Eyebrows In Church

We went to my Aunt Margaret's funeral today.
It was well organised with Westlife's " You Raise me up" playing emotionally at the Crem.
The service was held at the local Parish Church which was pleasingly full of mourners.
The new vicar of Prestatyn looks a little like the vicar from Dad's Army , I tell you this just to add a little more colour to the proceedings.

The Prof and I had a pew to,ourselves, and on the way out I fell in line with a very small woman with a shock of white hair. A glimpse of two magnificently drawn on eyebrows made me stop short.
It was my Auntie Joyce
" I thought you were dead" I hissed at her
" Well I'm not" she whispered back somewhat obviously
I hadn't seen her since my mother's funeral over a decade ago

Now auntie Joyce and her hand drawn eyebrows was always a highlight at pre Christmas lunch drinks when I was a child. That is the only time we got to see her, and her eyebrows always made her look if not startled certainly mildly surprised.
Rather affectionately I always referred to her as Charlie Cairoli
Only people of a certain age will know who Charlie Cairoli was.

Auntie Joyce


41 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear about your Aunt Margaret. I remember Charlie Cairoli. He scared me!!! I take it you don't like your Auntie Joyce very much? I can't believe you said 'I thought you were dead' to her - I like her response back too!

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    1. No, i like her.......she's a strange character

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    2. You must share the same sense of humour?

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  2. I am of a certain age then, jolly good. Past being shy and embarrassed, well into the age of being loud and embarrassing.

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  3. I remember Charlie, John.
    Blackpool Tower Circus, he actually lived a few streets away from my home.
    I never did recognize him in the street though. I guess he looked different in plain clothes.
    Have a great weekend.
    Pam in TX.

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  4. Never heard of Charlie although I'm certainly old enough. I think we all had an aunt with drawn eyebrows. :)

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  5. Sorry for your loss of one aunt. What a nice surprise when you discovered one who had not passed. I have seen those eyebrows.

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  6. Auntie Joyce looks lovely, although she might want to consider electrolysis on the moustache.

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    1. LOL! No really...best laugh I've had all week....thank you :-)

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  7. I am definitely of a certain age John, but I have never heard of Charlie Cairioli.
    I am off to a funeral on Monday but suspect that I am the last ofm y generation as my mother was well in her forties (and the youngest in her family) - I am pretty sure I shall recognise no-one there, but time will tell.

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  8. Sorry to hear of your aunt's passing, John.
    A few tales about your Aunt Joyce would be wonderful to hear.

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  9. John, yet again you've brought a smile to my face (bet mum was giggling too) xx

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  10. Oh that's priceless: I thought you were dead! The type of thing I say to people. Sorry about your Aunt Margaret, but by the sound of the funeral service and type of music, she was also a "character" BTW I love the photo of you and Mary. xx

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  11. Thanks for this, I laughed out loud, what a thing to hiss at your elderly relative...superb..!

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  12. I rather suspect that as a result of this blogpost Auntie Joyce will be erasing your name from her will.

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  13. So sorry for your loss....Would love a photo of the real Auntie Joyce :)

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  14. I LOL"d

    Not an Aunt but my Mother in Law ... they started out brown and sort of not too scary looking but then as the years went by, they would change colors, they wouldn't match, once she only did one ... it became something to look forward to when visiting.
    God bless her, the day came when she didn't know any of us anymore and forgot her eyebrows too.

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    2. I'm sorry about your MIL, Notes, but I had to choke back the laughter about the eyebrows :)

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    3. jenny 0, it was meant to make you at least smile so I am happy. But it was true ! those eyebrows had a life of their own !!

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  15. Anonymous7:28 pm

    Sorry to hear about the one auntie....happy to hear about the other. John, only you could give us a giggle about a funeral.

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  16. Anonymous7:28 pm

    I must be a "certain age" since I remember seeing Charlie Carol in Blackpool Tower Circus back when I were a lad...

    I also had an aunt who plucked out her eyebrows then drew them back on. It always seemed a weird thing to do.

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  17. Maybe 'You Start Me Up' by the Stones would have been better? I remember that clown. He gave me the creeps like all clowns.

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  18. My condolences to you and yours on your aunt's passing. Love the eyebrow story!

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  19. Haha! I would have loved to have heard her respond... " I AM!!" (in the spirit of Walking Dead!

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  20. More memorable eyebrows--as good as the Prof's?

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  21. I am so glad that I will not be having a funeral (firm instructions to that effect left in case the medical school won't take me). I'd die all over again if someone played bleedin' Westlife for me. Although they are more likely to request Balls of Fire, I expect.

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    1. Actually I think it is called Great Balls of Fire. Even better.

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  22. My mother, and a lot of women who grew up during the '30s and '40s and perhaps the '50s, got rid of their eyebrows and then drew them on. I never asked my mother about it. I wish I had. How did they make them go away and not grow back? I don't think electrolysis existed then. I have my eyebrows waxed occasionally, but just so I don't have a unibrow. I don't have eyebrows made with crayons. My cousin Gary died about ten years ago. One of my sisters emailed me. I wrote back, "He can't have died yesterday. He died years ago. I remember Mother told me." I looked up the obit. He had, indeed, died the day before. Good thing I never came across him and said, "What are you doing here?" I never know what's going on. No one tells me a thing. Must be a reason for it. Perhaps I make boorish remarks that I think are funny, but everyone else in the family simply thinks I'm a rude whore. That reminds me, my oldest sister told me several years ago that my daughter is a whore because she decided not to get married in England. My sister wanted an English wedding. My daughter ended up not marrying the Brit at all. I guess my daughter is still a whore. She hasn't married any of the men to whom she's promised herself. She's a serial monogamist.

    Love,
    Janie

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  23. It seems Charlie Cairoli's fame didn't cross the Pond, although i'm old enough. Or maybe his fame did come over, but not in my neighbourhood.
    Sorry to hear about your Aunt Margaret. Did you let Auntie Joyce know you are now a married man? Sad to think that sometimes funerals are the only way you get to see who's still kicking in the family.

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  24. oh god i am an auntie joyce too. at least i don't draw on my eyebrows. i hate my name.

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    1. It could be worse... I had two great-aunts named, respectively, Hildegarde and Eulalia. Then again, I had uncles named Catley and Bedford.

      I'm really quite thankful my mother named me, as those names were on my father's side of the family. He wanted to name me Beulah Magnolia!!

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  25. Did you get your sense of humour from Auntie Joyce? :)

    Sorry for your loss of your other auntie.

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  26. Some of us our not dead yet.

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  27. I was recently looking at a series of bizarre drawn-on eyebrows; some women have very strange ideas!

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  28. I also remember Charlie C., and this must be the first time he's even crossed my mind in well over 50 years!

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  29. Creepy Charlie C how could anyone of a certain age not remember him?

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  30. Sorry to hear about your Auntie Margaret. I loved hearing about your Auntie Joyce however! When I was a kid, I had an old auntie as well who had to draw on her eyebrows because she had plucked them so fervently as a young woman that the hair never grew back. She's been gone now 30 years.

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  31. Maybe Auntie Joyce .... and her eyebrows .... can once again be a part of your Christmas celebrations :-)

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  32. I once interviewed Charlie Jnr....

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  33. My Aunt Rose used to pencil in her eyebrows... I used to find it fascinating when I was a child to watch her very steady hand make two thin arches. I was a bit jealous I think as I had very bushy eyebrows as a teenager!

    Jo in Auckland, NZ

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