My Eccentric Aunt
For children, although school was tolerated and even reasonably enjoyable at times, every child looked forward to the next school holiday. As a family who did go away twice each year – never abroad, although one year we did venture, by plane, to the Isle of Man, the vast majority of holidays were taken within the UK. On almost every occasion my aunt (one of mother’s widowed sisters) accompanied us. Mother had two sisters and two brothers and she was the youngest. Father had three brothers and although we met them fairly regularly, there wasn’t the same closeness as on my mother’s side of the family.
Aunty Hilda, who normally came with us to any family occasion or holiday, was what was referred to at that time as a “character” and would now be called eccentric. She was a law unto herself, wouldn’t harm a fly, and didn’t ever mean to upset anyone or disregard their feelings. She lived in a little bungalow, didn’t have very much money but wouldn’t ever tell anyone that she couldn’t afford something. The only people who knew were my parents who trundled behind her, picking up the various pieces and ensuring that my aunt was never embarrassed financially. Hilda on one occasion decided that she needed a new television and went to the TV Rental shop in the small market town close to her home. There she was shown several models and the monthly rental price of each television. Remembering that her budget wasn’t enormous, but obviously, not wanting to advise the TV Rental sales person that she didn’t have much money, when they started talking about discounts, she was delighted.
She saw the perfect television and agreed to go ahead. The sales team then explained about the amount needed for the deposit and the monthly payment required. The next part of the discussion is where it went wrong, well certainly from a monthly budgeting point of view. Being told that if she paid for a year upfront, it would save about ten percent of the total price she immediately agreed to go ahead and wrote a cheque without giving it another thought. After she arrived home she immediately rang her sister to explain about the TV Rental and how clever she had been to save money. At the end of the conversation when everyone was, literally, in the picture my father went out to his bank and transferred a lump of cash into my aunt’s account. She hadn’t asked for it, in fact she was totally delighted with the saving she had made. She hadn’t realised there wouldn’t be enough in the bank to cover the cheque, and there was no way my parents were going to upset her. They did the only thing possible to make it right again without embarrassing her.