Curse of The Gene Pool

My Dear Princess & Dear Fellows,

Everyone thinks their relatives are bonkers. I remember Er Indoors laughing about it when we first met, "Ha ha, you might not want to be involved with me after you've met my relatives ha ha..."

I didn't laugh. My relatives can beat ANYONE'S relatives. This came back to me this week in a message I received from Tups. She was catching me up on what the Lovely Nieces were doing, and telling me about my dad's failing eyesight and her new boyfriend. And then she dropped in a story that made me remember just how BARKING my family can be.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First I should introduce you to the family. Of course, I have told you about Mam before. But in addition, I have:

One uncle who was a bit of a joker, a bit of a prankster ha ha. One of his tricks was to put his wife's fur coat on backwards, slip in some vampire teeth and ambush his wife on her way to the outdoors privvy (this was in the 1960's). His terrifying wife took one look at him, called him a "silly lookin' bugger" and flipped him into a rosebush. He was also an incredibly talented Elvis impersonator - no seriously - he could really sing and actually did resemble Elvis as well. The local women LOVED him. Unfortunately for him, his wife threatened to chop off his - errr - sideburns if he kept up the singing.

His wife frightened the sh*t out of me as a child. I swear she was the spitting image of Ada from Ada & Cissy. She even sat just like Les Dawson, with her legs apart, showing her knickers. She had a booming Lancastrian voice and kept a guest house on Bridlington sea front. On one occasion she ventured to an upstairs room and found two teenage lads nicking the telly out of the room. She rolled up her sleeves and ADVANCED on them, while shouting, "Come 'ere ye little sods!" She commenced to strangle one of them, and the other was so terrified he leapt from the window, forgetting he was three floors up and broke his leg.

Or there's Great Uncle Ralph. He's another joker. His most famous exploit was when he decided to frighten my grandfather on the toilet. Apparently, as young people, Ralph and his brother (my grandad) were all in the garden enjoying a sunny day in Yorkshire with the rest of the family. At some point, grandad excused himself and went into the house to the lavvy. Ralph told everyone that it would be a BRILLIANT joke if he was to shin up the drainpipe and stick his head through the toilet window, giving grandad a fright. The rest of the family pretty much ignored him. They were used to his brilliant ideas. So up Ralph went, and indeed stuck his head through the window to see my grandad finishing up. "Aha! I can SEEEEEEE yooooo!!!" sang Ralph.
 
But what he hadn't anticipated was that my grandad was having a poo. And grandad wasn't too fazed by seeing Ralph there. Instead, he finished wiping himself, calm as you please, and then stuck the poo-paper right in the middle of Ralph's forehead.

Ralph screamed, tried to get the paper off his head, lost his grip on the drainpipe and fell into the privet. 

Er Indoors loves that story, but didn't believe that Ralph was real from the tales I told about him. But at my mum's funeral she met a strange little old lady. 

"I'm Ralph," said the little old lady. It turns out that he had just let his hair grow long. Er Indoors said he looked like a big nose sticking out from a mass of grey hair. A bit like Cousin It, but with a big conk.

He was FASCINATED to find out that Er Indoors's family all came from Shetland. "Ooooh yesss... I've been to Shetland," he told her (he hasn't). "That was when I was in training for the D-Day landings" (which he wasn't part of). "Very strange people up there. Very small and they paint themselves blue and live in huts. Ohhh yesssss..." (What the ****?!?)

Then there's my great-aunt, who had a VERY good World War II and became engaged to several servicemen. She pawned all her rings to feed her gambling habit (she was addicted to Bingo) and tried to fashion her daughter into a child star (based on Deanna Durbin - which didn't go down so well in the 1970's).

Her daughter brings the madness right up to the present day. Despite the fact she is short and dark, and has a thick Yorkshire accent, she thinks she is Marilyn Monroe. She whispers breathily like her and does that funny coquettish thing with her upper lip. Incredibly vain, she refuses to wear her glasses and instead carries a magnifying glass with her at all times. Of course, she can't hold it while driving, which is why she drove directly through the middle of a traffic roundabout one time. "Without noticing she'd even bloody done it," added Tups.

In recent years, she has turned into a religious fanatic. Of course, a lot of people in my family are religious, but she has gone the extra mile. Tups told me that recently she heard one of my nieces was unwell and decided that it was because of demonic influence. Lovely Niece #2 described how "Marilyn" held her in the hallway for 20 minutes chanting at her. 

"Er... thanks... Really, I'm feeling much better now," said Lovely Niece #2.

"No you're not, I can still see Satan," replied Marilyn.

You will be unsurprised to hear that Tups has now banned Marilyn from coming anywhere near either of her daughters, and quite right too.

But this didn't stop her from going up to my dad in the street the other day, putting her hand on his forehead and saying, "You will be heeeeeeealed!" like a Northern Jerry Falwell. 

Tups admitted his eyesight is, in fact, getting better lately and he's thinking of going on holiday soon. "But it's NOWT to do wi' that bugger!" she added vehemently.

Good old Tups. It is good to know that at least a few of us escaped the gene pool. 

At least. I think so. Right? You'd tell me, wouldn't you??

Oh shut up.

S.