Was Born!

I was a lovely child, prone to stamping my foot and demanding a Bourbon biscuit, my favourite, when I knew there weren’t any in the house and 24 hour Tesco’s were years away.

But in my defence the family must take some of the blame, and although I’ve only now thought of it over fifty years later, perhaps there was another way to break the news to me when giving me my glass of bedtime milk than; “we haven’t any of your lovely, chocolaty, favourite, yummy Bourbon biscuits, have a rather plain and claggy* Rich Tea instead!” (* here I must confess to a little poetic licence as claggy is a Yorkshire term, I’m sure unknown in my family over half a century ago, but if you’ve ever eaten a Rich Tea biscuit, your teeth will know just what it means!!)

Then, there were the times, often in the car, when we would be driving somewhere and having a family conversation about all sorts of things, such as previous car journeys, holidays, playmates, parties (you get the gist of it) and I’d be attentively listening, still you must realise, strapped in my baby seat and wanting even then to be able to join in the conversation, I would make a simple remark like “I don’t remember that holiday.” or ask a simple question like “What present did we buy Auntie so and so at that party, I don’t remember?”  To which there would be a chorus of “You wouldn’t remember, you weren’t born!”

This, like the Bourbon biscuits, or lack of them, made me very angry and there would be more pouting and foot stamping accompanied by me shouting “Was born!”  A simple kindly explanation would have sufficed here, an early lesson on the passing of time and chronological order and the tantrum would have stopped!  But no!, my antics were simply laughed at, not with I hasten to add, and opportunities found no less to bait me and taunt me with “You weren’t born!,” for another good laugh at the reaction! It’s amazing I’ve turned out as level headed as I have really!!

Imagine my horror then to recently discover this picture taken of Bob Dylan back in 1965, a photo from what has arguably been regarded as one of the most famous music videos of all time, a promotional video for Subterranean Homesick Blues of which Get Born forms part of the lyric, a song that apparently so captivated John Lennon that he worried he would never be able to compete!, and with this lyric in mind prompted Pete Townsend of The Who fame, to liken hearing Dylan sing for the first time to being born!;

Dylan 1965

The song lyrics “Still crazy after all this years” (From the title track of Paul Simon’s fourth studio album, thank you google!) came to mind, as I flung down the newspaper I was reading and stormed off, not in a paddy, but eager to change and produce my altogether more mature response and email it to my earlier tormentors, to show I hadn’t been deeply affected at an early age!!   Unfortunately, it’s a good few years ago that I would have been able to replicate the hair, at least on the top of the head!!!

Higgs 2011