This may not seem big in the wider scheme of things, the big picture, in the fabric of time and space but it actually is quite a gap and I feel personally that I am poorer in many respects for it.
On the day that Mark was born Father took the four of us, the older children from ages 14 to 6 out for the day and I think that we went to Scarborough. That was in the time when the attendance at the birth of a baby by the male partner was discretionary and even bordering on being actively discouraged. It was quite a long way to go but it was early August and in scorching weather as I seem to remember from sticky backs of legs on sweaty vinyl car seats.
In my twelfth year I was happy to have a new brother but far too involved in my own busy and active life to pay much regard to the everyday bringing up of a baby. I was recently enrolled at the Grammar School which was an ancient institution heavily traditional and proper. My extra-curricula activities included Scouts, a brief and hair raising attempt at church bell ringing, brass band and youth orchestra as well as usual playing out, ranging far and wide through the town and surrounding countryside and showing an interest in girls.
At age 15 I was determined to leave school and join the Army. The wise counsel, although frustrating, of my Parents soon showed me that my shorter term plans were best served by staying on at school until I was 17.
In the meantime Mark was just starting off in his own life and did not know anything about the armed forces at age 3 or the process of anything more than pre-school education by the time he was 5. My 'A' levels went to plan and in 1981 I went off to Polytechnic. Mark started at Infants School. The following 4 years away studying (yeah, right!) meant that I was only at home sporadically and I would have little time to catch up with or share experiences with Mark. He was still only 10 years old when I started my first full time job and at that age typically into Star Wars, Lego, Videos and with an unhealthy and semi superstitious following of his football team, Liverpool.
We had drifted apart, understandably with the age difference being accentuated by my attempts at being a serious grown up, an employable person and starting to think about buying a first house. One common experience that we did share was when Mark was a page boy at my wedding. Over and above the family occasion he also took on the spirit of the thing and wore a Kilt and full Scottish regalia to match my own pale homage to our ancestry on Father's side.
My own children were born between 1990 and 1995 and Mark, became old Uncle Mark and a constant and reliable source of entertainment and constructive things to do. In that 5 year period he graduated and started work in graphic design before doing a lot of other grown up things in succession including buying a flat in London, going into business partnership with brother Chris and getting married.
I was thrilled and honoured to attend his wedding ceremony to Jo at Hackney Town Hall in 2007. I was fairly oblivious about what happened during the 16 hours of the pub crawl around those bits of London where tourists hesitate to tread. We met up at the Cutty Sark in Greenwich before the epic Stag Do but I am assured that it had caught fire and was devastated the day before I got there. Strangely my clothes were quite smoky when I eventually got home.
We all live full and involved lives and so it can be very difficult to meet up other than at main seasonal celebrations or talk for more than a few minutes on the phone.
Just yesterday, however, I shared a magical moment with Mark which made up in some small way for what I have missed in his previous 37 years. He was understandably excited but also a bit apprehensive about his first ever drive in the VW Variant E Squareback that he took on from our late Father's car collection.
It had been garaged and immobile since 1979 being surplus to our family requirements and super-ceded by a larger 412LE Estate. In the last 12 months the car, actually 4 years older than Mark, has had a mixed experience in the quest to get it back on the road. It was, in good faith entrusted to a garage owner who it transpires had Neo-Nazi tendencies. A further few, non Fascist affiliated mechanics throughout Yorkshire, skilled in their trade struggled with different problems arising from the long hibernation of the vehicle for 34 years. Mark tracked down the necessary fuel injectors, perhaps the most crucial of the missing elements, after an internet search. This had been a very arduous task given that only around 30 of the make and model survive on British roads and a good proportion of the 1.2m worldwide production have rusted to nought.
Late yesterday afternoon I drove Mark and Mother to the garage which had performed the best miracle of coaxing the Squareback. We went in my VW Passat Estate, a sanitised and clinical descendant.
The dreadlocked mechanic appeared from between the shell of a camper van project and restored Beetle to meet Mark.
I had forgotten how basic the interior and controls of the car were even though I would sit up front next to Father whenever I could get my "bags-it, me" in against stiff competition.
A huge, almost omnibus steering wheel with the Wolfsburg badge and metal press bars for the horn. Three dials, one a fairly useless analogue clock, the others MPH display only and a fuel and warning light gauge. The lights operated on a pull out and turn button. Basic heater. No radio or even a dashboard slot to put one in. That was it.
The rear mounted engine turned over and fired up in that distinctive air cooled rasp, a bit hesitant at first but then stronger and distinctly fumey. Mother reminded us that a member of the family had suffered miserably from constant sickness in the car from sensitivity to the same fumes and so it had to be side-lined. No names or recriminations intended, Susan.
Mark sat proudly on the black plastic drivers seat, Mother riding shotgun. In the quite spacious spartan and pre-ergonomic surroundings they looked tiny and vulnerable. I checked the lights and indicators standing in front of the long, smooth bonnet. As children we would always express great shock to any of our friends who might be around when the bonnet was opened and we would claim that someone had stolen the engine.
The car moved under its own power and with Mark in control. I followed in my space -age interior but soul-less means of transport.
On the steep ramped incline out of the garage premises, and waiting for a break in the traffic, the engine revved enthusiastically. I like to think that this was entirely of the Squareback's own doing as though expressing its revitalised spirit and that it could not wait to hit the road with it's new master.
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(n.b; Other Thomson siblings are available. The foregoing is not intended to express or imply any favouritism or preference to the named individual or make and model of car. I love you all equally.)
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