Dead Dog exhumed

There are three questions that a child must ask of parents.

It may take some time to summon up enough courage to raise queries of such potential magnitude but be assured that it will happen and you must be prepared for the answers. The posing of such will change forever the relationship you have thus far enjoyed with your parents. The responses may not be pretty or particularly easy to comprehend and assimilate into what is likely, even in the quite young, to be a firmly entrenched and preconceived notion regarding such matters.

The first question is the inevitable 'Where do babies come from?'

The second question is ' Am I adopted?' and the critical third question, 'Was I annoying as a child?'.

The first two questions can be flim-flammed over quite easily or in the former there may soon be an illustrated medical type book amongst the shelf of family reference sources, between the Readers Digest Book of Home Improvements and a Blue Peter Annual.

The second one can be dealt with vaguely through an examination of the archive that is the stock of family photograph albums. By this process there can be the identification of certain inherited and genetic dispositions which in our family include a flat section on the crown of the nose, a generational skip of ginger hair and bright green eyes. Any fanciful ideas of having been abandoned at birth by nobility, circus-folk or a celebrity rapidly evaporate under such overwhelming evidence that you are not adopted.

I think that now that I am 49 years old (birthday just on the 17th past) I am ready to ask the third pivotal question.

I do suspect that I was a very annoying child. A bit hyperactive, noisy and tiresome, likely to go on and on about something very trivial as though it was the most important thing in the world, high maintenance, a bit wingy and needy and always on the scrounge. Not much changed there then.

I was very inquisitive or nosey as it can also be labelled. I was into everything, meddling, airing an opinion but based on no understanding or empathy whatsoever with what was going on.

For some reason, from the age of 11, I kept a diary. It was a mixture of quite mundane entries such as ' School today', ' Played footie with Spog Needham' , 'Took Ruff (grandmothers dog) for a walk but it died'.

In contrast I also made a point of making a running commentary on world events. These included various atrocities by the IRA with graphic detail on fatalities and injuries, the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus and the sinking of the merchant vessel Derbyshire. The radio and tv news broadcasts were always on in the house so I could not really avoid picking up bits of information. Certain stories of tragedy and gore would, in equal proportion, fascinate and petrify me. Of course I would never actually stay around and listen to the full story, but rather latch on to a particularly thrilling, scary, morbid and exciting aspect and run with that to the annoyance of everyone in the house and the neighbourhood. I was also quite impressionable and gullible. The mean kids did take advantage of what was just a complete unquestioning trust and faith that I had in others. I was not actually victimised or bullied in any way and indeed I was generally left alone by those intent on trouble for the simple fact that they found me strange and annoying as well.

Oblivious I must have been at the time to my childhood character traits because on reflection I had a wonderful, secure and privileged childhood  and that has given me  the outlook on life that I have today. Perhaps I will hold off asking that third question after all. Annoying, eh?

Dug up from an original posting back in 2012