My step-sister died on Good Friday. Mine was a family of secrets and lies, secrets about names, especially of those who had died. There were lies about where people had come from and the actually very historically evident members of the family whose existence I’ve had to deduce online. I appreciate that in some ways a dead wife or girlfriend has the most massive advantage over a living one; you can’t have an absolutely massive row about the bins or the particularly idiotic choice of nail varnish colour that might suit a shop-girl 40 years younger but will hardly do for this dinner party, will it? And all the other can’t-speak-ill-of-the-dead stuff that applies. Being dead means never getting older, never putting on weight, never being called that fat cow/stupid bitch/totally mad woman ever again, by absolutely anyone who doesn’t want the entire room freezing them out for the next half hour as an absolute minimum. They’re literally beyond criticism.
None of this, I have to say, applies to my step-sister. It certainly did to her mother, who died over fifty years ago. Until this week, I didn’t know her name, nor when she died. There were two photos in the house in Trowbridge, both showing my step-sister and her brother and the mystery woman whose name was never to be spoken. If it wasn’t actually that then it certainly never was spoken in my hearing. It certainly did to a friend’s Dead French Girlfriend, who he’d talk about when he had drink taken, as it’s sometimes put. He told me once he thought and had reason to think that she’d died carrying his baby, but by then she was engaged to someone French, the past is another country, and besides, the wench is dead. His wife hated Dead French Girlfriend’s name even being mentioned. But omissions are no better than lies. Discuss.
My step-sister didn’t do lies, nor so far as I know, omissions. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of years, but then again, thanks to Covid, who has? And just like Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, you don’t know what you had till it’s gone.
She was ten years older than me. I wrote about her once. When I was 18 she seemed like looking at a still from a film I hadn’t seen. I knew I would, whether or not it was quite the same, as it turned out not quite to be.
My partner Elisabetta and I dreamed last night, two sides of the same dream. We dreamed about cats and teddy bears. We don’t have a cat. In her dream as she said, “They weren’t real. They were like jelly babies.”
The cat in my dream died seventeen years ago. Even as I write that I think it can’t be true, but it is. My big teddy bear was exactly himself in the dream. So was my lovely cat, except that they were walking to the top of a sunny hill, hand in hand, like Piglet and Pooh, as I followed close behind them.
They had captions in my dream, probably because I speak only a bit of get-you-by Cat and even less fluent Teddy Bear. Hardly any, in fact.
One said, “What should we do?”
The other replied, “Help each other, until we go back into the dark.”
Elisabetta was crying out in her sleep. I woke having to bite my lip really quite hard , then find my big teddy bear and pat his foot, to make sure he wasn’t moving. He was still there, where I knew he was. My step-sister not so.
Christmas 1980 Carl Bennett and Celia Scholes 1949 – 2022
Hi Carl — I was searching on-line for Celia J Scholes (née Norris, born 1949, in Trowbridge, Wilts). She married a former academic colleague who I knew very well much earlier, John H Scholes — they married in Trowbridge. She was John’s second wife, lived in Islington and had two children who would now be in their 20s.
I just came across your interesting rather dark post of 11 May 2022 about your little known step-sister “Celia Scholes (1949-2022)” in which you mention the house in Trowbridge, which, with her born in 1949 seems to fit. From your information, was this the same Celia Scholes? — if so , she has indeed died and I can stop looking. I actually got into this when I discovered very recently, belatedly, from the E&W Death Index that John had died in London in April 2023. This would explain why he failed to reply to my email sent him in May 2023. Too late now.
I’d be interested if you can confirm that we both have the same Celia Scholes. I think she trained as a lawyer.
Cheers,
Steve Shaw. srshaw@dal.ca 30 April 2026
Hello, very sadly, yes, Celia was my step-Sister and died in 2022. I think everyone thought John would be the first, not least as he was totally bed-ridden with several strokes by the time Celia died, leaving his son Ashford and partner to care for him in Islington. She’s very much missed. I’m actually closing this blog soon, but there is a lot of family exploration continuing on my Substack, Another Little Boy. I’ve actually just finished writing up something that happened twenty years before Celia told me the house in Trowbridge was haunted. I’d thought it was just me who had experienced that.
Just as a follow-up, both children, Clarissa (40) and Ashford (38) are alive and well although Clarissa has the misfortune to live in the USA. Celia did train as a solicitor, gave that up to have children then spent many years teaching in East London.