So you want to know about my worst relative?
It depends what you mean by ‘worst’.
You probably don’t mean my worst-dressed relative, but for the record, that would be my godmother Alice, if non-blood relatives are allowed. I used to blame her awful dress sense on the privations of growing up in the 1940s but I recently discovered that I was being very unfair on that decade. She lived in a generation that emulated its forebears, so she has spent the last 70 years attempting to model the very best the fashion world had to offer in about 1915, which has not been easy but I think it’s a battle that, on balance, she has won.
If you want to know about my worst-paid relative that would be my grandson, Christopher, who works in a call centre. He received extensive training in the 3 steps required to deflect an insurance claim – denial, followed by demanding copious amounts of meaningless paperwork, then agreeing the claim but delaying payment until the money sent is actually worthless. His hourly remuneration wouldn’t buy a decent book to read, despite the so-called minimum wage.
Then there’s my worst memory of a relative, which is a tough one. Would it be my father’s speech at my sister’s wedding, when he was so relieved that the cosmos could find a man for any woman, that he drank himself into oblivion before, during, and after his speech?
Or perhaps it would be taking Uncle Frank shopping last year. It was our own fault, we hadn’t seen him for a while and our guilt led us into taking him shopping, despite Aunty Alice’s warnings. We wanted to browse the chinaware in John Lewis so we left him watching TV in the electrical department. He insisted that he hadn’t seen the episode of Poirot being relayed simultaneously across 35 television sets - that’s dementia for you – and said he always watched this programme on a Saturday afternoon, sat in the lounge with a coffee and a biscuit. So we bought him a coffee and a biscuit at the café and sat him down, and went off together. How were we to know that his ritual also included celebrating the finish of the coffee and biscuit by stripping down to his underwear and shouting out the clues?
OK, you’ve had enough prevarication, I admit it, I know what you mean. You want to know about my worst behaved relative, and that’s an easy one to answer. That would be the one who never cooks a meal or does the washing up, or cleans a toilet. He stuffs himself with sprouts on Xmas Day then blames the dog for the fallout. He complains about the quality of TV these days but is too mean to go to the cinema. I could go on but I won’t, because he is obviously the worst relative in my family, and this man is me.
