Family Matters

I have decided to name or rename some family members. From now on Holy Sister will be called Girlie, for reasons known to a select few. Unholy Sister shall be called Storyteller, because she is a gifted storyteller with an original turn of phrase. My as yet unnamed (by me) brother I name Bishop, because, as a boy, he wished to be a bishop, without going through the tedious formality of becoming a priest.

A story about, or concerning, each of these.

1. When Girlie was a teenager she had a summer job at Butlins holiday camp. There was lots of the boy-girl thing going on. Some fellow said to her "You were very cutting to such-a-boy last night. He is only learning". "I don't want him to learn on me", Girlie said.

2. When we were still talking to each other, L'Innommable and I were talking about Storyteller. "Why does she fly off the handle so easily?" I said (she has mellowed since), "but she's a great story teller. If I could tell stories like that I'd never do anything else". "I was in a restaurant with her when she was telling a story," said L'Innommable. "The whole restaurant went quiet. Everyone was listening to her. They never heard anything like it". (I bet you didn't know that, Storyteller).

3. When Bishop was fourteen years old, he was set an essay on The Power of the Press. We had a family engineering works which had a hundred ton press for shaping metal. (They have the same thing in Detroit, on a larger scale, for forming car bodies). He wrote his essay on those. He was supposed to write about the newspaper industry. (He tells this story himself, I'm sure he won't mind me telling it).

My older brother I shall call Grey Eminence, Eminence Grise, or Old Greybeard, as the spirit moves me. He is addicted to punning. Once, I was sitting on the other side of the table from him, I thought he looked as Sophocles might have looked, sage like, for that reason, and no other, I asked him "Is it permissible for a younger brother to offer sage advice to an older brother?" "If he has the thyme," my brother replied.

I better tell a story against myself, to make up for those above. When I was sixteen years old, I sat in the kitchen, alone with my mother, my head in my hand, wondering if I meant anything, if anything meant anything, and so on. "Mammy," I asked, "Do you love me?" What did she say? "Of course I love you, otherwise how could I put up with you."

Ah yes, my mother. A woman came to our house, making a terrible fuss, saying our dog had chased her on her motorbike, and my mother had to appear at the district court. "Did you suggest to my client that she should see a doctor?" she was asked. "I thought he might prescribe a sedative," she replied.

I like the title of Gerald Durrell's book, My Family And Other Animals. Some animals are very lovable.

David ****