Aunts Up the Cross

by Robin Eakin, Robin Dalton, Clive James (Introduction)

My great Aunt Juliet was knocked over and killed by a bus when she was eighty-five. The bus was travelling very slowly in the right direction and could hardly have been missed by anyone except Aunt Juliet, who must have been travelling fairly fast in the wrong direction.

Growing up in the 1930s in a grand old home in Sydney’s bohemian Kings Cross, Robin Dalton experienced a childhood of curiosity and wonder. Raised by a bevy of idiosyncratic aunts and a revolving door of unconventional houseguests, Dalton recalls a time when children had real adventures in a world not easy but perhaps less complicated than today’s.

With a gentle warmth and wicked wit, Robin Dalton brings to life all the colour, glamour and charm of Australian society between the wars. Steeped in nostalgia, Aunts Up the Cross is a delightfully funny memoir of family, childhood and an Australia of yesteryear.

Genres: Nonfiction, Australia, Memoir, Biography, Biography Memoir, Humor, 20th Century

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Robin Dalton nee Robyn Eakin was born in Sydney, and has lived in London since 1946. She has been a television performer, an intelligence agent, a literary agent and a film producer (Madame Souzatska starring Shirley Maclaine; Oscar and Lucinda starring Cate Blanchett), as well as an author. Her 1965 account of her childhood in Kings Cross, Aunts up the Cross remains an Australian classic. The previously unpublished My Relations will be released in 2015.

AKA Robin Dalton

Reviews

[Jola · Rating 3 out of 5]

The amplitude of my emotional response to 'Aunts Up the Cross' was as weird as the book itself: from hysterical laughter to feeling awkward, to put it gently.
Review to come.

[Debbie Robson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aunts Up the Cross is a delight! Take for instance the famous first paragraph:

"My great Aunt Juliet was knocked over and killed by a bus when she was eighty-five. The bus was travelling very slowly in the right direction and could hardly have been missed by anyone except Aunt Juliet, who must have been travelling fairly fast in the wrong direction."

In only 22,000 words Dalton recreates a time that has long gone. It is a time where very elderly women can just decide to stay in bed most of the day. It is a time when a guest can come and visit and stay for 17 years. Dalton grew up with stories of all the people (including the spinster aunts) who lived in Maramanah, the house where Dalton's mother grew up. When the author's parents are married they move to 107 Darlinghurst Road with her parents living downstairs and her grandmother and Aunt Juliet living upstairs. Dalton describes the life in this house and what it was like to be a child in the late 1920s and 1930s.

My favourite incident in the book is what happens when Robin gets a part in a school play. Her father's response is hilarious. And then there are a succession of servants. One of them, Nancy swore like a trooper:

"Passages and stairways rang with Nancy's clear, pure voice pealing out the monosyllabic obscenities she seemed just to have learnt. "Ha, ha, ha - now that isn't a funny wee word," we heard over the hum of the Hoover in appreciation of her newest acquisition."

Suddenly Robin is all grown up and engaged to two very good-looking American servicemen. I wonder what happened to them! There is so much that Robin withholds from this memoir but I'm guessing it might have been difficult living in such a chaotic household. This book is highly recommended and I've added to my enormous To Be Read pile her later book An Incidental Memoir.

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir does have a couple of great opening sentences. After that it is not about the wirting it is about Dalton's childhood in Kings Cross. There is a big family and a set of eccentric characters including a man who came for dinner and stayed for 17 years. This is no great coming of age story and there are no single event that moulded her life, rather this is a book about a distinct time and place in Australian history.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up from a charity shop sellout. First published 1965. I couldn’t resist the telling of maiden aunts in Kings Cross, Sydney, in times gone by. How is this for an opening para:

"My great-aunt Juliet was knocked over and killed by a bus when she was 85. The bus was travelling very slowly in the right direction and could hardly have been missed by anyone except Aunt Juliet, who must have been travelling fairly fast in the wrong direction."

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today, the iconic fountain in Kings Cross is a good spot to observe people. Turns out the site was where Robin Dalton (née Eakin) grew up in her grandparent’s home.

The inter-generational house housed a number of family members and guests, including Robin and her GP father upstairs with her mother, while her maternal grandparents lived down stairs, aunt Juliet’s room off the stairs, and all the guests and friends everywhere else.

Of jewish decent, Robin’s family once we’re rich, but by Robin’s time things are different. Born between the wars, Robin shares both her family stories and local history with the reader.

Clive James points out in his introductory essay that Robin doesn’t actually share much about herself. In the forward Robin Dalton explains the book was written for her children and this the third edition contains a number of photographs also.

Amusing, historical (written in the mid-1960s, recalling her earlier family life up to 1950s) and nostalgic. A top Australian read.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished: 08.04.2019
Genre: memoir
Rating: B
#AWW2019
Conclusion:
Light, funny memoir...perfect book
to lazily sit in the garden with a G&T...and laugh!


My Thoughts

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written account of the author’s bohemian childhood with her eccentric family, growing up in Sydney’s Kings Cross in the inter-war period. Interesting reflections abound!

[Lulu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful memoir of the author’s recollections of her childhood, with all the inconsistencies and truncated knowledge of a child’s limited point of view. (Australian galahs are pink and grey: the sulphur-crested cockatoo is all white with yellow feathers adorning the head)
Dalton recounts the drama and the comedy of the life that swirled around her, peopled with eccentric characters (mainly members of her family) and filled with snippets of events which ordinarily might rarely befall families, but in her house seemed weekly if not daily occurrences.
It is a slim volume and it would have been wonderful to read a more detailed account (of her father’s work, her grandfather and those aunts up the cross, for example) but as it stands it certainly captures the chaos, colour and unconventionality of the Eakin household.
Special thanks to my friend HOT who sent me this book as a gift. It was a delightful romp through inner Sydney of the 1930s.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm on a memoir reading (and writing!) kick at the moment and this is a great contribution to the genre. Robin Dalton's family must have been an absolute hoot, especially her father. I loved reading about the Kings Cross where my mother shopped in the 1940s when I was a baby and recognising the remnants of those days in my own memories. I suspect Dalton didn't have the assistance of an experienced editor, not that she needed one. She has a great facility with language: her work flows easily and she brings her characters to life even without the hilarious photos. I really wish she had written more but she extended her metier further. Loved it!

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this concise memoir, the author has many entertaining but sometimes dark stories to tell about growing up with her eccentric family in Sydney Australia in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The illustrations nicely supplement the text.

[Chanel Chapters]

A twee itty bitty memoir of times past in a bohemian middle class family.

3 ⭐️

[Em__Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Eleanor Waight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book many years ago but re-reading cos it’s fun and quirky. A childhood spent with a collection of eccentric family. Told with honesty and humour.

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 2 out of 5]

You can't help who your family is, but these people come across as very privileged and selfish and getting away with things that other people would not get away with. It's portrayed as wit and eccentricity but to someone who has worked in a high school and seen it all before it just comes across as ridiculously selfish ways of living.

Spendthrift behaviour, tantrums, cruel (and in some cases dangerous) pranks and parties. It's a bit like the world of the Great Gatsby I guess and some people will enjoy it. I think I would have enjoyed a handful of these characters and the great house in an Agatha Christie type story but just as memoir I couldn't find myself caring too much, I was irritated more than anything. It's a short book but it took me almost a week because I had to force myself to it.

And these are the stories our nation is built on (rolls eyes)

[Angus Mcfarlane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a hidden gem which recaptures the Australia of yesteryear, albeit one more zany than many experienced. I felt some kind of connection with the story even though I am relatively removed from the situation - none of my family were Jewish, nor did I experience the 1930s, or ww2, or grow up in a house which doubled as a surgery. But I did grow up in Sydney, and remember a number of my great aunts, who in general seemed to exude a degree of eccentricity. And there was some Irish heritage in the family also. These are only superficial comparisons, however. I think I related to the fact that there were such vivid, unusual, but authentic and humorous stories - ones which would have continued to produce laughter and affectionate nostalgia as they were recalled - stories I remember hearing from my mother in particular of her family as she grew up.

The book takes a little while to get into. The humour is not overt, nor central to the authors purpose I don't think, but it is the lasting mood I was left with. The father's calls to the boarding school, and the schools response, is a classic and surely symptomatic of the era. And then the book is finished, feeling like there was so much more to tell, and perhaps there is but they're the ones that belong to you and me.

[Brona's Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aunts Up the Cross by Robin Dalton read like historical fiction (being set in Kings Cross, Sydney between the wars) but it was in fact a memoir. Perhaps because Dalton wrote the book in the 1960's, and was therefore looking back on her life from a bit of a distance, there were romantic, nostalgic, story-like elements to it.

Dalton's childhood sounded fairly chaotic and madcap. A bevy of elderly aunts and uncles, a cast of weird and wonderful characters and some bizarre deaths. Her dad was the local GP which meant he had a nodding acquaintance with many of the eccentrics who lived in the area. A large number of these would turn up on the doorstep seeking treatment at all hours of the day and night.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com.au/20...

[Kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I agree, the opening lines to this are good. As are the end few lines. Robin Dalton has had a fortunate and and eccentric childhood. It was entertaining. But, I gotta say, it was like being at your Nan’s house listening to stories of her (very affluent) upbringing with a lot of people you don’t know, all the while, you’re just looking at the wall clock as the minutes crawl by.

[Robyn Shortwoman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dated.

Robin Daltons memoir of her Sydneyupbringing as the only child in a rambunctiously large inner city upper crust family who are down on their luck reads like an Antipodean version of the Mitfords , without the politics.

The matriarch, her sister and numerous house guests offer much anecdotal fodder, while Dalton’s
mother chain smokes and entertains. The show is kept on the road by the father, who seems to have been spat from the same Naval mould as the late Price Phillip. He is the local doctor, and when his income does not keep up with his gambling, his wife hides bills in the drawers, pawns the jewels of an aunt, or makes recourse to her store credit account - all recounted in a very light note.

Much is made of their ‘Australian-ness’ which is chiefly explained by their mixed heritage (Jewish/Irish Presbyterian)and universal addiction to the racecourse, yet Dalton mistakes a Major Mitchell cockatoo for a Galah. (Perhaps this was one of her fathers jokes she failed to discern) She is generally disparaging (like so many of her generation who spent their adult lives abroad) of everything else. The architecture is awful, the culture is declining, the accent broad etc etc.

The humour is at times excruciating. The casual racism, sexism, classism and cruelty no longer stand as funny. I can’t help but feel for the poor women patients, one I would suggest suffering from menopausal anxiety, and the other from endometriosis- both fobbed off as whining hypochondriacs.

I’m glad the pompous git kneecapped himself.

Disappointingly, we do not get to know the maiden aunts. A family rift keeps them at a distance.
It might have been a better story to uncover them - women born into the Belle Époque still hanging on between the wars.

So yeah, it’s of it’s time, but nah, doesn’t hold up.

[Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Its opening line is a cracker, but the menagerie of aunts and spouses and parents and grandparents needs a white board to keep track of. Reminded me of Dostoyevsky et al. This made it hard to get into.
There were some sweet character vignettes and amusing anecdotes, but, for me, I found the narrative arc was patchy and not engaging. Practically devoid of emotional connection, making it very hard to empathise and go along for the ride.
Harmless enough, but there is probably a better story trying to get out!

[Lydia · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an interesting read, and what a life Robin Dalton had, my goodness it was full. There were quite a few times my jaw dropped in shock. It was a good start and a good finish. I did get a little confused at times and the story felt a little backwards and forwards and forwards and backwards at times too but It was good, full of shock and humour and sadness. I recommend ‘Aunts Up the Cross’ to those who are looking to read a short, full of good craziness and drama.

[Kristine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amusing reminiscences and anecdotes of a childhood in Kings Cross. Inconsistencies (e.g. we had no pets, then stories about pets) and errors (e.g. galahs described as white birds with pink crests) were somewhat distracting, but a reasonably well written and easy to read memoir.

[Mary Bellamy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir about the life of an eccentric family in Sydney, Australia from the '20s to the '40s. Quick read. Gentle humor. The Cross is a neighborhood in Sydney (King's Cross). Most of the aunt's barely make an appearance.

[Margaret Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

A delightful if 'light and fluffy' account of growing up in Kings Cross in the 20s and 30s.
Reminiscences of the numerous great-aunts are entertaining. A perfect read in these times of Covid-19 when concentration levels are low.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite interesting, recounts author's childhood with a series of eccentric and quirky aunts. Relives an era but I found it a bit self-indulgent. Of interest particularly to people who have lived up at the Cross at that time.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's not quite enough here to make it a truly great chatty memoir, which it could easily have been, but it's a lot of fun and just colourful enough to balance truth with embellishments.

[Alexandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clever and quite charming, but dated and challenging to overcome the tone and some of the language.

[Denise Marr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect weekend read. I loved having a glimpse of all those that made up Robin’s family. Different times , different way of living and dad was a such a character.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Succinct beautiful story telling, little know gem. A unique and iconic childhood well remembered and possibly embroidered child memories. Sheer delight

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit twee

[Barbara T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amusing memoir of eccentric Australian upbringing