Uncle Knobhead has left the building…
It is easy to feel sympathy for my Dad’s Brother who has outlived all his siblings and now lives alone in Canada. His arrival, however, makes it dissipate rapidly…
He lets us know roughly when he’ll be coming over in advance but not his itinerary. He rings the night before and tells us what time his train will be arriving in Leeds for an overnight stopover. (He is too old to rent hire cars now). The long retired tend to forget that the rest of us work for a living! The consequence of this is that he ends up having to sit in the station for several hours waiting for one of us to turn up. He likes to take us out for a meal, but is invariably rude to the staff. He assumes that everyone else is fascinated in railway modelling. He repeats himself and tells us stories we have heard before, sometimes earlier on. He discusses all of his latest illnesses at length. He rambles on about dull people we don’t know or particularly care about. He laments that he is going to die soon and brings us old photos & bric-a-brac in maudlin moments. (We now have a lot of them). He assures us that he isn’t racist, just zero tolerance. Despite not being racist, his conversations are littered with bigoted references to “blacks & coolies”. He is a grumpy old man.
Did he really have to tell us that when he went to Sunday School in the 1930s he was given a tiny coin envelope to bring back next week, printed with “The White Man’s Burden” on it, for starving children in Africa?
I still feel a little sad for him, but only between visits.
Thi sounds a bit pee’d off old luv.
Comment by pj — October 4, 2008 @ 12:20 am
Well yes, you could say it was slightly irritating. I’m surprised David didn’t pick up on it.
At one point, he was telling some story of why black men have white soles & palms. (He has worked in Africa & seems to regard himself as the great white Bwana, despite having been a bit of a waster most of his life). I found myself biting my lip, wanting to tell him to shut the fuck up and get out of the house. It turns out that my Mum did that a couple of times during my childhood…
I wouldn’t want to endanger David’s inheritance though. (Basically a train set, something he has no interest whatsoever in getting, especially when it is 3000 miles away and doesn’t involve computer games).
Comment by Shades — October 4, 2008 @ 12:40 am
I’m probably a sactimonious preachy bleeding heart liberal, but I’d have told him to moderate his language and opinions or leave my house.
Age is no excuse for bigotry.
My Gran’s 86. And she’d never do it.
Comment by Crushed — October 4, 2008 @ 1:02 am
I’m certainly less tolerant of him this visit compared to 12 months ago, when I blogged about him for the first time. He loves seeing David (probably as the Grandson he never had, me being the Son he never had) but when it was basically an action replay of his last visit with new improved ignorance I just decided to vent my spleen here rather than shout at him.
Comment by Shades — October 4, 2008 @ 1:22 am
Oh dear, we old folks are a chore. Well some of us. I hope that I do not end up like this one although I wonder if I am telling the same stories over and over sometimes. You should have put the link in the previous post, which made no sense to be yesterday. Unless it’s there of course and I am too old and stupid and blind not to have seen it.
Let’s all take a vow to be charming old folk whom young folk do want to visit and spend time with. I’d better get started on it right away as time is short.
By the way, some of my relatives in Australia make remarks like this which make me cringe. The old uncle must go down well in Canada where we are much more likely to think it than to ever say it. We are a multicultural nation, don’t you know, veddy politically correct.
Comment by jmb — October 4, 2008 @ 7:13 am
Actually it seems I am not very good at typing and grammar either, looking at that comment I just left. Back under my rock!
Comment by jmb — October 4, 2008 @ 7:14 am
Oh dear - I suppose that I will just have to sacrifice myself for the good of my selfish children. here’s an old lady’s curse … that you remember this when you are old and lonely and caught in a time warp which isn’t to your grandchildren’s liking, and I hope they insult you as you insult this lonely man.
What gtoe
Comment by Lonely old fart — October 4, 2008 @ 11:22 am
Lonely old fart, no doubt my grandchildren will, if I have any.
Comment by Shades — October 4, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
JMB, nearly forgot to reply. We all get old and there is no reason to vow anything, just be ourselves. It is possible to be a bigot and a crushing bore at any age, most Pubs have barflys like that.
My experience of Canada was from more than twenty years ago. It was certainly cosmopolitan in the small hick town I was staying in (Belleville, Ontario) as there were people from many cultures there, but nothing about racial incedents in the local press. I never detected any obvious hostility between cultural groups in the circles I moved in. I spent some time with an Irish Chap I knew from galway who had just emigrated there and through his circle of friends I did notice some friction in the later stages within the Irish Quinte Association, but this was what you might call Irish Nationalism. Their meeting hall had been an orange hall before they took on the lease! Needless to say they had expunged all of the tangerine and it was all painted emerald green.
Comment by Shades — October 4, 2008 @ 12:45 pm
Sounds like a bit of a character really.
Comment by jameshigham — October 4, 2008 @ 1:03 pm
James, if you are interested in the LNER, he is currently down in Burton and then back up in Newcastle for another week or so if you fancy meeting up with him.
He might even name a Locomotive after you.
Comment by Shades — October 4, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
he sounds a good old boy ,we owe a great debt to his generation,look after him were not all politically correct in morley
Comment by marty — October 5, 2008 @ 8:28 pm
Marty, he only did National Service. It is the post Octogenarians we owe a great debt to.
Not too many people are politically correct in Morley and I certainly don’t classify myself as one of them. Indeed I wrote to the press lambasting our MP’s “Morley Together” as a piece of opportunist, manipulative, partisan, politically correct kak. (Although not quite in those words, of course).
Comment by Shades — October 5, 2008 @ 9:08 pm