LXXVII

“Birthdays are good for your health - people who have more birthdays seem to live longer.”

January 26th 1945 was a frosty London Friday. In a small suburban nursing home, I took my first breath as Russian troops arrived at the gates of the hitherto undiscovered nightmare that was Auschwitz. Within weeks of my birth, a feisty fifteen year old girl breathed her last in Belsen. Her name was Anne Frank. 

My mother always made me mindful of the fortune of birth, of the rare privileges of health and security and freedom. On my ninth birthday, I was given a copy of Anne Frank’s Diary.

I would need to learn that though magnificent, we are a deeply flawed and dangerous species. We hate to be reminded, but we must never forget our darkest shadows, we must never compromise the values of respect, humility and compassion.

So, my mother having carried me stoically through the Blitz and burglary and bereavement, finally delivered me before peace was established. I would be raised in the buoyant community of post war London: nurtured on food rations and boosted by a chummy black market, when ‘luxury’ meant real eggs and milk instead of dried, and meat was usually canned, or arrived namelessly wrapped in bloodied newspaper; clothes conjured from old curtains and broken parachutes; imbued with the concept of care & repair, and cheerily grateful for the small things. The rag-and-bone man’s horse and cart trawled the streets monthly to collect our re-claimable waste; the knife-grinder on his modified bicycle kept us sharp; the milkman hummed around in his electric ‘float’; and the holy Corona lorry erratically delivered fizzy pop in part exchange for the empty swing-top bottles. Our information and entertainment came from the weebling kitchen wireless, crackly newspapers, the cavernous hush of the town library, and the local nicotine-infused cinema. Never bored, I was rich in the freedom to roam, in my Startrite buckled sandals, in high-risk park playgrounds, suburban alleys, cowslip-rich meadows and treasure-rich bomb-sites. 

In the ‘recovery’ years of the fifties, we began to aspire to the American lifestyle: food became more plentiful, fanciful even; and ordinary folk acquired domestic gadgets like fridges, and even cars; and fashion began to challenge our identities. Then one day my father came home from work and proudly slapped a lump of grey stuff on the kitchen table, announcing “ THAT will last forever”. Soon to be dubbed plastic, I remember the thrill of my first Bic Biro (an end to the blobbery of ink & fountain pens) and the first Jif lemon juice squirter that, after the novelty of anointing a stack of pancakes, became the definitive undercover water-pistol. Breakfast cereals clamoured for our porridge-weary attention by hiding bright plastic toys in their sugary depths. And then came the morning we bumped into Mrs Smith, a blousy Cockney neighbour, who dramatically unclipped her handbag to produce one of ‘them noo pollermathenian bags’. How we gasped at its flexible transparency. Things were changing fast, as we all began to abandon the loyal and the durable for endless garish novelty and convenience.

And on we romped, through the psychedelic rock & roll years during which we first-footed the moon and transplanted human hearts, and package holidays smeared us all over the world .. then jubilantly headlong into this brand new century of boundless opportunities, turning an increasingly blind and bedazzled eye to the inevitable consequences of our explosive precociousness ..

Today, all my gods willing, my self and most of my original brain cells, have woken to my 28,125th day aboard this remarkable blue cosmic speck. Every other cell in my body has, however, been replaced many times (just my bones, some eleven times). The world around me has also been subject to unprecedented changes. Change, of course, is the only guaranteed fact of life, and, safe in that knowledge, the blue speck bears us on regardless.

All too quickly, I have become an elder, now cosily mingling with you in the firmament of the web, on gadgets made of stuff that lasts forever. Whilst the Apocalypse horsemen of my Sunday school colouring book fidget on the horizon. The meaning of life becomes ever more obscure, yet the being becomes ever sweeter. We cannot let anxiety shrink our spirit - live and love your unique and precious journey. It passes surprisingly fast. Be compassionate and respectful to all living beings. Observe the little things. Breathe deep. Count your blessings. Surrender to Awe & Wonder. Be full of glee - and cake, especially when it’s your birthday.

In the extraordinary country that is Bhutan, absolutely everybody has their birthday on January 1st