Family Fortunes: My unusual grandaunt’s pink bloomers

Katie was my grandaunt. She could barely write her name and she worked as a farm labourer all her life. She was single and lived in a cottage in Grangebellew, Co Louth, where she had to travel to a well for water.

It was only as a teenager that I really got to know and enjoy Katie. She had a marvellous sense of humour, a great outlook on life, and was unusual, to say the least. She was amazed about getting an old-age pension and couldn’t believe that she got money for “doing nothing”.

At 75, and with a few bob in the post office, she wanted to buy a Honda 50, a notion she got from seeing a neighbour whizz past her house daily on a “nifty 50”. As a compromise my mother got her a Raleigh Chopper bicycle. Katie and the Chopper became regular visitors to the well and the post office. She was thrilled with the bike, but remained interested in “mechanically propelled” vehicles. She was was still talking about getting about faster in her mid-80s.

One Sunday, my mother and I took her out for a drive when, for the umpteenth time, she talked about acquiring a faster way of transport, maybe even a car.

She asked my mother for a quick go behind the wheel, convinced that there was nothing to it. My mother, for the laugh, agreed to give her a go on a country lane. I, all of 17, got out of the car in protest. They swopped seats. My mother issued instructions to Katie, who, clutch to the floor, car in gear, instructions taken and, unexpectedly, other foot resting heavily on the accelerator, released the clutch. The car shot forward and ended up in a ditch .

Heart pounding, I ran towards it, thinking they were both dead. When I arrived, tears streaming down my face, Katie was at the front of the Ford Cortina, bent in two laughing, pulling off her large pink bloomers,which she had wet with laughter. My mother swore me to secrecy but 40 years later I think it’s safe to tell the story.