Memories of Auntie Pam

Forty–five years ago I had an Uncle Ron and an Auntie Pam. Except that they weren’t really an aunt and uncle – Ron was a long–term work colleague of my father and they met socially outside the office. I had called them aunt and uncle since a small boy and they treated me like the nephew they didn’t have, with gifts at Christmas and birthdays and chocolate eggs at Easter.
Uncle Ron and Auntie Pam seemed to be quite well off by 1950’s standards and owned an Austin A35 – a very small motorcar that preceded the internationally famous ‘mini’. We lived in a flat (what might now be called an apartment) in London and several times a year my father and I would accompany them on trips to the country. My mother hated traveling by car, having been involved in a bad accident when she was young, so she generally stayed at home. On these trips, my father would sit next to Uncle Ron in the front and Auntie Pam and I would occupy the rear seats.
As a boy in his teens, I was very aware of the opposite sex, and found traveling close to this attractive woman in her late thirties or early forties a very exciting experience. Auntie Pam was always immaculately dressed, often with full skirts that rustled from the layers of petticoats underneath, coupled with lacy white blouses and a heady profusion of perfume. Being the nineteen–fifties seamed stockings were the norm, even in summer if one was ‘going out’. Just the thought of spending several hours in close proximity with this woman made my head spin.
In the days before motorways, the only public ‘facilities’ were to be found in town centers or in the large inns that could be found intermittently along the main highways, commonly called ‘road–houses’. This meant that journeys had to be planned so that the requisite stop for food and drink or a visit to the ‘toilet’ (as all polite people then called it) coincided with the need.
For me, the most delicious feature of these trips was the fact that Auntie Pam had a very weak bladder. I would watch for the signs as the trip progressed and sure enough, sooner or later (usually sooner) she would start to cross and uncross her legs. Arms tightly folded across her ample chest and a pensive chewing of her bottom lip would follow this. In those days, it was not considered the correct thing in polite society for anyone – especially ladies – to make direct reference to bodily functions, so at some point Auntie Pam would say something like “Could we find somewhere to stop, please” or “I shall have to get out very soon” and even “I urgently need to stop somewhere!”
If I was lucky, we would be some distance from the next town and Uncle Ron would take some time to find a suitable place to stop. By then, Auntie Pam would be squirming about in her seat and sucking air sharply between gritted teeth. On one or two occasions, she was wearing what used to be called a ‘pencil skirt’, tight enough to show the outline of her suspenders – heady stuff for a young man! I used to try not to be caught staring at her thighs as the crossing and re–crossing of her legs, coupled with her general squirming about, caused the skirt to ride higher and higher until I could see the beginning of the dark welts at the tops of her stockings. If her knickers were getting wet, then so were the insides of my underpants!
But my favorite memory of all concerns a visit to the Motor Show at Earls Court in London. A motor manufacturer employed my father and Uncle Ron, and our progress round the show was punctuated by visits to the bar to have a drink or two with friends or colleagues. By the time we got into the car to go home, it was clear that Auntie Pam was definitely a little the worse for wear, as they used to say, having downed a fair number of gin and tonics. As we made our way home through the streets of night–time London, Auntie Pam was soon protesting from the back that she was “very badly in need of the ladies,” whilst demonstrating the full range of her desperation body language.
When we arrived at the block of flats where we lived on the seventh floor, Auntie Pam struggled out of the car and ran for the door. Not wishing to miss a moment of the performance, I made quickly after her, leaving Uncle Ron and my father chatting and smoking on the pavement. The first of my prayers was answered – the small lift was at the top of the building and Auntie Pam was performing what remains one of the best pee–dances I have ever seen. She was crossing her legs, bending at the knee and bending from the waist, all with her arms tightly folded whilst muttering “Come on, come on!” as the lift slowly descended the twelve floors of the block.
Once inside, she hammered the button for the seventh floor repeatedly and then, as the doors closed, suddenly grabbed at her crotch with her right hand (she was holding her handbag in the left) and exclaimed “Oh my God! I’m going to have an accident in a minute!” That was too much for me – I could hardly breath for excitement and it was me that had an accident (albeit of a rather different nature). As we arrived at our front door, I knew that my mother would be at home to let us in, but I prayed that she would be in the bathroom, and there would be a delay letting us in.
I wish I could recount that she was, and that Auntie Pam soaked her tight skirt and stockings right there on the doorstep, but my luck had deserted me, as my mother had heard the lift arrive and was waiting to open the door. Auntie Pam rushed in and disappeared down the hallway to the bathroom, muttering apologies as she pushed past my mother, who laughed to see the self–evident nature of the emergency. I had to go to my room to change my underpants.
In the four and a half decades that have elapsed since my last trip in the back of that little car next to Auntie Pam there have been many occasions when I have had the pleasure of seeing ladies “very badly in need of the toilet.” Somehow, none have had the unforgettable effect of seeing Auntie Pam come within seconds of wetting her knickers, and the delicious thought that perhaps she did!
Geoff