Awful Auntie

– Chop down a tree while he was climbing it.

– Play hide-and-seek with him. Alberta would let the boy hide and then she would go on holiday.

– Shove him in the lake when his back was turned feeding the ducks.

– Replace the candles on his birthday cake with sticks of dynamite.

– Swing him around the playroom by his ankles as fast as she could and then let go.

– Cut the brake cables on his bicycle.

– Force-feed him a bowl of live worms saying it was ‘special spaghetti’.

– During a snowball fight, cover cricket balls in ice then hurl them at him.

– Lock him in a wardrobe, and then push it down a flight of stairs.

– Put earwigs in his ears while he was sleeping so he would wake up screaming.

– Bury him up to his neck in sand at the beach, then leave him there as the tide came in.

Despite all this Chester was always kind to his sister. When Lord and Lady Saxby died and he eventually inherited Saxby Hall from his parents, he was determined to look after the old place as best he could. The new Lord Saxby loved the house as much as his parents always had. But because Chester was by nature such a generous man he gave the family’s huge treasure trove of silver and jewels to his sister Alberta.

Altogether it was worth thousands and thousands of pounds. However, within a short while, the woman had lost it all.

That’s because Alberta had a dangerous obsession.

Tiddlywinks.

It was a very popular game at the time. Tiddlywinks was played with a pot and different sized discs or ‘winks’.

The aim was to use your large wink, named a ‘squidger’, to propel as many of the smaller winks into the pot as you could. From childhood, Alberta would force Chester to play with her. To stop her hurling the pot of winks across the room if she lost, Chester would always let her win. Alberta was not only a very bad loser, she was also a cheat. As a child she created her own tiddlywinks moves, all of them completely against the rules:

‘Whipple-scrump’ – to eat your opponent’s squidger.

‘Gnash-gnosh’ – to bite your opponent’s hand while they try to play.

‘Knicker-knocker-glory’ – hiding all your opponent’s winks in your knickers.

‘Boom-shack-a-lack’ – to fire your winks into the pot with an air rifle.

‘Winkferno’ – to burn all your opponent’s winks.

‘Knee-thumper’ – to make the tiddlywinks table shake when it’s your opponent’s turn by bashing it with your knee.

‘Snatcheroo’ – when your opponent’s wink is in mid flight and a highly trained bird of prey catches it in its bill.

‘Sticky-wink’ – gluing your opponent’s winks to the table.

‘Gigantopot’ – when your opponent is not looking, replace the pot with one that is much taller making it impossible for them to fire any winks in.

‘Poot’ – to break wind on your opponent’s squidger, thus rendering it unusable for a short while.

One Christmas, Chester bought his big sister The Tiddlywinks Rulebook by Professor T. Wink. His hope was that together they could consult the rules, and her terrible cheating would cease. However, Alberta point-blank refused to even open the book. The Tiddlywinks Rulebook gathered dust on a shelf of the huge library of Saxby Hall.

Ever since she was a child, Alberta was ridiculously competitive. She had to win. Again and again and again.

“I am the best. B,E,E,S,T!” she would chant. Her spelling was always atrocious. However, this aggressive desire to conquer everyone else is what ended up costing her relatives dear. As soon as she got her hands on some of the Saxby family fortune, thanks to Chester’s kindness, she gambled it away. Alberta played at the high-stakes tiddlywinks tables at the casinos of Monte Carlo. Within a week the woman had lost everything she had. Thousands upon thousands of pounds. Next she sneaked into her brother’s study and pinched his chequebook. Forging his signature, Alberta secretly stole all the money out of Chester’s bank account. Within days she had lost her brother’s money too. Every last penny. The family was plunged into terrible debt, from which it was impossible to recover.

As a result, Chester was forced to sell all the possessions he possibly could. Antiques, paintings, fur coats, even his beloved wife’s diamond engagement ring, all went to auction houses so Lord Saxby could fight to keep the family home. A home that had been in the Saxby family for centuries. Like any great house, Saxby Hall employed an army of staff to keep it running – a cook, a gardener, a nanny, a chauffeur and a platoon of maids. However, with all the money squandered by Alberta, they simply couldn’t be paid any more. The bank demanded they all be fired immediately. So with a heavy heart Chester had to let them go.

Except one. The ancient butler, Gibbon.

Lord Saxby tried to give Gibbon his notice a dozen times or more. However, the servant was so old, just short of a hundred, that he had become very deaf and blind. As a result it was impossible to tell him to go. Even if you shouted right into his ear, the poor old soul wouldn’t hear a thing. Gibbon had worked for the Saxbys for generations. He had been in service for them for so long, he had become part of the family. Chester had grown up with Gibbon looking after him, and loved him dearly, like he was an eccentric old uncle. Secretly he was overjoyed that Gibbon stayed at the house, not least because he was sure the ancient butler had nowhere else to go.

So Gibbon continued to roam Saxby Hall carrying on with his duties, though in a totally topsy-turvy way. Gibbon would:

– Mow the carpet with a lawnmower.

– Bring in a tray piled high with dirty socks and announce, “Afternoon tea, m’lord.”

– Iron the plants.

– Water the sofa.

– Bang a gong in the middle of the night to announce, “Dinner is served.”

– Serve a boiled billiards ball in an egg cup at breakfast.

– Polish the grass.

– Boil your shoes.

– Pick up the lampshade and say “Saxby Ball, who is speaking please?” as if it was a telephone.

– Take the rug for a walk.

– Put the chicken to roast in the boot of the Rolls Royce.

Stella’s mother and father worked tirelessly, day and night, to care for the house and grounds, but Saxby Hall was just too big for them. Inevitably it fell into disrepair. Soon they had a huge house they couldn’t afford to heat or light, and an old Rolls Royce they could barely afford to run. Through his considerable charm Chester, now Lord Saxby, just managed to keep the angry bank manager in London at bay.

When Stella was born he was determined that his daughter would one day inherit this great house, as he had from his father. Of course his sister Alberta had shown she couldn’t be trusted with Saxby Hall, so Chester made sure his wishes were crystal clear in his will.

The Will of Lord Saxby of Saxby Hall.

I, Lord Chester Mandrake Saxby, do hereby leave the family home, Saxby Hall, to my daughter Stella Amber Saxby. In the event of Stella’s untimely passing, the house should be sold and all the money given to the poor. It is my express wish that my sister, Alberta Hettie Dorothea Pansy Colin Saxby, should not inherit the house, as she will only gamble it away playing tiddlywinks. To ensure this does not happen, the deeds of ownership to Saxby Hall have been concealed in the house, somewhere my sister Alberta will never ever find them.

Signed the day of Monday 1st of January 1921