Fifth

 

Today my oldest brother Paul would have been 76 years old. He was born on August 5th 1947. There he is with our baby brother Simon in 1957. Simon was buried on August 5th 2022 - exactly one year ago.

Here's Paul in 2009, the year before he died. He had become a gifted fiddler and played in many Irish venues. He played with his heart as well as his fingers. If you had met him along an Irish lane in County Clare, you might have thought that he was Irish but he was as Yorkshire as me.

And below, that's Simon - dead at 66. He's in the village churchyard now waiting for his gravestone to be erected and probably berating me for the time it is taking. I find this selfie a little disturbing for I knew who he was and who he might have been. He was interred close to two plaques upon the church wall that he placed there in memory of our late parents whose mortal remains were cremated in 1979 and 2007 respectively. At least Simon did that

And finally, this was our father Philip who was born on August 5th 1914 - on the very day that the outbreak of World War One was announced in the British press. Dad is pictured during World War Two in New Delhi, India in his RAF uniform. The year was probably 1942. He would have been twenty eight that year.

And here he is drinking from a coconut. I seem to recall him telling me that this picture was taken either in Egypt or Palestine on his way home from India after the war but I might be wrong. Unfortunately, I cannot check with him as he died in 1979 and though we might remember them, the dead don't really speak. He would have been 109 years old today

August 5th. You can tell that on the calendar it is a special day for me just as it is for Cro Magnon in France whose own father was also born on this day. It was his blogpost that inspired mine.