In memoriam Violet Bruce (29.2.1920 - 26.11.2005)

• Her infectiously, wicked cackle of a laugh


• A cracking meat pie and pease pudding


• Fantastic baking


• A voracious and skilled knitter


• Sequence dancing with grandad down at The Comrades – they did an amazing quickstep.


• The image of her falling through a deckchair in our back garden in the late 70s! We shouldn’t have laughed but it was very funny – she was stuck for some time …


• Getting worryingly over excited at the wrestling on a Saturday afternoon TV!


• Lots of singing together – daft songs, proper songs and Cushie Butterfield on a regular basis.


• The time she reprimanded my mum for letting me watch "Wuthering Heights" because it had upset me so much I cried. Bear in mind that I used to cry every week at Little House on the Prairie!


• Knowing that I was & always would be her bonny lass.
  
  My Gran. Forever alive in my memories.
  
  Cushie Butterfield ...
  
  I'm a broken hearted keelman, an' I'm o'er head in love,
  With a young lass from Gateshead, an' I caal her me dove.
  Her name is Cushie Butterfield, an' she sells yella clay,
  An' her cousin is a muckman, an' they caal him Tom Gray.
  
  CHORUS:-
  She's a big lass, she's a bonny lass, an' she likes hor beer,
  An' they caal her Cushie Butterfield, an' I wish she was here.
  
  Her eyes are like two holes in a blanket pulled through,
  An' her breath in the mornin' would scare a young coo.
  An' when a hear 'er shoutin' - willya buy any clay?
  Like a candyman's trumpet - steals me young heart away.
  
  CHORUS
  
  Ye'll see her doon Sandgate when the fresh herring comes in,
  She's like a bag full o' sawdust tied roond with a string.
  She wears big galoshes, and 'er stockings was once white,
  An' her bedgoon it's lilac, an' her hat's nivvor strite.
  
  CHORUS
  
  When I asked her to marry uz, she started to laugh,
  "Noo, nyen o' yer monkey tricks, for ah like nee sic chaff".
  Then she started a bubblin an' roared like a bull,
  An' the chaps on the keel sez aa'm nowt but a fyeul.
  
  CHORUS
  
  She said "the chap that gets uz will have te work ivvery day,
  An' when he comes hyem at neet, he'll have te gan an' seek clay.
  An' when he's away seekin it, aall myek baalls an' sing,
  O weel make the keel row that my laddie's in".
  
  CHORUS