This is an account my mother related to me about my Auntie Gwen, as my grandmother required us to call her, and her quite selfish and greedy sister.
It seemed that during the war years the rationing of all goods was done. This included such luxuries as sweets and chocolates. A favorite snack of the day was called “confection balls” which consisted of small pellets of baked cookie dough rolled in confection sugar. It came in a distinctive red striped bag. On one occasion, my grandmother managed to get a bag of these rare treats. As she was sharing them with the family, her sister came into the room and exclaimed:
“Oh! Confection balls! May I have some?”
My grandmother offered the bag to her sister who promptly grabbed as much as she could fit into her hand and stuffed them into her mouth. This irritated my grandmother to no end.
The next week she took the now empty bag and visited the rabbit pens behind the house. After procuring the conveniently similar shaped pellets that come out of a rabbit’s little colon she rolled them in powdered sugar and placed them in the familiar red stripped bag. As she entered the home with her bag of treats her sister again exclaims her delight and asks for a taste. Grandmother graciously offered her the bag and got the same result as last time. She happily watched her greedy sister stuff a large handful on the “treats” into her mouth and she never had a problem with her again.
One of my favorite stories my mother would tell us about “Auntie Gwen” was the time early in my grandparent’s marriage when they took in boarders to their home.
Today if would be called a bed and breakfast inn but in those days before the war it was a common practice in the English countryside.
On this occasion they had just taken in a new boarder, a young man approximately my grandfather’s age that was passing through the area on the way to a new job.
Just before dinner my grandfather told my grandmother that he was going to go upstairs for a bath and to come and get him when dinner was ready. When my grandfather went to the bathroom door he found the new border was using the bath at that time so he proceeded outside to finish some chores.
When dinner was ready my grandmother went upstairs to get grandpa. When she opened the bathroom door she was met with the sight of “grandpa‘s” naked backside bent over rinsing out the tub. She simply reached up between his legs and “rang his bell” while announcing:
“Ding Dong dinners ready!”
She promptly turned around and headed downstairs only to be met by my grandfather as he entered the home from his chores outside.
To add insult to injury at dinner, this now much shaken young man was seated next to grandma for dinner. She was serving fresh salmon.
During the course of dinner grandma glanced down in the man’s lap and saw a “pink thing” that she thought was a dropped piece of fish.
Unfortunately for the new boarder it was not a dropped piece of dinner but was his “bell cord” that grandma had recently pulled to announce the meal. In his poor attempt to gather himself together after the dinner bell episode he had neglected to properly fasten the front of his pants. In those days “commando” was the common undergarment of the English working man.
The result of his neglect to fasten himself properly was grandmother plunging her fork into his lap attempting to impale the errant piece of dinner.
“Mustn’t waste!” she said cheerfully while jabbing the sharp instrument into his nether regions.
This was too much for the young man as he jumped up from the table, gathered all his belongings and promptly left the establishment in protection of his future progeny and to get away from that obviously mad young woman.
Meanwhile grandfather glanced up at the commotion with his ever present pipe firmly clenched between his teeth and muttered:
“I say, what an odd duck!”
He then blissfully went back to smoking his pipe.