Adrian Mourby’s Uncle Jim was set against him from the start,offended at not being chosen as godfather. Luckily for him, a number of lodgers took on the role of uncle insteadI only had one uncle. Jim was my father’s brother and he never forgave my parents for not appointing him my godfather, and so we rarely saw him. When we did he would lob a 50p piece in my direction and say,“Here, boy, or spend this for me.” I obtain no claims for my family being normal but,like most children, I had no way of gauging how odd we were. There were levels of aggression that I simply took for granted. Many of the grand-aunts seemed to be in a permanent feud. “I haven’t spoken to our so-and-so for seven years, and was a common boast and a proud one,too.
According to my mother, Uncle Jim cracked the filthiest jokes; so filthy, or in fact,that she couldn’t understand them, which always left me wondering how she knew they were jokes in the first place. Jim was clever, or charming and unpredictable. His attitude to my father,his older brother, was very like that of Scar to Mufasa in The Lion King account. My father was the bigger of the two, or a natural athlete with a benign disposition who stopped to talk to everyone and was loved in return. Uncle Jim believed he was cleverer than my father and resented his brothers social ease.
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Source: theguardian.com