[John Whitworth]

I forecast a large entry here. I think it's been done before. I have something about my aunt, I swear.

No. 2788: it’s all relative

You are invited to submit a poem about a relative (16 lines max.). Please email entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 6 March.

[Jerome Betts]

I think I’m developing equinomania


Aunt Jane, out checking coops for eggs
Got stung by horse-flies, known as clegs.
This left her pride in such a smart
She upped and threatened to depart.

Her looks may cry for bit and curb
And yet her omelettes taste superb
So, letting chivalry prevail,
We blamed it on her pony-tail.

[Brian Allgar]

My Aunt - the one who chews on broken bottles
And strangles rabid pit-bulls with her teeth -
Was once invited round to the Fink-Nottles.
(That’s Gussy, by the way). She brought a wreath,
Believing that the formal invitation
Which specified that Bertram would be late
Was to announce the date of my cremation,
At which, of course, she wouldn’t hesitate
To mention all my weaknesses and failings,
My feebleness of character and brain,
My recklessness that led to one-night jailings
And left the Wooster honour with a stain.

Imagine, then, her bitter disappointment
On finding that it wasn’t what she’d thought,
But just a spot of gastronomic ointment,
As I breezed in, and cried, “What ho, old sport!”

[Peter Goulding]

We’re not allowed to mention Uncle Edward
Nor “farmyard assignations” (quote, unquote)
In our family tree, our uncle’s dead wood,
Since Aunt Matilda caught him with that goat.
It would be a fantastic anecdote
(Sodomy with any quadruped would)
But the tale remains unspoken in my throat
‘Cos we can’t even mention Uncle Edward.

(Ostracised for bestial compulsion,
He set up home with Nanny on St. Kilda.
Oh stranger, you might well express revulsion,
But then, you haven’t seen our Aunt Matilda)

[Brian Allgar]

(A true story from when I was a kid - only my uncle's name (Joe) has been changed.)

My Uncle Clive was five feet five,
Aunt May was even smaller.
Today, she wouldn’t be alive
If she’d been inches taller.

When lunch was served, my Aunt observed
That she’d prefer a wing.
“Fly well!” we joked, until she choked
And started gurgling.

She gasped and wheezed; my uncle seized
Her firmly by the feet.
One mighty heave, would you believe?
Inversion was complete.

He shook and shook - what strength it took! -
He jounced her like the dickens.
At last upthrown, a turkey bone!
Since then, she sticks to chickens.

[John Whitworth]

Boodwar

The back of my car is a tart’s boodwar
with lipsticks and joss sticks and half a jar
of gloopy stuff you can slosh on your face
(no lid) and a broken vanity case,
nail varnish (clear), a bottle of beer
(empty) and Kleenex and tampax and lurex
and a something for cleaning your ear,
right here, a something for cleaning your ear.

The back of my car is a tart’s boodwar
with razor-blades, band-aids, an old Mars bar
(well sat on was that one but still in its packet)
there’s seventeen buttons, a bolero jacket
belonging to God-knows-who, and glue –
pritt-stick, bostik, evo-stik
and a whatsit to stick in your loo,
it’s true, a whatsit to stick in in your loo.

The back of my car is a tart’s boodwar
with paper-clips, hair clips, a panama
(mine, I admit) , a packet of fags,
three barley sugars from party bags
down the back of the seat, and a teddy bear,
and ear-rings and nose-rings and curtain rings
and a dingus for streaking your hair,
it’s there, a dingus for streaking your hair.

[Brian Allgar]

Vey nice, John. The Mars bar is a particularly happy touch.

But .. err ... isn't it too long? And where is the relative? Although I suppose her presence is implied.

[John Whitworth]

Indeed it is too long. One stanza has to go. Come, Brian, who do you suppose are making the back of my car into a tart's boodwar? But I could give it a title. Clue. The poem is about fifteen years old. God, what a genius I had then.

Boodwar or boudoir?

I love your poem.

[Brian Allgar]

As my comment implied, I had an inkling who it might be, John. Perhaps you could call it "Guess who?", although they don't seem to retain titles in the Speccie.

I think "boudoir" would be better. "Boodwar" seems a little heavy-handed, not quite the Whitworth lightness of touch that we have come to expect.

If you cut a stanza, I'd make it the third. There can be no question of losing the Mars bar, and "a whatsit to stick in your loo" is a stronger ending than "a dingus for streaking your hair".

I'm glad you liked my lttle piece. As you can imagine, although it was over sixty years ago, it's a scene I've never forgotten. Of course, my uncle and aunt are long gone, but they live on in my tale!

[John Whitworth]

Boudoir it shall be. I'll label it Daughters. The remark about the back of the car was not mine but, Lord, what a mess girls make. Sons would have been tidier. But much less fun.