It all began when Jane and I realised that my brother Barrie, was going to be the world’s worst at asking out any girl for a date, so we decided we had better grease the wheels a bit and introduce him to Tina, our ever-reliable baby-sitter. Tina had been introduced to us, courtesy of Jenny, who sat for the next-door neighbours, who in turn had been introduced by Debbie who sat for a friend of theirs up the road. Nobody realised at the time, that the Hanratty sisters, in fact, had a 90% market share of the babysitting business in the New Barnet area.
Tina and Barrie proved to be a perfect match and, eventually they married.
Tina was one of the most contented people you could ever meet and had mastered the enviable art of being very happy with what she had, with the exception of, perhaps, the kitchen. In fact, one of her last directives to Barrie, was to please make sure he got the bloody kitchen finished!
We enjoyed many good times together, with Tina always acting as the voice of calm and reason.
One day we all went out for an unseasonal family picnic in May, to, of all places, Frinton-on-sea.
It was a very cold and blustery day and the sea was quite spectacular, so some of us decided we wanted a closer look and made our way down to the esplanade. Tina decided to come with us, which proved to be a huge mistake. As we stood there admiring the power of the waves, a particularly large one came in, hit the sea wall, went straight up in the air and came down depositing itself, mostly on Tina, soaking her right through to the skin.
As ever, she took it with very good humour and minimal fuss. I can’t, of course, vouch for the nature of the conversation she had with Barrie in the car on the way home.
Tina was a great listener, and always very considerate of others. At one time, Tina had asked my wife Jane if there was anything she missed about living in England – for those of you who don’t know, we live in Sydney, Australia – Jane mentioned that Christmas wasn’t the same in Sydney as the temperature was somewhat higher and there was never a possibility of snow at any time, ever, let alone Christmas.
Tina took this all on board and on one of our visits in late October, a few years ago, Tina got busy and made sure we had our Christmas experience, UK style. She got the Christmas tree out 6 weeks early and fully decorated it. She made us a full Christmas dinner and sat us down to watch Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” and insisted, at the end, that we kept their copy of it. That’s how caring Tina was.
We will miss her greatly and love her, always.
Andy and Jane Kyiet xxx
