Last weekend I wound up kissing lots of strangers in the park – well, maybe two or three. My husband held back as I did so and didn’t even make any attempt to stop me. Every year, my mum, her four sisters and their families gather for the annual picnic – and this year marked its 31st anniversary.
Sisters, grandparents, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and many more of us who are related to each other in all manner of weird and sometimes complicated formations gather during the midpoint of the Wimbledon tennis championships. The only condition is that you have to be related in some kind of way, either through blood or marriage.
Family folklore has it that my aunty Sheila started the ball rolling for this annual family fest when she remarked to one of my sisters that as an extended group we only ever gathered for weddings and funerals – and even then not all could always attend. So they had the idea of finding an open space where we could all meet once a year, come rain or shine. The date was set as the last Sunday in June – and this never changes. We are able to decamp to a local church hall at short notice in the case of inclement weather.
My sister Mary, who claims never to have missed one, says it’s the first event she puts in her diary every year.
“It’s non-negotiable. Making it the same day every year makes it so easy. I plan my holiday around it and our social calendar. Whatever the invite, if it clashes with the picnic, I turn it down.”
People start drifting in from midday – there are always the early birds (those with the younger children) and there are always the late arrivals (reluctant teenagers, those who stopped off at the pub on the way, or who have travelled some distance). For me, the trick is to arrive super-early – then people have to greet you when they arrive. There’s also an unspoken rule that a cheery “helloooo, you’re looking well” is a perfectly acceptable salutation if a name slips your mind.
Last year, my great-nephew Charlie brought along his very new girlfriend – petite and terrified, she hovered on the edge, kissed and embraced by numerous strangers who invited her to play rounders – a fiercely fought annual battle. We’ve had different variations of rounders teams over the years: kids v adults/males v females/under 35s v over 35s/”real” family v “outsiders and out-laws”. Often my own children come home and say, “Who was that person on third base who caught me out and how am I related to them again?”
When I was younger I wasn’t a great fan of the family picnic – at the inaugural meeting I was an awkward 17, and being the youngest sixth daughter of the youngest fifth sister, many of my cousins were older than me and therefore not people to whom I had much to say.
But now, at 48, with my own three I can see the value of the event – and as I get older the age gap matters less. Spending time with people from all generations, listening to their stories, and sharing food and memories is a unique opportunity that lots of people are not so lucky to have.
Through the years the numbers have fluctuated. At the beginning there were fewer than 15 people. Last year, we were around the 80 mark and we’ve previously topped 100. One year not so long ago we were a paltry 23. But it always goes ahead: if you turn up, someone will be there.
My second cousin Vicky sums it up perfectly when she says that while life gets in the way, this is one date she tries not to miss. “There are so many families who don’t know each other, who could walk past each other in the street and don’t ever get to enjoy each other,” she says. “I have been alone at times in my life and then come to the family picnic and been reminded that there are people who love and care.”
My cousin Loretta, who also claims to be one of the three never to have missed it (Stuart being the other), says that without this event some of us wouldn’t ever have got to meet our second and third cousins. “I can recall two occasions where extended family members have bumped into each other in Leicester Square and Brighton. Had it not been for the family picnic, they would have passed on the street not knowing they were related.”
In a further development, this year was the first when we all got to sit (fight over) on the bench we have dedicated in the park to my mum Norrie and her formidable sisters, Breda, Eileen, Maureen and Sheila.
My mum was the last of the Fehily daughters to die in 2013. Now she is no longer here, attending the family picnic has become an even bigger commitment for me. This is somewhere else that she was. She walked this path. She sat on this grass. Now more than ever it’s a precious opportunity to stand still, and drink in the atmosphere, look back, and look forward. This is one large, sprawling, crazy, loving family.
Another cousin, Elaine, makes the same point. “There aren’t enough weddings in our family to make them a yearly event, and so the picnic keeps you connected with everyone and happens at a time when you are not surrounded by the grief of a funeral.”
Perhaps the final word should go to my cousin Maureen – she’ll kill me for writing that she is now one of the family elders. “I return to the family picnic each year to greet the newborns,” she says, “while holding in my heart the loved ones gone before. It’s a time to regroup, to catch up on the news, to embrace, to eat, to drink, to laugh and to make yet more indelible memories.”
