Mum was always adamant that the date was meant to be. And William and myself have felt it was right and proper that we celebrate our birthdays every four years.
We’ve had such fun. We’ve watched bemused faces when we told them we were only eight years old when we looked more like thirty-two years old. And when William tried to ride a train on a student ticket in his seventies, well, it nearly turned nasty.
I told him he could apply for a genuine old person’s discount but no, he insisted that as he was doing a course at the Open University, then that qualified him as a student: plus, he insisted it was true, he’d only had eighteen birthdays. So the fun went on.
We should have been born on the 10th March. According to mum all was going to schedule until February 28th when a blizzard brought snowdrifts to bank up the sides of the railway station and the roads were rendered impassable and mum found that her waters had broken and there was only old nurse Watkins within close range to attend our birth.
Betty Watkins was one of those people who never flapped. She calmed dad down by giving him plenty of jobs to do. Like clearing a path from our front door to Betty’s and bringing towels from her airing cupboards. Mum and Betty told us these stories over and over again when we visited Betty in the nursing home.
I think of her as my own granny. Well there has only ever been Mum, Dad, William and me, so it felt good to have a granny attached to us. Betty lived to be a hundred. That’s no age, its just twenty-five for William and me.
According to mum and dad the roads didn’t clear for three days but we were snug and warm in mum’s front room with a blazing fire and endless cups of tea, which mum magically turned into milk to feed we littl’uns. We were celebrities, well mum and Betty were, and dear old dad told reporters he’d never worked so hard in his life during those early hours of February 29th. Betty and mum always corrected him of course, saying it was hard work enough to give birth to one baby, let alone two.
So William and me are all that are left. But we are going to celebrate our nineteenth birthday in style. We’ve booked a trip to Ibiza where they tell me young people go for a rave. Even in February, they say its warm enough to wear flimsy clothes. Can’t wait to grow old, I mean, really, really, old.
(c) 2024 Pat Barnett.
