Ivor was my mother’s father’s brother. Everyone called him Ive. I remember Ive being small and thin, with a half-empty pint of beer on the table in front of him. We mostly saw him and his wife Clara on family occasions when beer was involved.

Clara was, by contrast, large and fat. She drank stout. Ive and Clara were the living image of all those fat lady/ thin man picture postcards you saw on trips to the seaside. (What was so amusing about the image of a fat lady?)

We only saw them on family occasions, but heard their names frequently. I think they were weekly members of the Saturday night out at the pub – out in the countryside at nearby Auburn, with my grandad, his second wife and the one of my parents who wasn’t babysitting.

In the 1950s there was no problem in going to the pub in the countryside, having a few pints and coming back slightly merry. This was even true when I first started driving in the 1960s. Breathalyzers were first introduced in the UK in 1967.

Featured image is of the present-day Royal Oak in Auburn.