A Wonderful Uncle

Posting this on 16th December 2017 on Uncle Jochen's birthday.

I have mentioned and Bliped my wonderful Uncle Jochen a few times in the past. He was born during WWII, a step brother to my mother and her brother Georg. The father of the eldest two had died before the war and my grandmother remarried. Her second husband and Jochen's father died on the Russian front and thus Jochen never got to know his father.

But having different fathers never was an issue for the very tight-knit family who survived the war having moved away from the heavy bombing around the industrial areas of Dortmund to the countryside near Kassel and then finally to a small town. Weinheim on the Bergstrasse, near Heidelberg where he grew up, went to school and then later University in Heidelberg.

I have mentioned in previous Blips that Jochen, although only 14 years older than I, became a sort of stand-in father. Could almost have been brothers and over the years he was to cause much confusion to people (always in bars) saying I was his son or brother. As a student and single he dragged the brat around from bar to bar, from cinema to cinema, even putting up with "Lassie" and taking the tram to Mannheim to see it. I think in the later 60's he took me to see Andy Warhol's "Flesh"! I went with him to Jazz cellars, skiing, swimming in the local outdoor baths and sitting around on the grass with his friends and a wind-up gramophone player, cultural events, wine & grill does with his friends and lots more bars and all over the place and he looked after me wonderfully.

I keep saying it every year ...... I must go and visit him. I MUST.

Happy Birthday dear Jochen and I hope you have a wonderful day with Auntie Gerda and cousin Katrin.

In the photo, Jochen was on a business trip to the UK to visit the Printing trade exhibition in Birmingham and stopped off for a night to visit. He worked then for MAN in their printing press machine manufacturing business, MAN-Roland nowadays "manroland". Jochen was in the public relations part as it fitted his love of cultural matters - text, paintings, music etc. and from all over Europe, north to south and east to west and even England! He naturally amongst other languages, speaks perfect English.

PS In the background the awful coloured Ford Fiesta we bought new sometime around 1980 to replace my wife's worn out old Mini van (windowless rear side) which I think was given to her by her brother after he had moved on to a "family car"  - "Signal Orange" I think they called it. I was lucky enough to also have a company car.