Life...Part 5

Birthdays and Biscuits

Birthdays

The following story is true and you would have no reason to doubt it if you had ever met our Mum.    

From as early as I can remember, I always had my birthday on August 18th. This was ingrained into me just as every other person knows when their birthday is.

That was when I was born. 

That was the date.        

Nothing to change.

Or was there??

When I was 15, I was playing football (Australian Rules for my overseas readers) and I got reported.

For those unfamiliar with our rules, getting reported is when the umpire reports you for unbecoming conduct on the field during the game. This is usually for hitting a player unfairly to the head, or striking them in a fight. It can also be for any play that is deemed too rough and outside the rules. Overseas readers would probably say this game has no rules!!

We didn't have a send off rule back in those days. If you did something too rough you got reported, and then a few days later attend a tribunal meeting where a group of people judge whether or not you are innocent or guilty, and then apply a suspension. This could be 1 game or more, depending on the offence.

A few years later, when I was 18 I was on the receiving end of a punch from an opponent that put me in hospital. He was reported and copped a 6 week suspension.

At the tribunal I was given a warning for 'unsatisfactory evidence', as I couldn't tell them anything as I was knocked out and could not recall anything about the incident.

I felt as guilty as the offender !!

Anyway, once again, I digress.

I had a bit of a tussle during the game with an opponent and a few fists may have been thrown. After the game I was told I had been reported, which came as a shock, as you were meant to be told you were reported as soon as it happened.

I was required to present my proof of age, so Mum dug up my birth certificate from somewhere and gave it to me.

Imagine my surprise when I saw my birth date was August 17th, and NOT August 18th, which I had been using for 15 years !!!

I was in total shock and disbelief, and went to Mum and pointed out this rather significant error !

Her response?

A shrug of the shoulders, a bit of a laugh and then "Oh well, there are a lot of you"

There were 8 kids in our family at that stage.

 

I think Mum was prepared to just forget about it, but I wasn't.

"Mum, what do we do about this?" 

She just said that I could stay with the 18th, or go with the 17th from now on.

As it was printed that my real birthday was the 17th, I told her that I would use that date from now on.

No big deal on her part, but this really bugged me for ages, especially the following year as my 'real' birthday approached.

I can't tell you how hard it was to get used to changing my birthday, even now one of my brothers still contacts me on the 18th to wish me Happy Birthday !

As for how on earth I got enrolled at school etc, I suppose that things weren't as tightly policed back then as they are now. Everything was just on paper/

I look back now and have a laugh about it. Our Mum was one of the most laid back people ever, and it would take something more than this to rattle her cage. But nonetheless, she was always on the ball when she needed to be, she just didn't let ants become elephants.

I think I carry on some of her approach with a saying that I always use when things get a bit tough at work...

"We don't have a problem, only a solution"

That was 44 years ago, and even to this day I still get reminded about it from someone each time my birthday comes around.

The 17th is well and truly my day, but there are also some memories of when I had it a day later.

Biscuits

This is another story involving our dear Mum, and occurred during my time at Boarding school.

We only went home every 6 weeks or so, and when all the boarders came back they were well stocked up with home cooked food, snacks and goodies from home. We called them 'Scoffs".

Some boarders quickly developed a reputation for coming back with good scoffs, others had bad ones, while others had none, and would just 'bod' off the rest of us ( that means come begging !)

Fortunately, my brother and I had a reputation for having good scoffs, especially these shortbread biscuits that mum would load us up with. They never really lasted more than a few days, but they were gold !!

But, as the dorms ( large rooms that all the beds were in) weren't secure, other boarders were in and out all through the day. Stuff often got pinched, and our scoffs were often a target after we had been home for a visit, or if mum and dad came down on a Sunday for a rare visit, which they were able to do. It was hard for them to visit as they ran a hotel back at home.

When we complained to mum that her biscuits were a hot target for 'scoff thieves' , she was really upset for us, but also took it as a compliment.

We thought that was the end of it.

Next time she saw us she had an extra large supply for each of us, delivered with a careful warning... "Put these ones at the top of your container"

The only thing different was that we could tell that about ten of the biscuits were just a little browner than the others, it was her way of making sure we did not eat the browner ones.

We asked why and she said nothing, but just smiled, that was it. ""Just leave the brown ones for the thieves" was all she said.

Sure enough, over the next few days our scoffs got raided, but after 2-3 days, the raids stopped, even though there was still quite a few biscuits left. Most of the browner ones had gone by now.

The raids stopped then and there, and we were at a loss to explain why.

On our next trip home we quizzed mum about this and she said that she was sure she'd solved the problem once and for all.

In the batch she gave us, she substituted salt for the sugar in the browner ones, and probably added quite a bit of salt just for good measure.

Not exactly what Mum did, but along these lines !!

Boarding school was a lot of fun, and there are endless stories to share about what happened to us, and what we did to others.

Having Mum get involved in solving a problem is something we look back on now and still have a good belly laugh.

And our scoffs were never stolen again !!!!

Well Readers,

That's it for today, thanks for reading, and please feel free to leave a comment.

Until my next post...

Cheers 😁