No sooner is Mr Lister buried than pother starts up again. Even in our grief, after we believe all the election nonsense is over and done with, someone poisons our well and then our coal mines are sabotaged. We are defenceless and can do nothing to stop them or retaliate. We let our stewards fight our corner and clear up the damage on our behalf. We do not go to see for ourselves, but hide away in Shibden as they want us to. Will they never leave us alone?

Marian confides in me that she is glad she is the youngest and does not have to deal with all this. She is happy she has Anne, and I squeeze her hand and tell her I am glad we both have her.

Aunt soon takes to her bed and does not seem to improve. Doctors come and go with little to offer. Marian sits with her for hours and hours and says she will not lose her too, but all our will and prayers cannot save her.

Miss Lister

As the temperature drops and the days shorten, my aunt breathes heavily. I send Marian away to get some rest. She kisses her and clings to her and then drags herself away.

Summoning her remaining strength, my aunt tells me that I am braver than she was, and I laugh. She tells me how pleased she was that Marian and I came to live with them, that we gave her and my uncle a new life. She grips my hands and tells me to look after Marian and I promise I will try. Then she lectures me that I should make sure I am surrounded by family, that being alone is no good for me, and neither is being with just one person, by which she means little Ann. It is other people, friends, family, she says, that make us who we are. Put that in your diary so you do not forget it, she tells me.

Only a few days after this and the three of us sit around her after the doctor has left with a sorrowful shrug. We watch on helplessly as she lies there, barely aware of us, our hands holding tightly onto hers, as she struggles to breathe and in a moment we all witness, stops. She falls still, as though something has left her body and all that is left is a vessel, an empty corpse. I think of the spark of new electricity that could revive her. Whatever it was that had given her form life, been our aunt, has gone and does not linger.

I try to write in my diary seeking solace in the words, but they are splashed with tears which flow as my words dry up.