Family matters

My friend Sharon may have become a (very young) great-grandmother, which is no doubt a cause of great excitement for her, but I have my own exciting family news; a long-lost cousin has appeared in my life. Now don't get me wrong: I have fifteen cousins, by which I mean the offspring of uncles and aunts, and probably countless second, third and fourth cousins, most of whom are completely unknown to me, but even most of my first cousins are pretty much strangers to me. There is one with whom I am in reasonably frequent contact, another with whom I exchange cards at Christmas, and yet another who lives only 20 miles away from me but whom I meet only at family funerals, but I could trip over most of the others in the gutter and not recognise them. I don't even know which country some of them live in.

This particular story starts almost sixty ears ago when my father's only sister announced that she wanted nothing more to do with any of the family and that if any of them wanted to contact her in the future, they could do so through her bank. Although I never knew the cause of the rift, I have always assumed it had something to do with her marriage as it occurred at about that time. Anyway, my mother, who had been very close to her sister-in-law, managed to stay in contact and I know we visited the aunt on one occasion and understand that my mother visited on another after a child was born. I suspect that my mother tried to heal the rift, but only succeeded in making matters worse by being told that she was no longer welcome. Years later, my brother managed to track done said aunt and phoned her, only to be given the cold shoulder. I discovered that aunt's husband had died, and that the daughter had joined the army and later married. I even knew her married name, but it is too common a name for her to be traced easily.

Then, out of the blue, another aunt rang - something previously unheard of, the only contact between us having been after my mother's death. My cousin had been in touch with her, wanting to learn about her grandparents. The second aunt wondered if she could put cousin in touch with me. 'Of course,' replied the Old Bat, who had taken the call while I was out.

A couple of days later, I received a letter from the cousin and we subsequently spoke on the phone. I have now undertaken to tell her what I can about our family, her mother never having spoken of it, and we have promised each other to meet up when the opportunity arises, which shouldn't be too far off.

All that over a couple of phone calls and a letter!