Be kind, but be careful as well

Childhood, on reflection, often features at least one favourite uncle or aunt — among all the other frowning elders who waste little time telling a child where it is meant to be seen and heard, and preferably neither seen nor heard.

Uncle Bob, a body builder, terrified us because he was a person who liked to see children playing around wearing shoes and we were children who somehow didn’t. The moment we saw him we stood in the tall grass to greet him — so our unshoed feet wouldn’t give us away — a trick so literally childish that an adult sees through it at once; so it can never be used again.

Punishments ensued: Like reading a book standing in a corner facing a wall, while the others who’d remembered to wear shoes carried on gleefully, their sounds of mirth interrupting every line of reading.

Uncle Ron, ensconced in a deep arm chair, was always in need of something that he himself was too well-entrenched to fetch: “Hey, can you pass me the newspapers while you’re about it”; or, “Ask grandma if there’s any more tea going and if so bring me a cup”; or “I have a meeting tomorrow now who’d like the pleasure of giving my black shoes a nice shine?” Needless to say, we children, sharp as needles, skirted widely around uncle Ron’s deep armchair.

Aunt Margaret, however, was way out there in front as a favourite. Soft of heart, equally quick to smile and tear-up, she went out of her way to see we had a happy and in some ways adventurous childhood. The lascivious thrill of eating forbidden chocolate before lunch; the delight of being spooned a second helping of dessert against the wishes of other elders ... When a child needed a friend, Aunt Margaret was there winking broadly with the camaraderie of a co-conspirator.

Dear Aunt Margaret — long deceased now — sprang to mind the other day at the race course. A young girl, no older than eight or nine, stood beside a pillar. Something in her posture appeared odd. I realised later she’d been using the pillar as a shield. A female colleague, Rosie, and I were making a round of the hall when we noticed her — or perhaps we were drawn to her because she seemed to signal to us.

Rosie went over to ask if she needed help. When she returned Rosie wore a broad grin. “She wants to know if they sell chocolates at the race course. Do you know if they do?”

I said I thought there was an automated machine which dispensed chips and chocolates.

“I told her I’d check and get back,” laughed Rosie, “and she said if they have chocolates please get me a Cadbury milk. Not anything else, I only want a Cadbury milk chocolate!”

We both had a chuckle.

“Okay if they have chocolates I’ll buy you one,” promised Rosie.

When we returned with the chocolate the girl was nowhere to be found.

“Oh dear,” said Rosie, before remembering that the girl had said she’d come with her mother who happened to be seated at a table on the lower level!

“Why would the girl sneak upstairs to ask for a chocolate?” I asked Rosie, who, obviously another kind-hearted Aunt Margaret type, waved my question aside saying: “Children, you know. She’s probably trying to get one on the sly.”

Anyway, we went down a level and true enough spotted the young girl at a table with her mother. Rosie went and proffered the chocolate while I kept my distance. It was a long wait, I have to say. When Rosie returned, she carried the chocolate and appeared red-faced.

“Goodness me,” she blurted on arrival, “one’s got to be careful these days. That kid’s highly diabetic. She’s on insulin and totally off things like chocolate! Now, how were we to know? I got told off roundly!”

Kindness too it appears must confine itself within the boundaries of caution.

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.