Auntie Ida, a Rocking Chair & Yucky Pud

Auntie Ida, The Rocking Chair and Yucky Pudding

By Rob McConnell

Tell me something. Years ago, when you were very young, did you ever have to eat a really yucky pudding? I mean when you were say, four or five years old.

Several times a year my Mother would take my brother David and I to visit Auntie Ida. She looked like she was a hundred years old. She lived miles away in a tiny dark cottage in a village on the road to Strabane. She made yucky puddings.

We knew we were going because we had to put on our Sunday School clothes, but it wasn’t Sunday. We had strict instructions to be on our best behaviour. The bus ride was fun, we loved looking out on the fields of cows and sheep. The problem was, the bus let us off and didn’t come back for hours.

We had to sit quietly while Mum talked to Auntie Ida.

Granny had told us, “Children should be seen and not heard.”

Everything in the cottage was old and black like Auntie Ida. She wore a black dress with a holey looking shawl. She must have felt the cold as she always had a hat on with sticky up feathers. She sat in a tatty old chair with a rug over the back. No one else was allowed to sit in her chair. David and I sat on hard little three-legged stools.

She had a wind up gramophone that played 78 records. As a treat we were allowed to play the record called “Granny’s Rocking Chair”. The song told of a cowboy who was not too pleased when his Granny died and left him her rocking chair. However, he was delighted when he found the seat was jam packed with dollar bills.

One night when we got home David wondered, “If Auntie Ida left us her chair when she died, would it be full of money?”

“Yeah, that would be good. She doesn’t let anyone sit in it so she must be hiding something.”

“We could buy loads of sweets.”

Mum was always given tea and a piece of cake. Auntie Ida would announce, “I’ve got a special treat for you boys for being so good.”

We would go home and mimic in a squeaky voice, “I’ve got a special treat for you boys for being so naughty.”

Out would come two bowls of apple tart piled high with this white yucky stuff. The apple pie was alright except for the grey hairs mixed in with the apple. The white stuff was awful.

Mum would say, “Eat it up, Auntie Ida has gone to a lot of trouble to make this lovely pudding.”

You had to get it into your mouth and swallow all in one go to avoid the terrible taste.

One time David dumped it down between his pullover and shirt. It started to ooze out through his hand knitted jumper. When Mum pressed it,to clean him up, more came out like the holes in a sieve. He got a terrible telling off.

“It just fell off the spoon.”

“Yes Mum, it just fell off the spoon.” I stupidly backed him up.

She told Dad so we got the slipper on the back side that night. In those days a clip on the ear or the slipper on the back side was normal. Not as bad as what my friend John got from his Dad – trousers down and the rubber dagger. I’m sure it was the side of the dagger and not the point.

Mum would demand, “Be good boys, recite a Nursery Rhyme for Auntie Ida,” and we would go all shy.

“You could do Baa Baa Black Sheep or sing Twinkle Twinkle little Star. Remember you sang it at the Sunday School Christmas concert.”

In the end we always did something as we were good boys and didn’t want the slipper.

On one occasion I must have been very cocky and recited.
“Mary had a little Lamb
She also had a Bear
I’ve often seen her little lamb
But never seen her bear”

Of course, I got the slipper when we got home but I think Dad found it funny as he only tapped me.

Thankfully Auntie Ida died and went to heaven so we no longer had to eat yucky pudding and recite Nursery Rhymes. Because she always wore black, God probably lets her float around on a black cloud all day. Maybe not, as her feet would always be wet from rain. If he has any sense he won’t get her to make puddings.

So dear reader, maybe you have been dreaming up an answer to those two vital puzzling questions. Was there a small fortune stuffed in Auntie Ida’s old chair and what was in the pudding that made it yucky?

Sad to relate there was no money stashed away in the chair so David’s day dream didn’t come true. Well, that’s not strictly true they did find two pennies, a farthing, a dog licence and a proposal of marriage from the rent man dated 1917.

As for the pudding, go on guess. Bet you two pennies, a farthing and a dog licence you're wrong. - Birds Eye Dream Topping. Yuck!