Anne Harvey, one of our most popular speakers, returned to the Society to speak about ‘Aunts in Literature’ at the September meeting. She has collected poems and pieces on aunts for some time and regaled us with some funny and touching stories on everyone’s favourite relative, reminding us of ‘the love and esteem that aunts can inspire.’
We were reminded of many popular aunt references beginning with Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem ‘To Auntie’.
Aunts feature as characters in much of literature – some nice, some not so nice. Who can forget the cruel Aunt Reed in ‘Jane Eyre’? There were humorous references too – Lady Bracknell in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ and Graham Greene’s ‘Travels with my Aunt’.
A delightful evening was brought to a close by our patron, Simon Brett, who read Virginia Graham’s poem ‘Aunts’.