The biggest treat

There is one food item I always associate with childhood treats: tinned red salmon.

It's still an expensive item, and these days I prefer fresh salmon, lightly cooked, served with small new potatoes, asparagus spears and mayonnaise. However, when I was a child, it always made an appearance for "high days and holidays".

I remember one special occasion at my Aunt Jane's. Her daughter, Pat, and her family was visiting on what the RAF call "R&R". They were on posting in Germany at this stage: Pat's husband Al was in the RAF, having done his National Service in that force and liked it so much he signed up to stay on. At this stage they had two children and were looking to settle permanently in this country, and so they were back looking at houses within easy reach of RAF Hartlebury, where he had applied to.

Their two children were born either side of me: Gaz was 9 months older, and Tone was 15 months younger than me. Gaz and I looked like two peas from the same pod, and we grew up as close as siblings.

So today Mom took me to Aunt Jane's for lunch with Pat, Gaz and Tone. We had tinned red salmon, mashed up with vinegar, thinly sliced cucumber, thin white bread and butter, and butterfly cakes which Mom and I had cooked the day before. The day was memorable for two events.

The first was that Pat ate one of the little vertebrae in the salmon. I was shocked! Didn't Mom tell me that fish bones were bad for you? Not these, Pat said. Because they'd come from a tin they were crunchy and safe! I tried one. She was right!

The second event was Al coming back from his interview, in his RAF uniform. I'd never seen a man in uniform close up before! He looked so dapper. He rushed upstairs to get changed, and came back downstairs in a pair of beige slacks. Then he stood by the front door having a smoke.

Oh no! Aunt Jane's poodle Snowy came and sniffed his slacks. Then he cocked his leg and peed against his slacks! No doubt Snowy could smell Butch the boxer on the slacks. (Butch was in quarantine kennels, but they had been to see him earlier in the week.) Al had to go upstairs and change his slacks - but the only other trousers he had was his uniform ones. So he had to wear those while the slacks were cleaned.

Patricia May Holding Varndell 1937 - 2012 rest in peace my favourite cousin xxx