CHILDHOOD CAPERS - CHAPTER THREE: THE 'AMAZING' UNCLE WILLIE...

I used to have an uncle.  Nothing unusual about that - lots of

people have uncles.  I had more than one uncle of course, but it's

one in particular I'm going to talk about today.  Let's call him uncle

Willie - mainly because that was his name.  Never struck me as a very

nice man to be frank, and he was eventually sectioned under the men-
tal health act for beating up his wife - who, unsurprisingly, happened

to be my aunt.  They were both elderly when all this was going

on, which is all rather sad I suppose.

I remember being through in Edinburgh with my family

back in the late '60s, visiting one of my father's sisters (another

aunt), and uncle Willie and his wife were there too.  We all left at the

same time and I remember uncle Willie put his hand in his pocket and

slipped some coins into the hands of my other aunt's kids.  I was sur-

prised to see this act of generosity, because he'd never done that

with me or my brother.  I liked him even less after that.

Uncle Willie was a bit of a blowhard.  Full of tall tales and

unlikely stories designed to portray himself in the most flattering

light.  Anything anyone else had ever done, he'd done first or done

better - and sometimes even both.  He and his wife were visiting our

house one night, and he took the opportunity to regale my brother

and myself with tales of how fit he was and how he was able to

expand his chest to nigh Olympian proportions.

He could see from our expressions that we remained un-
convinced (nor were we much interested, truth be told) so he

insisted on demonstrating his 'amazing ability'.  At first he stood in
a stooped position with his chest as far back towards his spine as po-

ssible, then slowly stood up, thrusting his chest out as far as he could
and, arching his back while leaning forward, attempted to create the
impression that he'd achieved his stated goal.  When he was done, he
proudly announced "Mabel, I've just expanded my chest by 11 and
a half inches!"  He hadn't of course, all he'd done is made a tit of
himself.   We were too polite to say so, but we had a good
laugh at him after he'd left.

In the interests of historical accuracy, it behooves me to
point out that although my father was related to him in some way,
I'm not sure whether he was an 'actual' uncle or only an 'honorary'
one, in that convenient bracket that some older male relatives are
placed when we're unsure of exactly what their title should be.  I'm
glad I have no nieces and nephews, because at least I know I can
never be regarded with derision or disdain in the way that me
and my brother discretely regarded uncle Willie.

I guess the moral of this story is that if you want your young

relatives to be left with a good impression of you when you're

gone, don't bother trying  impress them when you're here.

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