Mornington-By-Mere – (45) Falling in Love with Aunty

(Part 01)

In the 1990’s the Dawkins Family lived in the village of Pangmere situated on the Finchbottom Road between Mornington and Finchbottom.
Julian and Sheila were the Licensees of the Red Lion and their children, twins Brian and Karen, went to college in Purplemere.
The family had lived at the Red Lion since 1990, when the children were little and they were very happy there, it was a run-down dump when they took it over and Julian and Sheila had really turned the place around.
And all during that time they had a number of regular visitors, friends and family alike, but the most regular of them all was Annette West, or Aunty Annette as the children had always called her, although she wasn’t their real Aunty, she was the daughter of their mum’s best and oldest friend who was a few years older than Sheila.
In the early days when she first started to visit Pangmere she was with her husband Paul, but the West’s divorced when the twins were 12 years old, but prior to her marriage she regularly babysat for the children.

Annette was a real beauty and oozed sexuality and by the time the twins reached their teens Brian had started to see her as something other than his aunty and Aunty Annette regularly frequented his dreams.
For a young adolescent during his sexual awakening she was manna from heaven.
What a sight she was, with her long blond hair and generous bosom and with the flattering sweep of her hips and the roundness of her magnificent buttocks and long shapely legs, who wouldn’t be impressed at the sight of her.
For Brian the whole package made a most wonderful vision of sexuality which gladdened his young man’s eye and stirred his ardour.

Annette was totally oblivious of the situation until around about the time Brian turned 16 that was when she first became aware of the effect she was having on him and she had mixed feelings about it.
She was incredibly flattered of course but she was also troubled by it, so she cut down her visit’s to Pangmere over the following couple of years in the hope that he would grow out of it.
And when she did visit she made sure it was at times when Brian wasn’t around and if it couldn’t be avoided then she would dress down, no cleavage, short skirts or tight sweaters.

However her avoidance of him came to an end when it was the twins 18th birthday, an event which she could not ignore or avoid as she was their godmother.
She approached the day with some trepidation and as had become her habit she dressed in a shapeless outfit so as not to gain his attraction.
But it didn’t seem work, he seemed more enamoured of her than ever.

It appeared that by her distancing herself from him it had only served to make her even more desirable.
That situation was made all the worse when the callow youth with the unnatural and unhealthy infatuation had turned into a gorgeous man.

(Part 02)

It appeared that by, 30 year old Annette, distancing herself from 18 year old Brian, in the two years since she discovered he was infatuated with her, it had only served to make her even more desirable.
That situation was made all the worse when the callow youth with the unnatural and unhealthy infatuation had turned into a gorgeous man.

While she was giving him a wide birth she made sure that she dressed demurely but when she saw him on his 18th birthday she began something which would have far reaching consequences, she started to dress provocatively and rather than distance herself she actively flirted with him.

Brian had always looked forward to her visits but after his 18th birthday he looked forward to them even more and as he was older and Annette realised she was still able to affect him she began visiting more and more often because the truth of the matter was that it really excited her to think she was able to make him squirm in his seat and blush to his roots and even cause him to quiver.
She would show him a generous expanse of shapely stockinged leg or bend over in front of him and rise slowly to give him the full benefit of her shapely derriere or present him with the vision of her gaping blouse and its tempting contents.

Annette wasn’t excited by arousing a young man because she was frustrated or anything of that nature, looking as she did she was not short of male attention and her generous heart was fulfilled although romantically and emotionally she was less well served.

Apart from the flirting and the flaunting she spent a lot of time in his company both at the Dawkins pub as well as on excursions into the real world, with and without the rest of the family, given their attraction, the amount of time spent in each other’s company, her generous heart and his youth, they soon fell in love.

But it wasn’t until shortly before his 19th birthday that they took it to the next level.
It was just over eleven months after she returned his infatuation and around six months after lust had turned to love.

It was a Friday afternoon when Brian arrived home alone from college, because his twin sister Karen was staying in Childean at a friend’s house.
Neither he nor his sister were particularly academic, but they were both good with their hands, so they went to a technical college three days a week.
As he approached the pub he noticed Annette’s car in the car park and he felt instant excitement and quickened his step towards the door.
His mum Sheila was in the crowded bar of the Red Lion and his dad was at the Cash and Carry.
“Hi love” Sheila said as he walked in.
“Hi Mum” he replied “I’ll get changed and give you a hand”
“No rush love” She said to him, and he smiled because that was precisely the answer he was hoping for, so he went upstairs to his room to get changed out of his college clothes, but he knew he wasn’t the only one upstairs.
When he passed the living room he looked in and saw Annette standing in the middle of the room adjusting her stocking, and Brian couldn’t take his eyes off her.

(Part 03)

When Brian passed the living room he looked in and saw Annette standing in the middle of the room adjusting her stocking, and Brian couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Annette had waited for the precise moment when he appeared at the top of the stairs to adjust her suspender and she had timed it to perfection and as she looked at the expression on his face she was very pleased with the result and because of that she was wearing a seductive smile.
But, however pleased she may have been with her effect on him she was not expecting what happened next to transpire.

Seeing Annette with her stocking tops on display, although extremely titillating in itself, which would have been to any red bloodied man in his late teens, it prompted him to cross the room and kiss her.
The kiss had been long imagined by them both, and when it came it did not disappoint and it was long and lingering and far surpassed their expectations, and marked the transition from lustful flirtation to a full blown physical expression of their feelings, it was of course conducted in secret and it was an affair which lasted for over two years.
It was breathless and passionate and was the fulfilment of years of lusty flirtation made manifest, and from the first time they made love it was an electric nerve tingling experience which they never tired of.
The breathless passionate affair however came to an abrupt end when they were discovered in flagrante in his parent’s bed.

The resulting fallout of their exposure tore the Dawkins family apart and their discovery split the lovers up.
The guilt of betraying Julian and Sheila was too much for her to bear, after all she was the daughter of Sheila’s best and oldest friend, and she was like a second mother to Annette.

In the year following 21 year old Brian Dawkins and 33 year old Annette West being discovered in his parent’s marital bed Annette’s world fell apart as her love affair with Brian came to an abrupt end and then the total disintegration of her life long relationship with her mother’s best friend Sheila Dawkins.

But apart from breaking up the lovers and it causing an irrevocable rift between Annette and Sheila it also caused a deep rift in the Dawkins family itself.
So unable to see the young man she had fallen in love with and being estranged from the woman she had looked upon as her second mother she decided to cut and run.

Her initial response was to sell her flat and get as far away from Pangmere and the Finchbottom Vale as possible.
So she quit her job, sold her flat and spent the next twelve months working at her sister, Annabel’s, bar in Benidorm while she got her head straight.
However she soon realised that running away and hiding was not the answer.
She wasn’t sure what the answer was by any measure but she did know that hiding away in Spain wasn’t it.

(Part 04)

Annette soon realised that running away and hiding was not the answer.
She wasn’t sure what the answer was by any measure but she did know that hiding away in Spain wasn’t it.
Her Sister Annabel thought the answer was to throw a succession of unsuitable men in Annette’s direction but she managed to side step them all quite successfully.
However she eventually tired of her sister’s good intentions and returned to Downshire but she could not allow herself to fall back into the same social circle that she had left so abruptly, but she didn’t want to remove herself entirely from her former life so she settled in Finchbottom while keeping her former life at arm’s length.

Annette did a succession of jobs, all of which were beneath her capabilities until she finally ended up working for a second hand book business, Paige Turners.

The owner of Paige Turners was a women called Paige Edwards who had owned a very successful book shop in Finchbottom but changes in the business caused her to sell the book shop in Finchbottom, but it wasn’t the end of Paige Turner’s and Paige stayed very much in the book business.
When she closed the door for the very last time on the shop she had mixed feelings.
Even before the shop closed it had become primarily an internet business and because the bookshop was in a prime location in Finchbottom it brought a very good price.
So she sold the shop, but didn’t sell up, instead she leased the old Finchbottom Library and ran the business from there.
It was a perfect location and she was able to utilize the Library book shelves as well as the ones from the old shop and it was to that business that Annette West joined.

Annette worked for the company for four years and was blissfully unaware that unseen fates were busily pulling the strings in her life when in Mid-December Paige Edwards received a letter from her landlord to say that the lease was up on the old library premises in Finchbottom and there would be no option to renew.
So as a result she had to begin looking for a new home for Paige Turner’s and Paige was directed to Mornington by a solicitor friend, Rizalina Pugay.

After having met with agents and potential landlords in Mornington Paige was dreading the first day back at work because she had to tell the staff that Paige Turner’s were moving lock stock and barrel to Mornington within 2 months.
Because she was so nervous about it she decided to take everyone to lunch at the local pub, the White Horse Inn, on the basis that they probably wouldn’t kill her in a public place.
As it turned out the news was received quite favourably as they were all expecting something as they had heard about the proposed development of the Library Site.
Of her 14 staff 7 of them said immediately they were prepared to move with her while of the other seven, 4 were definite no’s and the other three wanted to see Mornington and the accommodation before deciding, and Annette was one of those.
So the next day Paige, Riza and the three doubting Thomas’s, Annette, Carole Beverley and Jennifer Bardsley, drove over to Mornington.

(Part 05)

Paige, Riza and the three doubting Thomas’s, Annette, Carole Beverley and Jennifer Bardsley, drove over to Mornington.
While they were there they met with Victoria Johnson Higham, and Tallulah St George.
Victoria was from Lyndon-Sanders Properties, who were tasked with finding tenants for the commercial properties as well as some of the accommodation and Tally was the property manager for the Estate, which formally took over the administration from January 1st.

Mornington-By-Mere is a small country village lying in the Finchbottom Vale nestled between the Ancient Dancingdean Forest and the rolling Pepperstock Hills.
It is a quaint picturesque village, a proper chocolate box picturesque idyll, with a Manor House, 12th Century Church, a Coaching Inn, Windmills, an Old Forge, a Schoolhouse, a River and a Mere.

There is a very good reason why it has retained its old English quaintness and its heart and soul into the 21st Century and that’s simply because everything in the village is owned by the Mornington Estate, and under their stewardship the village has remained a traditionally English oasis and has not been allowed to become a soulless haven for hooray Henrys and weekenders with their second homes and country getaways.
Throughout its history the Village of Mornington was largely dependent on agriculture for its survival but shortly before the beginning of the Great War a large tract of land was compulsorily purchased by the War Office as a training base for the newly formed Royal Flying Corps which changed the dynamic to some extent with them loosing valuable farm land, this was offset partly by the fact that the Mornington Estate had the contract to provision the Airfield.
It remained as a training squadron when the RFC became the RAF and right through to the end of the nineteen thirty’s.
During World War Two it became a front line fighter base in the Battle of Britain and many sorties were flown from the field and many brave young men failed to return to it.
RAF Mornington remained an operational base beyond the end of the 1939-45 conflict and was a NATO base throughout the cold war.
However after the breakup of the USSR it played a much lesser role until the end of the century when it was mothballed and although the RAF maintained a presence it was only really used as storage facility for the last decade of its existence.

When the War office purchased Mornington Field in the summer of 1914 it was on a 100 year lease, with an option for them to extend when the lease expired.
However in 2014 the Ministry of Defence were in the midst of dramatic cutbacks in front line resources and Mornington was one of the first facilities to be axed.
This meant that the original owners, the St George family, had first refusal to buy it back for a peppercorn fee and when the Mornington Estate exercised its option to purchase Mornington Field from the MOD it also acquired all the buildings and infrastructure on the airfield itself, as well as 29 houses in the village formally used as quarters for military personnel and it was the Airfield buildings that would house the Paige Turner business and some of the accommodation for the staff.

(Part 06)

In the year following 21 year old Brian Dawkins and 33 year old Annette West being discovered in his parent’s marital bed Brian’s world fell apart as his love affair with Annette came to an abrupt end and then the total disintegration of his life.

But apart from breaking up the lovers and it causing an irrevocable rift between Annette and Brian’s mum Sheila it also caused a deep rift in the Dawkins family.
Brian never forgave his mother for driving her away or his father for calling her a cradle snatching tart.
So unable to see the woman he had fallen in love with and being estranged from his family he decided to throw himself into finishing his college course.

When he first left the Red Lion in Pangmere, his family home, he spent the next few months sofa surfing at some of his friends’ homes, until he managed to get himself a bedsit in Purplemere.

After Brian left home Karen was left behind and was very much stuck in the middle, not wanting to take sides but not wanting to lose contact with her twin brother, she spoke to him whenever possible outside of college, but when her parents found out she was in regular contact with her brother, they had an opportunity to use her as a conduit to move them towards a reconciliation, instead they told her she had to choose, them or Brian, so forced to choose, she chose Brian and they moved into a dingy flat together.

Brian finished his college course along with his sister Karen and they were fortunate enough in the year before they qualified, to get some part time work with a local company called Railway Enthusiast, working for a man called Dennis Thorpe.
He was a very gifted craftsman who among other things was a Model Engine Maker, as well as making rolling stock, buildings and infrastructure.
And when they both qualified from college with distinctions Dennis had no hesitation in offering them full time jobs.

While the two of them shared a flat in Purplemere and worked together Karen had had a succession of failed relationships and wished she could have found a man that not only loved her as she loved them, but someone she could love as much as Brian loved Annette.

Despite the depth of the love he felt for Annette, Brian did not live as a monk but he never had a relationship that was any more than physical.
Not just because he was reluctant to fall in love again but more significantly because he was still in love with Annette and every woman he met after they were driven apart was inevitably compared to his first love.

As a result of their abject failure to find a significant other, when Dennis Thorpe decided to move the model making business to Mornington, Brian and Karen decided that there was nothing holding them in Purplemere so they opted to move with him.

Mornington-By-Mere was not just a quaint chocolate box English Village it was the beating heart of the Finchbottom Vale and there were a number of cottages and small houses on the Purplemere road and Dulcets Lane which formed the part of Mornington Village known as Manorside and The Dawkins managed to rent number 4 Brooke Side Cottages, which was a considerable improvement on their dingy Purplemere flat.

(Part 07)

When the Mornington Estate exercised its option to purchase Mornington Field back from the MOD it also acquired all the buildings and infrastructure on the airfield itself as well as 29 houses in the village, formally used as quarters for military personnel and in February 2015 Paige Turners made the move from Finchbottom to Mornington Field and took up residence in what was formerly Hangar C.
Annette West also made the move and her new home was located in Apartment 8 of Lancaster House, which was once the Officers Mess and two months later Dennis Thorpe moved into Apartment 4.

Annette quickly settled in and as she was fast approaching her fortieth birthday she was resigned to the fact that she would continue to live a solitary existence and saw no sign of that changing in the foreseeable future but having fallen in love with Mornington she was struck by the thought that there were worse places to be alone.

Although he was only 27 years old, Brian had also resigned himself to living his life as a singleton.
He loved his job and the cottage he shared with his sister Karen was perfect, but unbeknown to him or anyone else for that matter everything was set to change on a sunny Wednesday in May after he had only been in the village for one month.

On that fateful morning some mail had been wrongly delivered to Paige Turners and the owner, Paige Edwards was going through it on her desk and there were eight pieces in all that were not theirs.
“Annette honey?” she called
“Yes Paige” she responded
“Would you be a darling and take these letters across to “Railway Enthusiast” The postman dropped them off here by mistake?”
Paige asked
“No problem” Annette replied “Which building are they in?”
“Block A, just the other side of the roundabout” she explained
“Ok, I won’t be long” Annette said as she took the letters from Paige.

It was a beautiful warm May morning as she walked along the pavement towards Block A but it did little to lift her spirits, she seemed to live her life on the same plain of existence, just going through the motions of life without actually living it.

When she reached the door to the Railway Enthusiast premises she knocked firmly on the glass and waited until her knock was answered and the moment the door was opened her heart began to beat again, and she felt alive for the first time in six long years and the reason for her sudden lease of life was because she saw Brian Dawkins standing there.

Brian opened the door expecting to see a courier driver standing the other side of it and he couldn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes as he stood looking into the eyes of the woman he loved.
Annette smiled at him and he smiled at her but neither of them spoke, neither daring to break the spell of what could surely only be a hallucination.

(Part 08)

Brian opened the door expecting to see a courier driver standing the other side of it and he couldn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes as he stood looking into the eyes of the woman he loved.
Annette smiled at him and he smiled at her but neither of them spoke, neither daring to break the spell of what could surely only be a hallucination.

It was a bright early summer morning yet it was not warm enough to sit by an open door,
“Who is it Brian?” Karen asked wondering why the door was still open and letting all the heat out when he didn’t appear to be talking to anyone.
Getting no response, Karen got up from her stool and walked towards the door repeating her question
“Who is it Brian?”
And when she saw who was standing on the threshold she did a double take before she rushed towards the smiling figure and hugged her.
“Annette, it’s really you”
“Yes” Annette sighed as she held Karen tightly to her and wished it were Brian in her arms, although she doubted it would ever happen and as he looked on as the two people he loved most in all the world embraced he thought the same.

When Karen and Annette finished embracing there was an awkward momentary silence, as neither of them knew what to say,
It was likely whatever mundanity they chose to express would undoubtedly have brought the meeting to an end, an neither of them wanted that.
A full minute of silence had passed before Annette handed the letters to Brian.
“These were delivered to Paige Turners by mistake” she said regretfully
“Oh ok thanks” he retorted and they both smiled again and Annette turned to leave.
“Is that it?” Karen snapped in disbelief and they both looked at each other before Brian said
“What do you mean?”
“Oh give me strength” she exclaimed but the couple still just stared blankly at her
“For goodness sake, you two have already wasted six precious years and now when fate has brought you together again, out of the blue you don’t seize the moment”
Brian opened his mouth to speak but Karen silenced him with a look and carried on
“Don’t you dare let her get away from you again and as for you don’t think for a moment I will let you run away and hide again”
At that point it was Annette who tried to speak and she was also struck dumb with a withering glance.
“You two were made for each other, and you love each other in a way that I can only dream of, and I’m so jealous, just to have a man look at me the way he looks at you would set me ablaze, and to see your love reflected back in her eyes is a precious, precious thing”
There was silence for a moment and the Brian said quietly
“It’s difficult to know what to say after so long”
“Who said anything about speaking you idiot” Karen said sharply “just take her in your arms and kiss her”
So he took her advice and held the yielding Annette in his arms and kissed her and it was as if it had only been the day before when they lay naked in his parent’s bed and he felt alive again and he could tell by Annette’s response to his embrace that she felt the same way.

After that day they became a proper couple, a proper relationship with no sneaking around, it wasn’t all plain sailing, there was still guilt and remorse on her part for tearing his family asunder and they both regretted the wasted six years but they weathered the storms and six months after the day the mail went astray, they married.
Julian and Sheila Dawkins were invited to the wedding at St Winifred’s, but they failed to show, in fact they didn’t even respond, but that didn’t dampen the occasion for the happy couple.