Look, there really isn’t that much that I can tell you. It’s just over a fortnight since I broke my shoulder, but my appointment at the fracture clinic isn’t until tomorrow. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t want to start talking to work about going back until after I’ve had the appointment but I am really anxious to get back and start working again. What a difference a couple of years makes.
So, June 15th, then. My birthday, as it happens.
Both Courtney Cox and Michael Laudrup were also born on 15/6/64, although as
far as I know neither Mrs. Cox nor Fru Laudrup were in the same ward of
Chiswick Maternity Hospital as Mrs. Clark. It is also the anniversaries of both
the signing of Magna Carta and the 2007 Mastermind Grand Final. And Father’s
Day. Father’s Day. Hmm. I will be honest, I did not know such a thing existed
when I was little, until my friend Bill told me his dad was also born on the 15th
June, and so when his birthday fell on a Sunday Bill, being of a pragmatic and
practical nature, would only need to get one card and one present. Back then in
the early 70s it never seemed like as much of a deal as the big production
umber that was Mother’s Day.
I’ll be honest, I did do a cursory search into the origins
of this celebration, and I found very little. What there is seems to concur
that the celebration was unknown prior to World War Two, and took quite a long
time to gain traction afterwards. Nothing actually said that it was an invention
of the greetings card companies but it certainly has nothing like the venerable
lineage of Mother’s Day. Both my Nan and Mum insisted on calling Mother’s Day
Mothering Sunday, despite neither of them being religious or churchgoers – the two
are not always the same thing. Mothering Sunday was the religious festival
whose mantle was assumed by the secular Mother’s Day in the early 20th
century. Mothering Sunday always took place on the fourth Sunday in Lent and
was an official day of respite from the Lenten fast. Certainly sounds like a
good idea. The purpose of the celebration was to honour one’s mother church,
that is, the church in which one was baptised. Over the years this extended to
honouring the Virgin Mary and then all mothers.
Well, as I said it is my birthday as well. 61. You know, I
spent so many years wishing I was 60 so I could take the money and run from
teaching that when I got there this time last year I just wanted to stay 60.
Well, that was never going to happen. But I am still living in the moment and
enjoying pretty much every second of it, shoulder notwithstanding.
