Today,I was thinking about the experience of having Uncles and Aunts, when I was a child in the 1960s. I suspect that the experience then is very different to the experience of the extended family of today. Back then, all biological (and the many non biological) Uncles and Aunts had to be referred to by the proper title of "Uncle" and "Aunt".........Uncle Tom & Auntie Judy and, Uncle Bert and Auntie Margaret on my father's side and Uncle Jim and Auntie Irene on my mother's were the main protagonists, but family friends such as Uncle Fred and Auntie Greta as well as the Leslie Philips of the family, Uncle Arthur always seemed to be around at those family parties where pineapple and cheese on sticks were all the rage and every living room was various shades of gold and beige... The men seemed to be always dressed in brown suits, whereas the women always wore a new"frock" , drank babycham and had "big-ish" hair, Everyone seemed to smoke, drank alcohol then drove a car home, and no one ever wore a seat belt!!!!!!
Family relationships were more relaxed then. Uncles and Aunts were trusted, and could love and discipline nephews and nieces without any behaviours being monitored or worried about.
We lived in a simpler, risk assessment free and less paranoid society,or so it seems to me.
I have been thinking about all this all day, as Uncle Bert sadly died this morning. I called round to see Margaret with a flan and cake (I thought it would be more useful then flowers) and was reminded of all those family do's of past years.My nephews and great niece always refer to me as John.........and I wouldn't have it any other way, but I guess some of me wonders what it would be like to be thought of as one of those corduroy wearing,whiskey drinking "Uncles" of the 1960s
set of singers performed natural decants as they sang my favourite Welsh 
