My Auntie Anne, last of that generation in my family, died on Wednesday. I always remember Auntie Anne saying that as a girl she'd been visiting a friend when the friend's grandfather looked her up and down and said admiringly, 'Fine, strong limbs!' She said how mortified she was, but the story stuck in my head as an endearing snippet from what was at the end such a long, full, rich life.

Auntie Anne was Scottish, and had married my father's brother Sydney. My cousins, the twins Ann and Christine, and their younger sister Janet, were a fair bit older than I and always seemed alluringly intelligent and devastatingly fun, although of course I didn't see them much.