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 Aunt Ada was an epileptic. She had worked at a stocking factory since she was fourteen but at seventeen she began to have 'fits’. Her work mates petitioned the boss to sack her. He was reluctant to do this for she was the best stocking mender he had, however he had to yield in the end.

For a long time he provided Ada with outwork. Her sisters and neighbours too, kept her busy, mending their stockings at thrupence a run. Ada bore no malice to her former work mates perhaps she didn't realise that they were instrumental in getting her the sack.

Ada was a big raw boned woman with fair hair that she frizzed with curling tongs. All the women had curling tongs even my Mam. Mam's were kept in the kitchen drawer with the can opener, odd bottle tops, screw driver and other bits and bobs, but I never saw her use them.

Ada washed her hair at the kitchen sink. I stood on a three-legged stool to pour the rinsing water over. After a vigorous towelling Ada sat leaning towards the fire and combing her hair until it was dry. Then the curling began.

The tongs were heated in the fire and tested on newspaper. If the paper scorched Ada clicked the tongs, like scissors, to cool them before using them on her hair. The whole procedure was accompanied by the twin smells of burning paper and singed hair.

"Damn!", Ada  exclaimed when, by miscalculation, her hair singed and clung to the curling iron. After she had finished she dabbed her forehead with eau-de-Cologne but it didn't get rid of the smell of singed hair or the 'soggy biscuit' body odour.

Ada dressed, winter and summer in either a pink or blue knitted suit that she had made herself, adding a cardigan for extra warmth. If she owned any other garment I never saw her wear it.

When I was small she showed me her box of cards. Not all the cards had been sent to her but she was the one who saved them. There were New Year greetings from France with delicately embroidered envelopes instead of pictures, Valentines from her sisters' young men, birthday cards faced with glossy prints of stars of the silent films and cards from her brothers in the war zones. She promised that one day they would all be mine.

Ada was my best friend and she could not have bequeathed me any greater treasure, for those cards gave me hours of pleasure. From them, sitting on her lap, I learnt to read. Later she taught me to play card games: snap, pairs, knockout whist, ace out and clock patience.

Every night I would hurry from school to Gran's to find Aunt Ada sitting in her rocking chair in the corner by the hearth, her square hands busily knitting or mending stockings. I was fascinated by her skill as she picked up a ladder (run) with a fine hook and darned in the final loop before stroking the repair with the eye of the needle to make it invisible.

Knitting was put aside as soon as the row was finished but stockings couldn't wait, for the only money Ada earned was from these repairs. While I waited I helped Gran by winding cotton thread round pieces of card. The thread was drawn from the masses of lace, magically separating it into ribbons.

Sometimes we had to wait for Grandpa to finish mending a watch, lest we scattered the tiny cogs or minute screws that he carefully lay before him on a piece of black cloth.

It was Ada who taught me 'the facts of life'. A bucket of bloody rags in the outside toilet was explained as necessary for the 'curse' which was not to be feared, since it was nature's way of draining bad blood away. This I knew was true for the blood was dark almost black not like that from cut knees.

She told me I must not let boys know when I had this 'visitor', nor wash my hair nor have a bath. I didn't question this advice since bathing was only a once a week chore and hair could go a fortnight except when 'dicks' (head lice) invaded.

It was Ada who showed me how to fold and pin the rags to my knicker gusset. Sanitary towels, if they existed, were an unknown luxury. What Ada didn't tell me was how those rags chafed the thighs; later I discovered this for myself.

Ada was engaged to be married to a local boy liked by both her parents. Her bottom drawer and her wedding gown were ready but then one night in the dark entry whilst they were kissing goodnight he put his hand up her skirt. She slapped his face. It was the end of the romance and no amount of pleading or appealing to her parents could make her relent. The episode was an insult to her, for she was 'a good girl'.

I didn't tell her that it was what men did. Even little boys wanted to feel your ha'penny, I learnt that on my first day at school.

Aunt Ada's fits increased as she got older She knew when a fit was coming. It was as if a black cloud was coming over her, she told me. If we were sitting at the table she tried move away. Sometimes she would clutch the oilcloth on the table, her long oval nails digging in, tearing it to shreds. Once she had hold, no-one could prise open her fingers. Gran held her arms while all I could do was watch.

Her face became contorted, her lips blue; she frothed at the mouth and thrashed and twisted. If she was standing she usually fell. Occasionally she did not totally lose control but went into a kind of trance.

In this state she walked in front of a bus, the driver swore at her but she didn't hear him. On one occasion the local greengrocer accused her of going into his shop and stealing oranges. When she recovered she cried because she had wet her pants.

One lovely summer's day we took a picnic to the local Arboretum. Ada was so happy as we sat on the grass and opened the bag of sandwiches. We never ate them, for a fit over took her. I grappled with her skirt as she tried to pull it up. It was, I thought, better for her to wet her knickers rather than 'show everything she'd got' especially as it was Sunday.

A kindly onlooker urged me to "Come away", adding that Ada was a bad woman and should be locked up. Tears ran down my face as I rounded on her, "It's you what's bad. You stupid cow! She's my Aunty and she's poorly." The woman gathered up her children and moved away muttering what an uncivilised little hooligan I was and declaring that my Aunt and I should both be locked up.

I saw Aunt Ada angry only once. I was six years old and she had taken me to have my hair cut in an 'Eton Crop' to match her own. She took me home glowing with pride and thinking Mam would be pleased.

Mam was furious, she had always held the forlorn hope that my hair would grow long enough to contort into ringlets. She raved at her sister and at me for allowing it. The quarrel escalated into a fight. Mam was no match for Ada who knocked her back onto the table and with her fingers in Mam's hair slammed her head again and again on the wooden surface. Terrified I ran back to Gran who lived a few doors away.

"Come quick. Ada is killing Mam!" I shouted.

Several times Ada threatened suicide by hanging out of the top bedroom window of their three storey house. Gran clung to her wrists and sent me to fetch the men to help haul her back.

The window cleaner brought his ladder, climbed up and threatened to 'lift her skirt and smack her arse' if she didn't climb back. One of the uncles helped to haul her through the sash window.

The final performance was the occasion when Dad was the only man available and he stood below and shouted, "Right you bugger jump." She didn't but clung on with a superhuman strength. She managed to get herself back in with Gran's assistance but someone called the police and she was taken to the Mental Hospital.

Her sisters tried to persuade Gran to leave her there; my heart was in my mouth as I listened. Every night, on my knees, I prayed to God to make them bring her home. I believed in God then.

Ada came home at last but she was confined to the house. On warm summer days we sat on the front doorstep or played hop scotch on the pavement. When neighbours complained, for no good reason that I could see, Gran fetched us in.

Ada died when I was thirteen. I had no premonition as I visited that Sunday afternoon. Gran was waiting for me.

"Run to Police Station for the doctor," she said. There were no public telephones then, not in our area anyway.

"Your Auntie will be all right". The Policeman said. "She has had these turns before."

I walked back slowly, dreading the look on Gran's face when I told her I had failed to get help.

Ada died, she was the first dead person I saw. She lay in a satin lined coffin in the parlour dressed in her bridal gown. It was hard to believe she was dead. Her cheeks had a faint blue tinge and her lips were dark but not so different as after any fit. I feared she was to be buried alive.

The Aunts all said it was a good thing she had gone first, for no one would have wanted to "take her on". They bought a wreath between them and a separate one from Gran and Grandpa. The neighbours drew their blinds and collected for a wreath. That was the day I learnt a new word: hypocrisy! No one cried except me and I waited until I was alone in the dark.

When war was declared Gran said she was glad that Ada had died before the air raids came; thunder had always terrified her she could not have coped with bombs.

Sometimes, remembering Ada, I slapped the faces of men who put their hands up my skirt. Not always though, unlike Aunt Ada I wasn't a "good girl".

I didn't get the box of cards. Gran gave them to another younger grandchild. She was distressed when she realised I wanted them and gave me a Japanese coffee set from her china cabinet, I still have it but I'd rather have had the box of cards!

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