Barry Shenton was my Uncle. Being only 8 years older than me though I liked to think of him more as a big brother and this being the case some of my most vivid childhood memories feature him in some way. The first thing that jumps up in my head is the time I took the 144 bus to parkside to visit Nana & Grandad Shenton. The journey itself was always an adventure for me, more so now now when I look back and realise that this was before mobile 'phones - I don't think we even had a landline back then so we'd had no way of letting them know I was on my way to visit...! Anyway, I paid my half-fare and parked on the front seat on the top floor of that double decker bus for my hour-ish long journey. At the other end, I never walked down to their house in Fern Crescent as I didn't want to waste a minute of my visit, so I ran down there as fast as my little legs could go and was tired out by the time I got to my Granda's perfect privet hedge around the front garden. On this particular day though, Nana & Grandad had gone out in the Robin but luckily Uncle Barry was in the front garden cleaning his Motorbike so he looked after me. I 'helped' him clean his bike but I think my attempts to polish up the thing just left little fingerprints where the muck had been - he just laughed about it and said "That'll do for now". So we went inside the house and he fed me, I remember being a bit disappointed that there weren't any of Nana's over-stuffed cup cakes, but Barry managed to find me some of the Fish n Chip crisps that we all used to fight over and a big glass of Barrs Dandelion & Burdock pop - I was over the moon! After a while Barry said that he wasn't sure when Nana & Grandad would be back so he'd better take me home. My face must have been a picture when I realised he meant on his Motorbike because he started laughing again. He put his spare helmet on me and I had to hold it steady with my hands because the weight of it made my head wobbly. He got onto his bike and I climbed on behind him, he told me "hold on to me and don't let go, whatever happens" and started the bike up. That was the first and only time I've ever ridden on a Motorcycle and it was brilliant..! It's not a long journey from Parkside to Ryhope, but I felt so special to have taken it with him, even though I think my mam was more than a little alarmed when we got to our house! It's nice to get this out of my head and into print somewhere - that bike ride was a special event in my life and became a very precious memory when Uncle Barry died. Miss you loads, love you loads more Uncle Barry, Vikki - x