Happy Birthday me.

Birthday yet again.

Oh well I might as well admit it. It's my birthday today. There I've said it. Not for the first time because I've already mentioned it 54 times so maybe it begins to sound as though I might be repeating myself. But then again it does seem a convenient excuse to make the same statement over and over again in case anybody needed reminding. Mind you birthdays and the passing of years do begin to assume a lesser importance as you grow older.

I can still remember the Hornby train set that my parents gave me for one of my early birthdays. How my dad and I delighted in setting up the rails, train carriages and goods wagons for ages. What glorious fun and simple, innocent pleasure. I was always grateful for birthday presents because to be honest that's the way I always felt about presents. I was never demanding as a kid and can still remember the Lego sets, Etch A- Sketch and Frustration I was given as well. They were great and heady days because as a kid I was just happy to receive whatever my parents could afford.

So here am I 54 years later and it only seems like yesterday. It was on a snow bound, wintry November morning at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel that yours truly arrived just in time for breakfast. My mum tells me that it was 5.30 in the morning and the winter of 1962 would prove to be one of the coldest winters of all time. In fact for the best part of six months my parents were marooned in their Evering Road flat in Stoke Newington, North London. The heating was constantly on, the flat itself seemed to shiver and a sad alcoholic by the name of Betty almost set fire to the place.

Back in those now far off days of 1962 we may have had nothing but we never complained. There were no tin baths in the living room just a simple piece of carpet, a two bar heater and a cosy little telly. We were though content with the basic furnishings and the simple practicalities of life in the early 1960s. Everything was worth shillings, tanners and crowns and the standard of living could hardly have been more different. Johnny Haynes, Fulham's favourite son was pocketing 100 quid a week. Of course we were happy. Life had contentment and we were together as a family which was all that mattered.

It's at times like this that you begin to think back to those early birthdays. That frozen winter of 1962 and the day of my birth reminded me of those first couple of weeks. My mum never tires of telling me of the week after my birth. Setting out for what became the most rare of shopping expeditions she parked her pram outside a sweet shop in Stoke Newington and promptly acquired both her groceries and all of the bare necessities of life. Her son though had been accidentally neglected and almost regarded as an afterthought. But mum I forgive you.

 And yet for one brief and inglorious moment I suddenly became a minor consideration. She walked out of the shop and promptly forgot I was there. How could she have completely cold shouldered and jettisoned  her first born screaming at the top of my voice and desperate for attention? It may have been a minor moment of absent mindedness and the most unforgivable of all indiscretions or maybe she just didn't know that she'd just given birth just a few weeks earlier.

Still you're forgiven mum. I can only assume that you must have been so cold that even the birth of your first child had lost its lustre and that warm radiant glow. Maybe she was more concerned with sprinting back through the snow and rushing back to the warm sanctuary of our first home. This may have been a mitigating circumstance and she may have been slightly embarrassed and sheepish when reminded of this unfortunate lapse of memory. But the truth remains that I was just overlooked and ignored and not at the forefront of her busy mind. And yet I'll never hold a lasting grudge against you, mum so I'll let bygones be bygones. I'll never remind you again.

So here I find myself on my 54th birthday and reflecting on the whole symbolism of your first day on Planet Earth. What exactly do birthdays mean to us or the whole meaning of celebration? I think there comes a point in our life when we feel that birthdays simply become just another day, date, month or week in the year. It represents the full circle of your year, the completion of another 12 months of living, a major celebration of our achievements, perhaps a cautionary tale of what happened when you took things for granted but above all the high point of fruition when families gather around a pub, shower with you presents and re-assure you that you're a jolly good fellow or lady. Now what could be better than that. I've just enjoyed the loveliest plate of fish and chips with my lovely wife and we're having a quiet night in. How I love birthdays.