Half-blood Squibs? / Weasley cousin

[pamscotland]

No: HPFGUIDX 40384

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "mullsym255" <tracym255 at a...> wrote:
> And another thing that has always bothered me.. forgive me, because 
I 
> lent my books to a friend, but I believe Molly or perhaps Ron makes 
> reference to a cousin who was a squib and ends up being an 
> accountant? And that the family "doesn't speak of him". Why is 
this? 
> The Weasleys strike me as incredibly tolerant and accepting people 
> and Arthur obviously seems to have a fondness for muggles. So why 
> would they shun a member of the family who happened to be a squib? 
Or 
> is it that this cousin chose to exclude himself from the family? 

I think this is one of JKR's jokes!  It really made me laugh!

In my teens I suddenly found out that my grandfather's brother (my 
father's uncle) was the landlord of a pub (bar) not far from where we 
lived.  I was born into a God-fearing teetotal family and, clearly, 
older members  didn't talk about Uncle Sid because they were as 
ashamed of him and his chosen profession as they would have been if 
he had committed a really terrible crime, and they didn't want the 
younger members of the family to find out in case word got around 
amongst the teetotal God-fearing circle of acquaintance.  (Tainted 
blood and all that.)

It is obviously ridiculous 'not to talk' about a relative just 
because of the job they do.  I was going to say that it was 
particularly ridiculous to be ashamed of a relative who is an 
accountant - but all of a sudden I'm not sure how I would feel if I 
had a relative who was an accountant after the news this morning! 8¬))
I probably wouldn't talk about him or her!

Of course that doesn't mean that such a person is totally cut off 
from the family - individual members of the family may still keep in 
touch.

They just won't talk about him!  8¬))

Cheers for now

Pam