Uncles

Generally normal, has curly black hair, used to have almost an afro. Makes jokes, my earliest memory of him is sliding tackling him when playing football aged about 9 and him nearly having a heart attack.

Outstanding moment: At my sisters wedding, there's a gap in the speeches so I go to the bathroom, 5 seconds later the door opens and Larry barrels in with a load of my Dad's friends and acquaintances. Everyone is at this point pretty drunk.

Larry looks at me and goes "JESUS CHRIST PETER YOU DIDN'T SPEAK FOR THIS LONG AT YOUR WEDDING"

Me: "I'm Ronan....."

Larry, pausing for a minute, then with a mad demented drunk look in his eyes and spit globs flying as he shouts "WHOEVER YOU ARE!!!!!!"

I haven't seen either of them in years!

Do great uncles count? I had some fantastic ones of those. There was Wicked Uncle Alistair (who was wicked indeed). And there was my Harley Street Socialist Uncle Ian. He was great - he had a fantastic Country House in Oxfordshire where my cousins and I spent many delightful afternoons setting off the burgalar alarm.

An uncle of the worst kind, non stop "banter" and he ends every sentence with "bucko" or "lad" or equivalent. Everytime I see him he relates the story to all present about how I was so drunk at my brothers wedding I took off all my clothes and passed out in the lobby, when this actually didn't happen. (well, it did happen, but not to this member of the family!)

Also he is like the quintessential Irish countryman, in that if he comes to the house he will examine every table, wall and chair and price them, the guy is obsessed with DIY, I'd swear he built his own car.

Outstanding moment: At the last family wedding he kept making comments about bridesmaids and girls that were present, possibly some he was related to. And on the way home my mum was like "He's mad isn't he? Obsessed with sex! You'd think poor Pauline would sort it out for him".

Later, it turned out that I was not his niece. Dad discovered he (Dad) was adopted.

Luckily my appalling uncle died before he could ever follow through on his "wha".

H4rry: My favourite uncle who's still alive. Funny, blunt, rude. Probably alcoholic.

P4ddy: Don't know him very well, but he's always cheerful. Worst dancer in the world. Probably alcoholic.

J0hnst0ne: My all time favourite uncle. Lived a fucking tragic life but was always as nice a man as you could meet. Another alcoholic. He was just getting his shit together when some fucker ran him over with a motorbike and left him dead on the road. If I ever catch up with the cunt I will kill him.

T0mmy: Closest in age to my Dad and I used to think he was the funniest man alive. He's turned into a bit of a miserable cunt as he suffers badly from gout. Probable alcoholic (are you seeing a pattern emerging here?).

J0hnny: Top bloke. Lives in Brighton with his partner. They used to live in London and made my wife and I very welcome when we moved there. Was a bit of an outcast at one time, when teh gays weren't too popular in Scottish shipbuilding towns - but everyone's gradually come round to realise they were cunts to him and it's all good now.

W1llie: Nice guy. Work shy. Drinks a lot. Has watched 'Zulu' more times than anyone on Earth. Understands every nuance of test match cricket.

J4ck: Don't know him very well but he's always nice. Sang at my wedding for some reason (I think he may have been a bit pissed).

J1m: Great guy. Bit of a hermit in his later years. Liked a drink. Died of throat cancer after some fucker doctor had him taking lozenges and cough medicine for 3 years.

Ch4rl1e: Manipulative controlling paranoid arsehole.

I think that's the lot :-)

pick of the crop:

p*** (dad's brother). recovered alcoholic. lives in the wilds of the north-east of scotland. used to go to the pub, drink himself insensible, then drive back to his house over a little wooden bridge. he'd cover one eye, aim the car, accelerate and hope.

he married a fellow alcoholic, who was found dead one day at the bottom of a cliff. (probably suicide; maybe an accident.) p*** got taken in by the cops for questioning. his watertight alibi was that he'd been drunk for several days and didn't have a fucking clue who he was, let alone when he'd last seen his wife.

he's great.

m****** (mum's brother-in-law): librarian. lost his job - and his wife - when he was discovered printing out (and neatly filing) reams of pr0n.

c****** (another of dad's brothers): ex-navy. now dead; basically drank himself into an early grave. i found a picture of him and my dad a few months ago. apart from his enormous gut, he is the fucking spit of me - even has the sideburns.

"smeck": best uncle ever. killed in a motorcycle accident in 1991.

of course, these days i'm an uncle myself. i'm aiming to be like one of those pg wodehouse-style coves; the ones who spent the first 16 years flitting about and proffering embarrassed half-crowns tenners, then crop up more frequently in later life to cause all manner of amusing japes. pip fucking pip!

My uncle John is also an engineer (I think 90 per cent of uncles are either engineers or accountants). He's my mum's brother and he's a very thoughtful man with a strong streak of mischief. My mum's sister's husband Chris is always good for large measures and quick comebacks at family gatherings. He also has a very cool way with a winklepicker.

On my dad's side: oh bloody hell. My dad and his brothers on the rampage can give most touring rock bands a run for their (booze) money. Following my great uncle Norman's funeral (! Yes, imagine the weddings!) they went back to their hotel (I was too young to join in at this point, but old enough to be jealous, abut 14/15 I think). They kept the barman up for hours and when he left tried to break into the bar and self-serve. After this my dad and my uncle Bob tried to find a place for my second cousin to sleep, settling on stealing the pillows from beneath my uncle Graham's sleeping wife and taking down the curtains in my dad's room.
Meanwhile downstairs my uncles Pete and Graham had found a highway man's costume on a dummy. One took the cloak, hat and pistols, another the sword and the rest of the clothing. They went outside and stood in the high street holding up every passing car, shouting "Stand and deliver!" and giggling. I would like to point out that at the time their ages ranged from 49 - 60.
My uncle Bob bears a passing resemblence to President Kennedy.

(xpost)

2) ...P3ter. Life partner of uncle P3ter and obv my honorary uncle. Plump and lovely.

3) R0bert (Mum's brother 2). Very conventional and MiddleEnglandy, plays golf. Disagrees with my mother about almost everything in life, but basically a nice chap. Married to Su3, who I always thought was a bit of a wet rag. Possibly they have some dark and sinister alter-egos, but I doubt it. No kids.

4) Br1an (Dad's brother). Has a learning disability but lives pretty independently. Habit of turning up out of the blue (possibly he doesn't understand phones). Always stands up for the entirety of the Queen's Speech at Xmas, has nice manners. Likes Emma Bunton IIRC.

I have (or used to) some other uncles-- (Great-)Uncle Sherman and his son, Uncle Butch. Both were always very kind to me, and worked for the same trucking company. Uncle Sherman sort of talked in a cajun accent that was probably fake, and every time he saw me would say something like, "HOO, I tell you sister [my grandmother], she just gets purtier ever time I see her, she SURE DOES!" Uncle Butch (a nickname from his childhood) I think had many tragic things happen in his life.

There was also an Uncle Frank, my grandmother's step-brother I think, who'd play Connect 4 with me and my grandfather, and when it dawned on him that he was about to lose, would *always* exclaim "Shot m'self in the FOOT!" I also remember he used to talk about his shingles a lot. Uncle Sherman recommended taking a bath in some "good ol' California moonshine!" to cure them.

L14m: Sweet kind bloke from Co Down. Favourite phrases is "Don't ask me, I'm just a simple minded Irish man" - when he's anything but. My wife loves him to bits.

The Uncles on my Mum's side are more relaxed than on my Dad's.

I have grand uncles too, they are on my dad's side mainly, and are rather odd.

Finian, a lovely man but so confused and awkward. He calls to the wrong house all the time, not out of genuine old age really, I think he's just a bit preoccupied. At Christmas last year he brought his trumpet, which we never really knew he played, and played music for us. He also showed us photos of all his old girlfriends, it was kind of sad but nice to give some humanity to him.

Joe: A mysterious grand-uncle, Joe is kind of funny, he moved to Chicago at a really young age, he is a hairdresser and he was a professional dancer for a while too I think! It's quite amusing, my parents always used to say "of course he's not gay!" sternly, but I think somehow cultural changes have permeated their brains they have come around to thinking it's a strong likelihood.

He often stays at our house on his way to visit a close friend in Spain.

(smeck, btw, was my dad's brother-in-law. his real name wasn't smeck. i think it was allan. but nobody ever called him that. nobody can remember why he was called smeck either. somewhere i have a picture of him and me standing in his living room with our trousers on our heads. i need to find that. i also have his watch, which i can't wear for fear of losing.)

Luc1o - is recovering (we hope) from cancer of the tongue, so get well soon zio Luc1o! My dad's quieter brother, rather under the thumb of his rich but psychotic wife, who is now controlled by mind drugs but has caused a LOT of familial heartache over the last decade. I like him a lot, I think he's a kind if maybe slightly weak man.

My great-uncles on my mum's side were brilliant. Uncle Dav1d was a naval commander (Kate would have approved) who had a fight with Lord Mountbatten once. Amazingly witty, interesting man, only recently deceased. Uncle D1ck was a very high ranking army officer, Knight Commander of the British Empire, and for a time was in charge of the Tower of London - he used to sleep in Anne Boleyn's bed.

One was not very much older than me, quite wayward, absconded from the RAF shortly after joining them and so spent a good deal of time 'on the run' in Europe. We'd get a call from him once every blue moon asking for money, but that was about it. He'd call from Paris, then Poland or somewhere farflung. Ended up as a waiter in Barcelona, but killed himself in a car crash a few years back.

The other is also abroad, likes gambling and had quite a string of exotic wives. He's quite high up in the newspaper industry now, and his photo seems to be all over the internet, looking vaguely like some exiled Russian playboy - pompous, condescending, but also sly and mischievous at the same time. Never been part of my life apart from one key point when he turned up unannounced one rainy Christmas, bearing copies of 'Don Quixote' and 'Oblomov' for me, which really kick-started my reading habit.

He expects his gay son to be healed by the hand of God, and last year tried to take me and all 28 of my cousins on a pilgrimage to Fatima.

My Dad always hated him

My uncle Denny - very blond, runs hardware store. About five years ago he ran off with jailbait and my mom won't speak to him now.

My uncle Gary - a total star; very charismatic cop who was head of the Minneapolis vice squad. When he was first picked to work there, this department was known as Morals and he was chosen for his good looks (an Elvis/Columbo cross). Repatriated prostitutes who wanted to escape NYC (a TV movie was made about this). Explained to me at a very young age that the only surefire way to bust a pornlord was for tax evasion. Used media to annoy higher-ups, promoted to Special Forces, ran security details for Gorbachev and Sophia Loren. forced me and my sister to meet the Osmonds when he had to guard them. However a massive alcoholic who died from internal bleeding brought on by bouze 10 years ago.

Uncle Mich4el – Former royal navy dock worker, lost his dad in WW2, v. active in village charity work, freemason, keeps chickens in his garden.

Uncle J!mmy – passionate Plymouth Argyle fan, tattoed coach driver, lived in London in 60s + was regular at marquee club, devoted Eric Clapton fan., humourous but moody, has an idiot brother

Uncle B!ll – retired geordie publican with appalling line in sexist jokes.

Andy - My favorite - he and Aunt Jeanne lived near us when I was little and had 8 kids of their own, two of whom were my age and my best friends. Was quite high up in IBM before he retired, always had time to talk to me and took me seriously.

Paul - Used to be a pharmacist, wore open shirts and big gold chains, but again, really lovely. His wife is dying of cancer and he never leaves her side.

Marcel - I don't know him well, but seems like a nice guy.

Philip - Killed himself a couple months ago, could be really funny, but could also be a gigantic asshole. Married Alice in Wonderland when I was 10.

David - One of the sweetest men ever to walk the earth. Lifelong RNZAF. His younger brother swears that's due to homnosexual proclivities, but he's a bitter bastard anyway. Married to Wendy, who is his equal in every way.

Bryan - The aforementioned bitter bastard. Wicked sense of humor, giant asshole.

Steve: father's older brother. Lived in Florida, died of skin cancer.

Dick: Father's older brother. Worked for the railroad, lived in the Bay Area in the 1970s. Divorced one wife while she was fighting cancer, early 80s. Lived alone & died in Miss., late 90s.

Ralph: Father's youngest sibling. Worked at K3rr-McG33 all his life, died of cancer last year. Went from healthy to completely consumed in six months. Don't work at K3rr-McG33, kids.

Doug: Father's older brother. Widowed, lives in Idaho on the Salmon River, one of the few really nice members of my dad's family.

Robert: a brother of my father's who died in infancy after an accident.

Toby: My mother's older brother, and definitely the nicest guy I'm related to. Taught auto shop at Tupelo High School for decades. Loved little Japanese and German cars in the late 60s and early 70s, before it was cool. Rebuilt a wrecked '78 Pinto for me for my first car. Loved hot peppers, the hotter the better, and loved finding new exotic varieties before old age stopped him from eating them. Now in his late 80s, doing pretty well. Openheartedly and uncomplainingly helped his wife take care of her mother at home during her last years, now taking care of his wife (my Aunt Sarah) in her last years.

I'll do another post sometime with uncles by marriage. My dad has six sisters and my mother has one.

3d - only uncle on my dad's side. Works for the Inland Revenue, lives in Croydon. Relations with him had become a bit distant in recent years, perhaps due to the fact that my dad had basically stopped talking to or about his mum, who died a couple years ago. We never met her, in any case, and mum has told me I shouldn't ever ask dad about his childhood. I'm never going to. Anyway, they've become a lot closer recently after £d had a mild heart attack a couple of months ago. We're going to his son's wedding in September, I don't know if I'm looking forward to it. £d himself always seemed a fairly cheerful, up type of man, very like my dad in that way, but also seemed to be a rather prone to letting stress get to him. Stress seems to have done that a bit lately.

G3off - mum's younger brother by about eight years. Lived with gran and grandad in Worcester, still lives with grandad since gran passed away on Boxing Day '03. Solicitor, Private Eye subscriber, quite strait-laced but cheerful with it, always great with us when we went up to visit - funny, light-hearted, generous. Gran's death hit him quite hard, obviously, I hadn't seen him since till about a month ago when we went up to visit him and Grandad for Grandad's 80th, and we had a lovely time - both him and Grandad are doing great.

B4rry - mum's youngest brother, think he might have only just hit his forties. We weren't quite so close to him when we were younger because he was more obviously a young person than G3off - leather jacket, mobile DJ, spiky gelled hair etc. Married in his mid-twenties, it went rather badly, but he married again in 1998. I can remember that because the reception was the night Dana International won Eurovision. Heh. Anyway, he seems a lot happier and more settled now - him and his wife have a lovely three-year-old daughter, and they are all very happy together. He's also a morris dancer. I occasionally slip this fact into conversation. No-one ever seems to be spectacularly impressed.

J3ff - mum's sister's husband, they live up on the Wirral. We very rarely see them nowadays, and I've never really know him that well - aside from living on the Wirral and working for NABISCO (the biscuit company - he used to, at any rate), I don't know much about him. Oh, and him and auntie P4t seem to go on holiday to Greece and Cyprus a fair bit. They send us quite a few postcards anyway.

W@lter - ordinary family guy, moved down south when he was young, family lives in Essex

J0e - stayed up north, lovely guy with a lunatic sense of humour, enjoyed taking the piss out of everyone and everything. His funeral was a riot - he'd have liked that

GOrdon - complete nutter, lived in tiny village, was barred from the local pub for calling the landlord a 'southern tosser' when he wouldn't serve him at 1am once, compensated by driving six miles to the next nearest pub and driving back utterly pissed along the Axx (very major road) every night. Local copper used to follow him at 20mph with blue lights gently flashing. Used to run a holiday cottage in the village, once woke me and g/f up by depositing two freshly trapped rabbits on the kitchen counter. After being told we weren't really into rabbit (especially ones with skin still on), were awoken next day by a dead pheasant being chucked through the door. His warship got sunk in WW2. He laughed it off, natch.

L3s - lovely, quiet spoken guy who flew a glider into France on D-Day. He was the only one to make it back to Britain and refused ever to speak about it afterwards. I don't blame him.

david: arborist, owns arbory (did i make this word up?)/ranch in durango, colorado. heavily bearded. has done landscaping for louis l'amour. i remember he had an appointment with a dentist, he ate 1/2 a bag of oreos right before he had to be there. i'm sure the dentist was amused. i mean, we were.

i don't have any others and these two, i never see. but now i'd like to, just to say hi. they're really really nice and they aren't bothersome.

The gay one likes me more than any other relative. Can't stand my mom or his mom. Blasts Frank Sanantra from his speakers.

The married one lives in a very nice house. Is married to a high maitnence woman. Loves Bruce Springsteen. Has very thick Boston accent.

They bond over hating my grandma.

Eddie: cunt. rather evil, mooches off my grandma even more than the other one, tried to poison my brother's relationship with my grandmother because he has a visible (CHRISTIAN) tattoo ('Devil's work' etc.), suddenly heard the call of becoming a Pentecostal preacher at 40 after being a useless idiot for the prior 20 years. When my grandmother was in the hospital for heart surgery, his family stayed in her house, they hate cats (I believe this is also a Devil thing) so they refused to feed or water her beloved cat, locked him in a closet for days, etc. Then left with a big Craftsman toolset that belonged to my (dead) grandfather and that my grandmother hadn't given him permission to take.

The former is just a lovable, whipped, religious-in-a-nice-sense fat guy, the latter I pretty much despise for making my grandmother miserable and generally being (as noted) a useless cunt.

Ken: likes racist jokes. haven't seen him in years, either. since my dad moved away from alabama, i sort of doubt i'll ever see him again, unless it's at some sort of funeral or something (of my dad's, maybe, but even then i could see him bailing).

i hopehopehope to be a much better uncle to my brother's first child.

Mum's side - just the one uncle, who is sound as anything. He was a punk rocker in the 70s and spent most of the 80s & 90s drifting around as a traveller, lived in Amsterdam for a few years etc. He stayed with us for a while when I was about 14. Lives in Wales now.

They bond over hating my grandma.

You sound like you come from a peachy family. What is you opinion of them?

-- Aja (AsiaKitty200...), July 22nd, 2005

Uncle Brian: a small, quiet, fairly shy man. He sang in our church choir for a few years. His eldest daughter once came home unexpectedly to find him having sex with one of the neighbours. Slightly obsessive-compulsive, and hoarded old newspapers. Started to go senile in his 40s, and spent several years in a nursing home before dying in his 50s. For the last few months of his life, he refused to talk, and at the end refused to eat too. Right up until his death, both his wife and mistress visited him regularly.

Uncle Derek: very tall, much taller than his brothers and sisters. Was a radar tech in the Air Force, and did a tour in the Falklands, in winter, a couple of years after the war ended. Left the services and became a phone engineer. Has a clinically psychotic wife; because of this, their daughter has to live with his in-laws and they only get to see her at weekends.

Uncle Eddie: Uncle Alan's twin brother. Also used to be a shopkeeper; for many years, he ran the shop next-door to Uncle Alan's, which greatly confused customers who visited both. Sold up a few years ago and now runs his own minicab firm. Uncle Eddie and his wife are the only people in the family to send their kids to private school. Lives in a disused railway station.

dad has two sisters and a little brother, m4rtin (now in his 60s i guess)

after mum died i spent many days looki nthrough old photo albums: in mum and dad's wedding alb, m4rtin is still a teen w. a cheeky smile!

he has two kids of his own now, both married - his wife is v.ill tho better i believe than she was (i should write to them i guess)

m4rtin is very sweet and naive: even as a child i kinda saw him as this big innocent who always thought well of everyone and would often be hurt and baffled as a result

actually i only remember one instance of this tho: when my aunt p3nny and uncle n!ck split somewhat explosively (some of the tale got into the news of the world!) he refused to blame n!ck for his bad behaviour except to say, "he must have had a stroke": aunt p3nny is strikingly beautiful --- more so in age even than when young

uncle n!ck is actually very kind but i never quite trusted him: his charm seemed strange somehow: i can't really explain this, except to say that becky and i weren't very surprising when this marriage broke up (or how it broke up)

i am fonder of uncle j0hn than many in my family: he is a pedant w.a thing for for bees-in-bonnet nutbaggery (eg circulating emails to protest abt the length the grass is being cut on h4mpstead he4th), but he has a dry sense of humour and is very gentlehearted

(hmmm i am too much casting myself as wise wunderkind in these stories, all concrete judgments actually reached in hindsight i suspect)

*Translated from the original italian

T my dad's nine-years-older brother was always my favorite relative. college english professor, owner of a bone-dry sense of humor. didn't have kids so he & aunt A (a real live wire!)doted on me and my two sibs, also discretely helped pay for our education. became quite close to him as adult, he loved to discuss movies and books. lived on a lake in the blue ridge mountains of Virignia. he passed in 1998, same summer as his younger brother. RIP.

W my mom's brother I don't know nearly as well but always enjoyed him in limited doses. warm, sentimental (esp after a few Jack D's)and slightly macho. now as an adult I realize that we didn't see him & his family much not because they lived in florida (official reason) but because his sister really didn't get along with him.

great uncles are a legendary and eccentric lot. my favorite is "Mac", married to my grandmother's crazy sister. alcoholic "travelling salesman who fell in love with the road," self-styled Kentucky Colonel and a bit of a con man. once he showed up at a family funeral (according to my uncle)in full army officer's uniform w/medals (he never served). when one of his sons became a catholic priest, Mac told my grandfather "he could go all the way-- pope!" Grandmother: "Mac was a bum, he deserted Mary, she had to raise those boys herself." Grandpa: "That's all true but if there was ever a woman who could drive a man to drink..."

Uncles rule. This one, especially. RIP to him.

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