My uncle left a message on our answering machine on 14 March 2020. It was a Saturday evening. “I’m not well, I’m in the hospital, they said it’s Covid.” My dad listened to it the following morning and immediately started getting ready. As he was about to leave, the hospital phoned, saying he needed to come urgently. By the time my dad arrived, my uncle Roy had died.
Roy was the eldest of four brothers, born in Clapham, south London in 1938. My father was the youngest. “It was always good when it was my birthday, because I got a present from them all,” recalls my dad. The brothers were decorators, often working together and mixing in the same social circles. In his final years, Roy moved into a residential care home. He was always out and about in the local shopping centre, never without his daily paper. He and my dad were close, and Roy would often come round for his favourite meals: spaghetti bolognese or a fried egg sandwich.
