Right now, in New Zealand time, it is my dear Mum's 60th birthday. She was born in 1951, but she's not actually sixty, she's a little over a sprightly 52. How is that? I hear you ask. Well I have done a small calculation. You see there are 22 organs in the body and 206 bones. All 22 organs, and 203 of the bones are 60 years old. However, two years ago she had a knee replacement, three years ago a hip replacement, and 4.5 years ago another hip replacement. Taking the age of these three bones into consideration brings it all out to an average age of 57. Yet hip bones and knee bones are not only bones, they are joints, which makes them worth about ten times the average bone. The recalculation of which brings it out at a little over 52 years. This calculation is also intended to get me back in her good books after making an 'old' joke. She has threatened to skin me alive next time she talks to me (it's amazing what you can do on skype nowadays).



Last night, my Dad and sister Rachael organised a surprise birthday party for Mum. The genesis behind it being that they didn't want to hold a normal party as she would enivtably end up doing a lot of the preparation. So, over the past few weeks, while Mum was at her Tuesday quiz nights Dad and Rach got on the phone and organised it all. This didn't always work as sometimes Mum dragged Dad along to make up the numbers in the quiz team and sometimes Mum didn't go.

So sometime on Saturday Dad said he was popping out to get diesel and returned instead with Rachael from the airport. Mum, wiping away the tears was told to get dressed as they were going out to dinner. She must have been starting to get suspicious, especially when they arrived at the venue and Rach said to the waitress "Hi, we've got a table booked for Jackman" to which the waitress replied "Oh, you're with the par...[Rach making frantic gestures for her to shut up]..". Nevertheless the surprise worked and a great party ensued with much cocaine sniffing, absinthe drinking and table-top dancing, so I am told. Rock on.

Still is was a good to hear Mum had a night to let her grey hair down, she's been working hard recently looking after my three grandparents.

Happy Birthday Mum

Conversations with Da.

Last March my grandfather, Da, turned 90 and he looked well. This is a photo of him in 1953.

My mother's parents have always been known to us and Nandy and Da. I don't know why this is, although I think like most nicknames it came from a mispronunciation by a young child, probably my eldest cousin.

He had been sick a few months previously and my sister told me Da had cried when she last saw him, afraid that this was their last meeting. I am leaving the country shortly before his 91st birthday and returning I don't know when. For these, and other reasons which I may go into later, I decided to see if I could record some of his life stories.

Da seemed reluctant when I first put the idea to him, but two minutes later he started talking light-heartedly about his years at the bank, which was annoying as I hadn't bought the recorder yet. However, the next morning he rang Mum. He was worried, apprehensive, especially about 'the war'- World War Two- he just wanted to put it behind him, he said. But he would be alright to talk about some other things.

So, nervously, I turned up for our first recording. We started on the lighter stuff- amusing stories about butter, dogs and revolvers at the Bank of New South Wales, and about going to the 1938 national swimming championships and just missing out on going to the Empire Games. I like the way he chuckles as he approaches the punchlines of these stories, the way he tells all the important details.

Then, he just started talking about the war, just like that. Before I knew it he was onto the Battle of El Alamein, and telling me both the funny stories and the quite serious stuff. Two stories really reverberated for me, and I have thought about them often since. I hope to tell them later, as this post is getting long enough already.

Without noticing it, over an hour had passed, and when I stopped Da, he said, "But I haven't talked about Greece yet."

Two days later, at Christmas lunch, without any prompting, he looked up Greece in the atlas and started talking about the battles again, and I got another hour's recording.

Nandy told me that he'd slept all the following day, exhausted from the telling and the talking. Yet, he appeared to have found a purpose in doing it, he became determined to cover all the parts of his history and was annoyed when he couldn't remember the name of a person or detail.

He seemed grateful to me, and I certainly felt grateful to him.