Heroes... my Uncle Dennis…

Back in the sixties, yes I said the sixties, I had a hero. Well, I had a few really – Dan Dare, Dennis the Mennis, the Lone Ranger, but this one wore a leather jacket, roared around on a motorbike, seemed to know a little about everything, and talked to me about space – outer space that is, the planets, the moon, and rockets and stuff. I didn’t see him often - he lived far away in Lincolnshire and we lived in Oxon, Oxfordshire for those of you who may not have heard that some towns are allowed to use this royal alternative.

My uncle Dennis popped in and out of my life for a few years bringing excitement and thrills each time he turned up. He wore leather and jeans, and he was so cool, not that cool was a word I understood or used back then, but he was very cool despite his glasses. He’d roll up on his motorbike sounding like thunder, shattering the peace of our estate like some kind of Jimmy Dean, a real ton-up lad, a rocker and all the other estate kids would come to see – fantastic!

Yes, Uncle Dennis was a real biker, well at least he was in my mind although I think he worked as a bookkeeper. Either way, not only was he cool but clever too.

He was always interested, asking about what I was reading, studying my latest model kit, talking to me about my latest drawing. I think he told me about Andy Warhol, at least I can never think of him without linking the two in my mind. He was the first adult that talked to me like I was a real person, not just a kid and I knew that he wasn’t joking.

Uncle Dennis, my auntie Shirley’s husband, a man of letters and numbers, a biker, more friend than uncle even though I was only five or six.

Later the motorbike became a motorbike and sidecar, and later still, a three wheeler - a blue (or was it red?) Robin I think. I don’t think he ever bothered to drive a car. Well, why would he? He was a biker. Throughout these changes though Uncle Dennis didn’t change in my mind, he was always cool - double cool, triple cool even.

Somewhere there’s an old black and white photograph of him standing outside our house in Kings Close, number 57 I think, not number 53 we moved there later. He’s wearing a white nylon shirt and black tapered trousers. His arms are firmly folded across his chest and he’s perched, one foot on the ground, on the saddle of his bike – a BSA I think. He’s looking directly at the camera, straight at it and he isn’t smiling, he’s looking cool, he always looked cool.

That picture seems to have vanished along with all the other bits of the past that resided in our old blue photo album, the one with the blue tassle marker and the cellophane photo hinges that never seemed to hold the photos in place. My mum says it’s around somewhere. I really hope it is, it holds so many people in its battered covers and Uncle Dennis is one of them - frozen in time leaning against his bike on a sunny afternoon so very long ago.

And then one day I heard that he had died. I don’t remember exactly when and I don’t remember exactly how I heard – we didn’t have a phone at the time. Something to do with his brain, an embolism I think. Uncle Dennis had complained of a thumping pain in his head and a short while later he was gone. Uncle Dennis my friend and early mentor - another word I wouldn’t have used back then and only recognise him for what he was now.

I didn’t go to the funeral. I was too young, and I’m not at all sure that all of the above is totally accurate. But it is in my mind and that’s what counts. In my mind Dennis lives on - the motorbikes, the coolness, his leather jacket and his friendship. I’m very sure about that.

I was given his leather jacket by my Auntie Shirley, I think it had tassels on the arms but that may be my fantasy. It hung in my wardrobe for years in the dark. Sometimes I’d take it out and put it on, wishing that I was old enough to make it fit. It smelt of leather, and bike, and oil. It smelt of Uncle Dennis.

I kept it for years and then, I don’t know why, I let my Uncle Bob have it. He rode a motorbike, and leathers need speed, and I knew I’d never ride one. And I never have. I wasn’t my uncle Dennis. I’ve simply never been that cool.