Goodbye My Darling Auntie Lizzie

L-R : Me, Auntie Liz, My Aunt Helen and my Mum (opposite me)

One of the constant fixtures of my life growing up, in a family where we were very close to my Mum's family, was my Great Aunt Lizzie, my Nanna's sister, who was almost Aunt Mame like in the way she approached life. Granted she probably wasn't as flamboyant, but she wasn't far off it, at least to me. 


For a boy from the country, her life was amazingly exotic, larger than life, from the fact she lived in Sydney (and close to the City in Darling Point) to the large colourful Elton John-esque glasses she wore, the fact that she did her grocery shopping at David Jones, or travelled everywhere in hire cars. Every aspect of her life was so totally different to my world at that time that the special trips down to see her on Kirklands buses from the North Coast were like this journey into a Willy Wonka-type world and I used to adore the trips to go shopping in the City, dragging her across town in her 70s to buy exotic stationary at Grace Bros, traveling by hire car, eating at DJs, or sitting in her sunroom watching the inhabitants of Eastbourne Avenue come and go.


She was possessed of a hearty. ready laugh, a sense of the ridiculous (when a silly idea entered her head, or she said something not quite right, she would start with a low giggle, that she'd try to stifle before it built to a crescendo of endless full-bodied laughs that were infectious in the extreme!) and a sense of fun that led her to do things like hitching up her night gown when she was babysitting us in the early 80s in Alstonville, and dancing in our make believe disco in the kitchen.

She did have a propensity to express her opinion loudly at inopportune points - "Well this doesn't look like a nice restaurant does it?" as we entered the place - and repeat the same stories over and over (Australians in France waving Aussie flags by the side of the road anyone? LOL) but they were all part of her charm, and in the end what I loved was that she was FUN, bright, colourful and exuberant, and made sure that every moment of her life reflected that.

My dear Auntie Lizzie, whom I loved very much, died this year in August at 101,  and she will be greatly missed.