Bruvver looks every bit 19 hours older
FOUR weeks ago my column contained a pathetic picture of two nine-year-old twins wearing football kit and looking slightly up themselves in their dad’s back yard.
Several people have told me they were amused by the photo and “how alike the two boys looked”.
I’ve never thought of it that way. For 70-odd years I have believed I was vastly more grown-up looking than my bruvver, as well as being vastly cleverer.
I also thought I looked nearly as sporty as him despite his pretence at being a fantastic goalkeeper . . .
Many decades after that photo was taken, about a month ago in fact, those same bruvvers were on holiday together in Melbourne. They were photographed sitting next to each other in a pub.
I’m quite amazed how alike the two bruvvers appear to have become!
The one at the front (me) still looks vastly the cleverer of the two and every bit as fit as his brother. He’s got slightly more hair than his brother, whiter and more distinguished than his bruvver’s messy-grey stuff.
I’ve also in recent weeks promised to stop writing about the rellies, and that applies to photographs as well.
So it might be worth pretending today’s photograph is of two unknown strangers who happened to be idling in front of somebody with a camera.
That person must have been obsessed with the need to take pictures of old people sitting in armchairs. I promise not to offer it for sale ever again.
My bruvver looks every minute of the 19 hours older than me that he is. It explains why his birthday is the day before mine.
Exactly 54 years ago tomorrow my bruvver was looking very smart on a chilly but sunny day on Teesside in England’s North East.
He was in fact the best man at the wedding of a couple he and I know very well. I was the bridegroom and my wife was the newly endorsed bride.
His own marriage to the photographer who shared his recent holiday with us was scheduled for later in that year.
Already, the Football Association had, I believe, been approached with a view to it declaring all matches scheduled for that day to be postponed.
On March 23, 1963 I had been assigned the task of giving the whole thing a trial run.
I would consult with my bruvver on any issues that might need his attention prior to the decision to miss yet another soccer fixture so near the start of the next season.
After all, he had reluctantly agreed to forego an important home match in order to be present at his brother’s wedding so my offer to diagnose difficulties was the least I could do.
Additional to my wedding day being an unforgivable interference with his soccer arrangements, I had already been given a stand-up bollocking. The High Anglican vicar-in-charge was not happy that I had the temerity to get married during Lent.
He was not himself fussed about the critical missed fixture, but I was firmly told that God didn’t really like people marrying and presumably enjoying themselves during a solemn Lenten season.
My bruvver’s sharing with him of his own greater concern that the date already chosen for his own wedding clashed with a Colchester United home fixture appeared to have little impact on the holy celebrant.
The fact that Colchester United, my bruvver’s girlfriend’s home team, needed his support was water off a duck’s back to a clergyman more concerned with ritual than league points.
In the back of his wedding car, on the way to his own wedding early in the next season, my bruvver confided in me that his piles were giving him hell.
Life’s not always fair.
The fact that Colchester United ... needed his support was water off a duck’s back ...