PG Woodhouse was clear about how devilish Aunts could be in his fabulous Bertie Wooster books.
I’ve been lucky with my aunts, both of them are alive and well and with power to add to the gaiety of nations. But not all aunts are darlings. Oh no. Not at all.
Woodhouse understood aunts. Formidable and not to be underestimated. He wrote this for example
“It isn’t often that Aunt Dahlia lets her angry passions rise, but when she does, strong men climb trees and pull them up after them.”
And what of my experiences of nutty aunts? Well, while my aunts have been a good counterpoint to parents, giving us, in the best way, a subversive experience of adulthood, a distinction must be drawn between Aunts and Great Aunts.
My Great Aunts, unlike troubles, came not in battalions but in single spies, spread over time.
I recall a series of visits from women sporting large coats, hats of monumental confection and immovability and voices that launched battleships and penetrated deep space. The Archaeologist and I were fascinated by their hats. Why for instance did these dusty faced women, smelling oddly of wardrobes and toilets, take off their coats and shoes yet leave on their hats? Were they bald beneath? Did they fear their rigid and highly spun hair might make a bid to escape if released from the weight of the hat? Was something extraordinarily interesting kept underneath, a marmalade sandwich perhaps or one of those odd shaped rubber things mum had in her bedside table, hidden under a tangle of stockings, Pond’s Cold Cream and spare soap?
They perched too, did great aunts. They never sat back in any chair, unlike great uncles who contoured to each chair and used their stomachs to balance everyday equipment such as teacups and tobacco pouches.
Great aunts did a lot of disapproving. They had a range of tutts that accompanied another great aunt’s conversation, like mood music for their complaints. I’m sure I read that certain tribal languages amongst aboriginal peoples which comprise whistles and clicks were used during the Second World war as unbreakable codes; the vocabulary of the Tutting Aunt could have been used with equal facility.
Great aunts were possessed of things like rheumatics and water works and a variety of bowel problems and ate in small pecks though they never left anything. And they all seemed to have ill fitting teeth that the swilled around inside their mouths as they spoke, ate or drank tea.
Great aunts were occasionally generous, bestowers of chocolate treats and hard peppermints that blew your sinuses apart. They belched and farted but woe-betide any comment, or worse snigger; in such a case fingers, gnarled like a hundred year old beech branch and forged from titanium would unerringly catch you close to, or on, the ear, leaving no mark but inflicting searing pain.
One great aunt, Rose, was a staunch high ranking officer in the Sally Army.
Even my gran, her sister, behaved impeccably in Aunt Rose’s presence. We had tea once a year at her small cottage near the harbour in Whitstable and the Archaeologist and I were begged to behave for the two hours we were there. If we did then on the way home we were treated to a go on the diesel powered boats on the lake at Hampton just outside Herne Bay.
I wish I remembered what the adults talked about but I do remember the mood – sombre, funereal. I suppose someone, somewhere had died and their lives must have been picked over critically with their chances of a swift pass by St Peter dissected, probably leading to the conclusion that they would be sent to the back of the queue.
Yes, I’ll take my aunts any day but of Great Aunts, they are better in memory than in person.
TanGental 
Reblogged this on NEW BLOG HERE >> https:/BOOKS.ESLARN-NET.DE.
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thanks Michael
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Super article
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I love that last photograph. I see teeth in the middle, a most unusual sight in photos of that era. Perhaps they are about to fall out!
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don’t; the terrors I had with my grandmothers dentures being soaked overnight in glasses and beakers.
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Ah, memories of the molar mug!
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I still shudder at that unfeasibly pink plastic they used…
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They will be found in the oceans of the world for millions of years!
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A frightening thought, like an artificial clam
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I shall immediately stop swimming in the sea!
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Wise man stick to lengths of your bath
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I’ll go to any lengths to avoid the pink gnashers. (Now there’s a story title for you!)
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Loved this post, Goeff. And the photos. Made me think of my great-aunts!
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Everyone needs a Great Aunt to bring a proper perspective to life…
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Nicely remembered and described
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i wonder if aunts appear in A Knight’s Tale?
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I remember one of my great aunts, Aunt Olive. She was a teetotaler but my Mom told me that she served liquor at a gathering after a funeral and got into it. Rocked her way across the room and back several times.
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oh yes, those were joyous moments of indiscretion…
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Hi Geoff, This post made me smile. My parents were both only children, so I had nothing but “gray” aunts, as I called them. I knew my maternal grandfather’s two sisters well. Aunt Mary was the elder, and my grandfather was the baby. He stood in awe of her. I didn’t have to. When I met her son, my mother’s only cousin, in 2011, I felt like I knew him because I had known his mother and father from birth. We had such different perspectives to share about her life. She was VERY bossy especially in the kitchen, and he remembered her more in her later years when she probably submitted to him and his wife. I don’t remember her submitting to anyone.
Believe it or not, I even knew some of my great-great aunts, sisters of my maternal great-grandmother. They were much more like the aunts you described, though mostly bedridden by the time I knew them. Very somber visits.
You have a sharp memory, and it’s fun to see the old ladies through your eyes. 🙂
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I have a curious memory, I think, Marsha. It doesn’t take much to prompt one memory and others cascade from it. I’m sure I mix timelines and characters but everything seems rich and full of detail. I guess Im fortunate the way it works.
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It’s wonderful. My brother always has been the timeline/detail person in our family. I think I must have lived in a fantasy world when we talk about things that happened. Either that or I just wasn’t there. I’m never sure if it’s my memory or I really wasn’t on that outing. 🙂 Sometimes people assume I was with them when I wasn’t. It gets very confusing during story hour. That’s why I like my stories better than theirs, LOL.
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I’ve always believed there is no story that isn’t improvable with some new facts. Never let the truth impede entertainment. We weren’t born to be encyclopaedias!
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I make mine up when I’m writing fiction, unless the story demands some true facts. My silly journals didn’t include quotes.
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sadly no great aunts living for me, but I do have three…….. my Dad’s sister, his sister in law, and my Mum’s sister in law.
On the other hand, I am not only an aunt and great aunt, but also a great great aunt to an eight year old boy.
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Blimey a great great aunt! I never had any living examples of that particular species. I hope you’re suitably terrifying (not)!
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He wouldn’t know one way or the other. I have at least 8 great nieces and nephews I have never met, and this young man is my sister’s great grandson. Sis and I haven’t spoken or seen each other since Mum’s funeral. Just the way it is Geoff.
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Ah families both a joy and a despair often over the same buffet…
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One way of putting it Geoff.
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three aunts that is………….
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I just had a lot of laughs at my memories. thank you! Most aunts were kind and giving; two especially good cooks…One spoke the English language like a sailor…Another baked the family’s celebration cakes with talent (but also stepped forward when it came to ‘the laying out’ of the dead.) One was like a Sergeant Major with her husband and her home was covered in plastic covers and what-nots..(I can hear her now..’Don’t forget to wipe your feet!’ as he came in the door.) Many were great fun. I am an aunt to six, great aunt to eight and great great aunt to three.
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Blimey you’ve nailed the aunt thing Joy. I’d forgotten that obsession with keeping things covered. And bloody doillies. Do doillies still exist or have they gone the way of antimacassers and the ubiquitous aspidistra?
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I adored my Auntie Dottie who was a character but her sons have had difficult lives so as an aunt she was a kick but I feel sorry for my cousins! I barely remember my great aunts. You were so lucky!
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Yes I suppose I was. I missed out on grandfathers and I would have traded a couple for one.
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Such fun, and I love the old photos! I’ve had a few interesting aunts, myself…
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They are still being made I believe although these days I understand they use recycled antimacassers mixed with some lavender poultice juice.
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Such a great post! Here’s to all of the aunts and great aunts in our lives. Now I want to know what was under those hats too. “Auntie, Auntie, let down your golden hair, or anything else you’ve got hiding up there.” 😊
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Ha love it. We need that nursery rhyme!!
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I had many great aunts (about 21) and they were formidable. A visit from them had me scrambling to make sure the house was tidy, as a bad housekeeper was worse than an adulterer or murderer in their mind. I recall getting a call that two great aunts were planning to stop in that evening to see my new (to me) house. I did a quick tidy, tossing things into a hall closet and slamming the door tight. They loved the place and thought I made a good purchase. Until one aunt, before I could stop her, grabbed the closet handle and said “Are the closets a good size?” whipping it open. Assorted sports gear, toys, coats and shoes fell out at her feet. Busted! I loved them all dearly and just lost the last one a year ago.
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My Aunt Ethel would pick her teeth – all sorts seemed to lodge there even if she only had a drink. I always felt unfairly picked on when she complained about me and my nose. These days I understand the distinction!
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I love those old photographs. I’d have to go to the family tree to work out how many great aunts I had – quite a few, but I only really knew two, and one of those much better than the other. She loved poetry and always gave us cream soda to drink which I didn’t like much. I can remember the taste to this day though.
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Yes it was awful wasn’t it. I wonder what happened to all those cream soda springs
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Memories have a way of eventually making one smile. Super post, Geoff.
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Yes we can filter out the terror…
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Exactly! 😀
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Had I not watched a certain, rather well made, movie a while ago, the marmalade sandwich in a hat would’ve passed me by completely. 😀
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Ah splendid. I love it when my attempts to be a smartypants play off
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This is delightful, Geoff. So very English.
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Er sorry they were very much of that old school
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I can see that. Fun to read about, but not so much fun to live with.
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They were an education if nothing else
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It’s a generational thing Geoff!!
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I hope so. If its genetic I’m doomed!!
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Doomed, doomed we are all doomed!
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