Many Happy Returns? – Peter Culley – 29th

MANY HAPPY RETURNS?

In just a few more days I will wake up one morning to an event that occurs with predictable regularity, whether I wish it to or not. I refer, of course, to my birthday. We all have them though I expect they are not necessarily always greeted in exactly the same way. Our very earliest birthdays pass unnoticed by us of course but, once the penny drops that their appearance is usually celebrated with gifts and goodies, they probably are only second to Christmas in their popularity.
And so they often remain. Our 21st used to be something of a milestone marking our progress from adolescence to maturity, although times may have changed somewhat in that respect. Other significant birthdays throughout our life may also demand recognition, but I have noticed a general reluctance among many people (especially some of the ladies) to view them with reservation as old age intrudes!
My own upcoming birthday will no doubt be marked by a few cards, some token presents, and accompanying well wishes as per usual, but to be honest, it is just another day in the life of a retired elderly man; nothing to make a fuss of, other than the sobering thought that my personal chronometer has just clocked up 86.
My wife and I are currently busy offloading the accumulated detritus of many years -we are not downsizing, just decluttering. Among our many discoveries was a box of assorted cards, including very many old birthday cards. One such was a card which lists all the famous people and events that happened on the day of your own entry into this world – they seem quite popular. It got me thinking and prompted a little research as follows.
My own appearance into this Vale of Tears took place long ago on the 6th August 1940 in Croydon, London. I don’t personally recall this momentous occasion but felt sure that – once I checked the historical data – there would have been suitable signs or omens from the Cosmos acknowledging the event. Not a bit of it. Ziilch! No comets blazed their way across the heavens. The Aurora Borealis was not seen in south London. History ignored the birth entirely. Of course, I arrived during a war and the Battle of Britain was in full swing and this might have explained the oversight. However a glance at the war diary shows that on that day there was, “very little Luftwaffe activity.” It appears that not even the Third Reich could be bothered!
Fast forward exactly 5 years. By this time I had been evacuated from London by my parents to live with my father’s elderly parents in Grangemouth, Scotland. This had come about as a result of the advent of the V1s and V2’s. On the day in question I was probably playing imaginary games in our tranquil back garden, or waiting to be called in my grandmother for a birthday tea. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away a silvery glint high in a cloudless blue sky marked the passage of ‘Enola Gay’ en route to the drop zone where she unleashed a single ordnance on a Japanese city that was to bring to an end a long and bitter world war and usher in a new and terrifying reality.
Of course I remained blissfully unaware of all this. I knew nothing of the death and destruction of Hiroshima or, indeed, anything of the other atrocities that had been perpetrated in the years before. It was only very much later that the full horrors of that conflict were made known to me. That knowledge destroyed any remnants of my childhood innocence that might have survived and has coloured my life ever since. Sadly I am only too well aware that today’s period of ‘childhood innocence’ is considerably shorter than the one my grandparents’ generation and society vouchsafed to me, and I sympathise with youngsters today who must thereby encounter the harsh realities of today’s world so much sooner.
It rather put me off any further digging into the 6 August project. Come 6 August this year I shall simply settle for the cards and good wishes, and maybe just the odd jar or two!