More About Family

My father would be considered something of a character by most people.  He once attended a Methodist Bible Study group while drunk and got away with it.  Mother's family were a lot more eccentric.

My great uncle was awesome.  He was the youngest one of 11 and the designated family member to care for his mother, my great grandmother (the medium).

Great uncle was definitely a character.  He spoke Welsh as well as English and apparently went to a special school to learn Russian as he was on the Russian convoys during WWII.  He was loving to kids and animals - a complete softy for anything under five or on paws.  Actually, he was pretty much a softy through and through.

Great uncle, like all of the family, had Views and he insisted that he only would wear maroon, v necked sweaters.  Apparently he had a message from a spiritualist that said he should wear that colour, so he did.  So he bought these maroon v necked sweaters as he thought v necked sweaters were smart.  However an eighty a day cigarette habit takes a toll, and great uncle felt the need to keep his chest warm.  Instead of buying round necked sweaters or polo necks or even getting scarves, he kept on buying the v necked sweaters, but wearing them back to front to keep his chest warm.

Every now and then I will be talking to someone about something that happened when I was young and that I took completely for granted and I'll see an expression on their face like someone watching a dreadful car crash.  I believe it has made me more likely to see who people are and not prejudge.  If someone is kind, then it's hard to worry about inessentials like an insistence on a certain type of soap or a habit of wearing clothes in a less conventional way.  I'm trying to teach that to bear, and I think I'm getting there.

I found this picture which is not of great uncle (though he was Royal Navy) and this is the style he wore, back to front, in maroon...

Image from WikiCommons and used under the GNU free documentation license

(Just to add - this is not exaggerated or fictionalised.  I've never needed to.  I come from a long line of people on both my mother's and father's side who decided that they were who they were and damn what anyone else thought.  It's not a bad tradition)