Youngest and Oldest

Here is a simple selfie of me and a baby. But every picture tells a thousand words, and this is no exception. The baby is Isaac, my youngest cousin. In our family, I am the eldest cousin. We take this picture often, whenever I go visit my cousins. Just the massive age gap - fifty-five years - entertains me. But it's more than that.

War Babies - How it All Began

My Mum was born in 1942, and just 18 months later her twin brothers were born, Johnny and Jimmy.

Nowadays, lots of people have twins. I bet you know someone who either is a twin, or you know a set of twins, possibly even more than one, right? But back in 1944, when my Uncles were born, there were very few twins. So my Mum's brothers were an Extremely. Big. Deal.

It wasn’t just the successful pregnancy and delivery of twins that was special. I think by that date, the date they were born, the world was experiencing many families losing boys, men to war. The First World War had come and gone; a few short years later, the Second World War was rampaging. Men were dying; husbands and fathers, brothers, cousins.

So this idea of new baby boys, twin boys, felt like my Nan was playing a part in restocking the world population. My Mum was very much second place to these baby boys, often physically moved out of the way by neighbours and friends who came to look at her brothers.

Set in this environment, is it any wonder they grew up with an entitled attitude?

This was manifest in both Jimmy and Johnny physically bullying my mum from a young age.

Boys vs Girls?

Mum was seen as lesser than the boys. Not just because she was a girl in the late nineteen-forties and fifties, although no doubt society played a role. But also because she was, within the family dynamic, the one that wasn’t the favourite. Mum told me she used to say: “Jimmy is Dad's favourite, Johnny is Mum's favourite, and I am Auntie Curly’s favourite.” Aunty Curly was the name of her maternal Grandmother; we don’t know why. (Not wanting to appear old, perhaps?)

Anyway, Mum's experience of life went something along these lines:

Mum plays with her dolls on the floor, in her own world. The boys planning their attack.

Jimmy and Johnny, one on each side, creeping up to her and ...

YANK!

Pulling one of each of her plaits.

Mum would scream, caught unawares, and tell her Mum, my Nan.

“They pulled my plaits again!”

Nan, busy with the housework or cooking:

“Jane, you are the eldest; it's up to you to keep the peace.” Or

“Jimmy, say sorry!”

Jimmy would mumble an insincere apology, then give Mum a sadistic sneer. Johnny was less inclined to pull mum's hair; he was usually egged on by his twin brother.

“Sorrr-eee!” he would say.

Neither of them got into serious trouble.

Imagine having to live on edge every day, terrified that your hair will be pulled hard. Never being able to fully relax. Never being able to control your environment so that you could feel safe. My heart goes out to my mum as a young girl, having to live like that.

Needless to say, there was never any love between Jimmy and my mum. I’ve seen her wedding photos - there are pictures of Johnny shaking hands with my Dad - but only one of Jimmy in the background, in a crowd.

Things Got Better - and Worse

Things did seem to improve between Jimmy and Mum at some points. Maybe because Johnny contracted Hodgkin's disease and later died from it. My mum was now Jimmy's only sibling.

I remember my cousins, Jimmy and his wife Beryl's kids, coming over to visit. They came over more often after my Dad died. Even after my mum remarried, I remember my cousins visiting.

In fact, when Jimmy and Beryl were going through marriage problems, we looked after my cousin Lorna for a few months. So there was some sort of relationship between Jimmy and my mum at the time.

It all ended, though, when my Nan died. Jimmy was a greedy man; he loved money. Nan owned a bungalow, and Jimmy tried to sell it before the probate was settled. Fortunately, Nan's neighbours saw the For Sale sign up and contacted my mum, and she got onto the estate agents. They quickly pulled the house off the market!

Then my mum, unbothered by the money, took her sweet time sorting out and agreeing probate. She let greedy Jimmy wait a year before she signed and the inheritance was released.

The last time I saw my cousins was at my Nans funeral. She died in 1992.

Twenty-nine years went by … twenty-nine years!

Then, in 2021, I got a message on Facebook. From my cousin Tamsin. I was a little reluctant at first, but we chatted online, eventually phoned and talked more, and then we met up for dinner. It was like the years fell away, and that feeling of family began to bubble up in me.

It took a year for me to visit Tamsin. Just life getting in the way, and once snow stopped travel. We both hate driving in snow. It was a visit filled with laughter and fun, long nights talking and talking. Joy and tears.

Tamsin lives a short drive from two of her daughters, and I am closer to my younger (second? Once removed?) cousin, Ayse. Ayse has three sons, all of whom I love to bits. Ayse treats me more like an Aunty, no doubt because I am twenty-odd years older than her. I feel like a grandma to her boys; sometimes, they call me “the other Nanny”.

And this brings me around to the photo above. I am the eldest of all the cousins, second cousins, cousins once or twice removed. The wee lad in the picture is the youngest. I have been in his life since he was born, but not his two older brothers. But they love me very much. I have great fun spending time at their house. I am accepted there, just as I am, something I never felt when I lived at home. Every transaction was reciprocal then. But when I visit my cousins, love passes freely, and it makes me very happy. That's family!