Alfred Robinson, Uncle Happy
Alfred was the uncle of the Rev Brame, and lived in the same row of cottages on Church Walk. Leslie’s mother Ruth was a younger sister of Alfred. His exact date of birth is unknow but end of the 1800s? He married Emily and had 2 daughters, Edith and Doris. Read Leslie’s description of Uncle Happy or what he wrote about Alfred, the professional thatcher .
Emily died before Leslie Brame was old enough to know much about her but he said that after her death it was expected their daughters would look after their father.
Edie did for a time till she married Arthur Dent, after he diappeared Edith remained with her mother-in-law living on the Green.
After her sister Edie could no long er look after their father Dorrie was expected to take over but after many years working as a ‘lady’s maid’ working in gentlemen’s houses she ‘talked like a lady, dressed like a lady and behaved like a lady’ and Leslie wrote‘ looking after a country farmhand was not her speciality’.
Not sure of the date (possibly in the 1930s) but in his As I Remember It, the Rev Brame tells us that his cousin Dorrie (daughter of Alfred Robinson), following a diagnosis of advanced cancer of the bowel had a colostomy. ‘at that time a new procedure…leaving her with a bag of faeces which she had to empty and dispose of frequently. that was a very unladylike arrangement that she hated.’ Sadly it was too much for her and she is thought to have committed suicide.
