
I heard so much a bout Joy and was dying to meet her and did when my oldest Sister was married in the UK. What a great wedding it was. We had a double story house, an old mews house built of centuries old stone in Ossett near Wakefield. The house was grand with a central staircase coming down, proper landing at the tops, big bedrooms with their own fireplaces, two reception rooms at the bottom, huge kitchen, cellar and a cold larder.
It looked and felt like something out of Downton Abbey. there were stables to one side that had been converted to garages in the twenties. It even had a name. Roseleigh. We loved it there and from there Jackie was married and before the wedding everyone that was coming from other counties stayed there. The house was mad, full of people, and we finally were introduced to our precious half sister we had never met.
She was married by then and had a handsome hubby who at 14 I immediately had a crush on and three children. Joy was beautiful, literally stunning in a Liz Taylor sort of way and looked a lot like Jackie. Joy was also a singer and sang on the BBC, she was a lady, really posh as apparently was My Granny Bruckshaw who had died when I was about 6. I was so sad to not meet my Grandma Bruckshaw.
But there were other relatives there I had never met before, My Uncle Ian from Glasgow, his wife Eileen, and kids, Auntie Gladys and Heather from Scotland, too. It was a real gathering of the clan and I found out I came from the McKenzie Clan. My great grandmother being a McKenzie. My Grandad Bruckshaw I didn't get to meet. He was a grumpy old thing and didn't get on that well with my Dad. He was a bit of a brute and used to hit his kids so I wasn't that keen to meet him, anyway.
Jackie did. Her and Dad did a show up near Scotland, Sunderland, I think, and Jackie said they went to the door and Grand Dad Bruckshaw said to my Dad who he hadn't seen in years,
"What the bloody hell are you doing here ?"
So I was glad I hadn't met him. I had heard he saved a mans life once with his brute strength. Lifted up a car when a man was pinned underneath it, so he was brave but I didn't like the fact that he hit my Dad as a child. Dad said a rude word at the dinner table once when he was about 15 and Grand dad Bruckshaw knocked him across the other side of the room. That day, right then and there my Dad decided he was not going to hit his children and he never did. Well maybe George every now and then, but everyone wanted to hit George as he was so annoying.
But my big half Sister was a gracious lady, with a soft Scottish accent that had never left her. She now lived in Surrey. Later on I was to meet her again and this time she had divorced Ray and had been on her own for about 10 years as a Single Mum, then married her Band Leader, John Fox who was about 20 years older than her. I asked her what had happened to Ray and she was circumspect about the reasons. I had heard through my Yorkshire Aunt that she had found him in bed with another Man and I didn't dare ask her if that was true. By then there was just her and John and they lived in a beautiful house in Banstead.
John was her Composer and Arranger and she and him lived this incredible lifestyle of flying to Europe and performing concerts. He composed and she sang and they gave me a copy of her CD, which I still have. She was lustrous the first time I saw her in 82 and the next time had just had radiation treatment for breast cancer. She was very upset by the whole thing as it was invasive and painful.
I will never forget her asking me to look at her breasts to make sure they were still OK. I was gob smacked at her request but I did it more for her own personal sake than anything else. She just wanted to know if they "looked OK" still and I said Yes. They were exactly like mine except for a smallish scar from the radiation. She said radiation was like a proper tissue thickness burn.
The day she had come home from the first treatment burn John had asked what was for dinner as he couldn't even boil an egg. She said she was livid at his thoughtlessness and sore and upset dragged a dressing gown on and went down to make his dinner. We chatted about that for a while and then she mentioned that John's sister, (The one with all the family money) was a traitor and gossip. When I asked her why it turned out to be quite a story but I'm glad I heard it, sitting on the bed as we were, chatting and giggling like girlfriends.
She had gone abroad with John's Sister to Italy. I can't for the life of me remember her name, but she was a weird one, looked like Mary Poppins and spoke with Joyce Grenfell's Trilling tones. I'll dub her Mary for the purpose of this story. They stayed in a sumptuous hotel on the Italian Riviera, somewhere. Joy and Mary there for three weeks. They dined on the most lavish food and sunbathed at the sparkling pool day after day.
Every night there was dancing and a band. Joy had never felt better and the nights and days were full of magical times, wonderful tours and rays of sun beating down on fair English skin. Joy enjoyed every minute, the wine, the food, the music. Mary and Joy opened up like flowers in daylight and were serenaded by Italian singers every night. Joy said she was so brown as to be almost black and the thought of grey cold England and John seemed a million miles away.
The Hotel Manager ensured the two ladies had the best of times, the most courteous attention from waiters, it was divine and Joy said she didn't want to go home. Mary was funding the trip, it had been her idea. She was a spinster, never having married or had children but she was good and intelligent company. Joy said. One night the Hotel Manager called Joy aside and asked her as a matter of some urgency to come to his office.
Joy was a bit alarmed as to what could be wrong and followed the man dutifully. As soon as she entered the office he asked her to sit down, which she did. He had locked the door behind them with a tiny snap. She wondered what on earth he was doing and what he wanted. He came around to her side of his desk and asked her to stand up. As soon as she did he gathered her into his arms and kissed her. She said it was the most amazing kiss and her toes curled.
He told her he had been watching her and thought she was the most amazing woman, beautiful, soft and he kissed her again and this time she gave back with passion. They had the most torrid 5 minutes or so before someone knocked at the door and they pulled apart. He was handsome, her age and she was breathless from the passionate kissing and sat back down in the chair a little stunned by everything. He had to go he said to her but wanted to see her again.
She dazedly made her way out of the office and down to the dinner table where Mary had been waiting for her impatiently. Sharp eyed Mary looked at Joy and asked her what the Manager had wanted and Joy found her voice and said ,
"Oh, he just wanted to know was everything OK with the room"
Mary had glanced at her shrewdly and said nothing.
The Manager followed Joy around, finding excuses to get her on her own. Joy said it was the best time she had had in 20 years and took her back to her youth. Apparently John was not a romantic in any way shape or form and nothing like this had happened to her since she was a girl. like me she had been fairly protected and chaperoned most of her life. But the kiss she said to me that day we sat on the bed in Banstead, that kiss, was dazzling and she would remember it the rest of her life.
When she arrived home Mary told her Brother all about that had happened in Italy, the Manager, his attention and that she had suspected something had gone on between Joy and him. Joy was so upset as there was hell to pay from John and he was very jealous and spiteful to her for about 12 months. Mary had no reason to do it other than jealousy and I don't think the two women spoke for years.
The next time I was to visit the UK, Joy was better and I was with my husband then. He thought Joy was beautiful also and she took us around to a Castle and a pub and we had the best time. The weather was hot and we did a tour of the castle with her. Apparently Anne Boleyn had lived there once and my Husband was fascinated with all the history of the place and could not get enough of it.
I met Joy once more on 2001, when I was on my way to Ireland, she was still well and on a follow up medication for the breast cancer and was just about to make her 5 year survivor deadline. She was doing all sorts of healthy things as well. Yoga and Tai Chi and she had a man that did some special sort of technique of healing by running his hands around her "aura" of her body.
That time John was a nightmare, very demanding for some reason. Joy was a fabulous cook and made us pineapple meringue on half fresh pineapples. I had not long arrived had gone to bed early as I was so jet lagged I didn't know whether to eat, shit or die. Suddenly there was a screaming of what I thought was an old lady coming up the stairs. It turned out to be John and he was telling off one of the dogs. I sat bolt upright in bed, startled out of my wits.
I thought what a selfish prick he was , he was yelling at Joy as the dog followed her up the stairs and stumbled. The way he was carrying on you would think the house was on fire. I beat my pillow with my fist and knew I would not be getting any sleep that night. Later the next day we went swimming and he asked for a pensioner discount and when he came out of the changing rooms I saw his spindly old mans legs and shuddered. He looked like Montgomery Burns from the Simpsons and I wondered how my half Sister could be married to what was as I felt an "Old Man", rich or not.
I had to go to Yorkshire the next day and they took me to Kings Cross Station, John sat in the car and Joy ran with me down the stairs and waited as I bought my ticket. . I gave her the biggest hug, glad she was on the mend at last and out of the woods with her cancer. I almost pitied her life, here I was flying off to Ireland to see my 12 year virile younger fiance and there she was with an old man, and she was unhappy. I knew it, felt it.
She waved me off and and I her and it was the last time I was ever to see her. The cancer came back and she died very painfully and not that quickly and John remarried in 18 months.. I'm glad she told me her story of the kiss, though, at least I knew she had some true romance as a woman and at the end of the day that is what we women crave. To be swept passionately off our feet and into the arms of a good looking man who kisses us and kisses us, in sunny Italy.;
Love Janette
