Oh, the inhumanity of brothers

The more I look back on life, the more I am convinced that man’s inhumanity to man is born of sibling rivalry.

For example, I have two older brothers: Donald, who is 12 years my senior, and Gerard, a decade older than me.

So when I was a babe in arms, my brothers had reached that point of pompous pre-pubescence which dictates that any human being who had the misfortune of being younger than they were was to be treated with disdain and an almost complete lack of interest other than to wonder how something so small could make so much noise and leak so badly without incurring the wrath of ts parents.

Inevitably, my brothers were forced by my mother and father to baby-sit from time to time, which they clearly did not enjoy one bit.

The first time they did duty, I had the great misfortune of soiling my nappy quite spectacularly, and neither of my siblings was prepared to change me, in spite of having been given extensive lessons by my mother.

They were also unable to be in the same house as a baby with such a spectacularly spoiled nappy, so they took me outside to the most remote corner of our garden and sat me on top of the compost pit.

When my mother arrived home she actually found it quite amusing and the story was told with great delight at the family dinner table whenever visitors were being entertained.

As far as I know, there has never been any discussion about the possibility of my contracting some sort of disease or virus from my two-hour sojourn atop a mound of rotting vegetables, grass cuttings and six-weeks-of dog doodies.

As I got older, the compost pit did not represent a feasible option for my brothers because I could, from the age of about two, scramble off it and find my way into the house, dragging a trail of grass cuttings, rotting vegetables and at least a lump or two of dog doodies on my booties.

So they devised another dastardly plan to ease their baby-sitting burden. They got an old potato sack and tied me up in it until just my head stuck out. Then they placed me on a high shelf in the garage with the warning that if I wriggled too much I would fall off and kill myself on the lawnmower below.

Oh, the inhumanity of it!

But my parents seemed to think it was all quite ingenious, and once again the dinner table buzzed with talks of pre-pubescent innovation and ingenuity.

I did take heart, at first, from the fact that my father moved the mower away from beneath the shelf, but my brothers insisted it was because “Pa didn’t want any harm to come to his new eight-blade, four-horsepower Dennis mower.”

Their swansong was when I was about four years old. In their eyes, I was probably less of just a leaking, noisy burden and more of a toy from which their could derive pleasure.

Their favourite trick, which I must admit to encouraging with squeals of joy, was to stand on either each side of my parents’ double-bed holding my hands and then bounce me up and down so that my head would clonk the ceiling.

All was well until one day my brothers got out of sync and while one was pulling me down the other was heaving me up with the result that they broke my arm.

On this occasion my parents were not amused because they had to take me to hospital instead of being able to put their feet up and have a post-golf drink.

They did, apparently, see the funny side later on, because this story became a favourite dinner time topic of conversation.

Fortunately, I am lucky enough to have a sister who is five years older than me, and soon after the arm-breaking incident it was decided that she had reached an age where babysitting duties could be taken out of our bothers’ hands and put in her care.

She was wonderful and to this day, still looks after me with dedication and love.

Which surprises me because I hardly reciprocated her tender loving care when we were teenagers. I can remember shoving fireworks up the outside overflow pipe to the toilet when she was in mid-ablution, creating a mighty bang and wide distribution of the entire contents of the U-bend and cistern.

I also remember using one of her dolls in one of my earliest back-garden rugby games, sitting the tiny little thing on its behind and then kicking its head over some makeshift goals.

Indeed, man’s inhumanity to man must be born of sibling rivalry—at least it was in my house.