Great Reads for Great Readers

 

Kiss Myself Goodbye, by Ferdinand Mount.           Non-fiction

 

 

           That tired old adage ‘fact is always stranger than fiction’ applies beautifully here as British author Ferdinand Mount recounts the tempestuous life and times of his Aunt, Betty Mount, an extraordinary milker of every opportunity and lover of excitement – and men, for Aunt Betty’s husband Uncle Greig (his name was George but that name sounded SO pedestrian) was not the only man in her life.  Or her only husband.  In fact, she sometimes divested herself of her husbands with unseemly and, in several instances, illegal haste.  Aunt Betty was a bigamist more than once, and no-one was more shocked to discover this than Ferdinand and his sister Francie when he decided to delve into the family history and, thanks to the detailed birth, marriage and death records he consulted in the multiple countries associated with Betty and her family, he has produced a fitting and authentic account of an extraordinary woman’s life.

            Ferdinand and his sister were invited for holidays at his Aunt and Uncle’s  coastal residences, as company for Betty’s daughter Georgie (Ferdinand’s mother remarked unkindly that Betty went away one Christmas and came back with a baby) and, for a time, an adopted toddler daughter called Celeste whom everyone loved but had disappeared mysteriously and permanently by the time the next lot of holidays rolled around.  Despite renting every property they lived in, there was no shortage of money;  Unca and Munca (as they instructed the children to call them) also had the long-term rental of a suite at Claridge’s hotel – nicknamed The Pub, excellent accommodation when one attended a West End Musical, as they all often did.  Unca and Munca were always generous hosts, but there were some members of their family who were not as popular, like Buster, Munca’s supposed brother, who sometimes let his daughter stay during the holidays, but always seem to be in a bad mood and a hurry.  He was also known for his many marriages (seven) and riding a motor cycle on the Wall of Death.  Who could resist such a dashing relative?  Until research revealed that Buster’s origins were very different from Munca’s official story.

            As was Munca and her sister Doris’s true history, originating in the slums of Sheffield and ending in wealthy and celebrated comfort, thanks to Munca’s vague reference once to ‘my sugar daddy’.   Ferdinand Mount’s reminiscences of his feckless Aunt Betty – some of it in exhaustive and pedantic detail, is nevertheless a hugely entertaining record of a singular life, a life in which every risk was taken and opportunity seized, regardless of who got hurt along the way.  And there were so many who did.  FIVE STARS.