Uncle Albert

The following is a piece I wrote in response to this Magpie Tales #18 visual prompt. More responses can be found here.

We called him Uncle Albert before he was the king. He was a sweet, shy man, you know. Stuttered a bit in stressful circumstances and always deferred to his more dashing brother, who was supposed to be king but gave it all up for love.

I remember sitting at a corner table with the rest of the kids in the family during his coronation celebration. It was quite an pompous affair, and poor Uncle Albert looked so uncomfortable. I thought he was going to vomit right then and there. No one paid much attention to us kids, so I swiped one of the commemorative pottery pieces from our table just to see if I could get away with it.

It’s been in the family since, and my granddaughter has it now. Keeps sharpened pencils in it.

She asked once if my Uncle Albert was the one the Beatles sang about. I think my Uncle Albert would would get a big kick out of that. And the pencil holder, too.

14 thoughts on “Uncle Albert

  1. I was just making up the child of some distant cousin of King George. He/she doesn’t exist as far as I can tell, but with those royals, you never know.

  2. I thoroughly enjoyed your magpie. I didn’t know anything of this story until this picture prompted me to research it. You did a wonderful job with it, and I love how you incorporated each part of the picture into the story, the pencils, the holder and the brothers’ tale.

  3. I love this told from a child’s perspective and how you linked all the elements in to your story is really quite clever. I didn’t know who “Uncle Albert” from the Beatles was til your Magpie! Well done!

  4. Actually, the Beatles’ Uncle Albert probably wasn’t King George; he probably was one of the Beatles’s actual uncles. I just took some liberties, since no one knows for sure.

  5. Aaaaaah! That was a delightful read! Swiping and writing….! I ashamedly don’t know The Beatles song so I’m off for a listen of Uncle Albert…..

  6. Yes, ‘…sweet, shy man, you know. Stuttered a bit in stressful circumstances and always deferred to his more dashing brother.’ A nice antidote to my post and although George was not expecting to become king he made a great one, maybe the last great one!

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