It is recorded that, in those early days, I was very loving towards my brother and thus it was purely accidental when I dropped him on his head. However, he soon got the idea, and joined in with a vengeance. Smashing plates over his head, pulling dining room tables down on the bridge of his nose and generally living dangerously. Its difficult not to like someone when they go to so much trouble on your behalf. In fact, he showed a remarkable degree of intelligence in his exploits into self-immolation. I remember quite clearly one event. I would have been about 8 (it was the weekend following my birthday) so Neil was 3½. We had gone to a fun-fair with my parents and one set of grandparents. My father and grandfather decided to have a go on the rifle range. My father went first. Neil positioned himself behind him, but was seen and warned to stand clear. My father took his turn and handed the gun to my grandfather. He aimed carefully, Neil moved into position. He squeezed the trigger. Neil was on station, waiting patiently. He fired the shot, bought the rifle down from his shoulder and poked the butt straight in Neil's eye. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY! This was the jackpot. Not only did Neil have a beautiful black eye to show for his experience, but he also got smacked for standing where he had been told not to stand. If only all my birthdays could be like that...

Neil did, however, have one thing on his side, his secret weapon. I remember in the early days a School Sports Day. How many of you remember those heady days of running down a field with a bean bag balanced on your nose? Anyway, back to the point. My mother, as usual, came to the sports day with my still fairly new brother in his blue pram wearing his blue romper suit wrapped in a blue blanket. Yet everybody looking at him said "Is this your sister, Ian?" Why? Two bright blue eyes. He proved in later life that they were quite good at attracting the girls, but in the early years he used them mercilessly on any adult that stood in his way - together with his ability to cry at the drop of a hat (or not, whichever seemed appropriate). One incident in particular springs to mind...

We were on holiday, 'somewhere in Ireland'. It was getting towards the end of the holiday and it was traditional for my brother and me to buy our parents some tacky little gift (such as a comb, key ring or some such), mainly so that they would be railroaded into buying us some not so tacky little gift. (I never said either of us was stupid!) The usual value of these parental presents, coming as they did at the end of a holiday, was quite low, but for the sake of argument lets say that for this particular year the figure was set at £5. I can't even remember what I chose. My brother, however, chose a stuffed Leprechaun retailing at £8.50. Now I, being older, knew that there was quite a difference between £5.00 and £8.50, and I was fairly sure that, for all his tender years, so did Neil. For all the good knowing that would do me. Neil wanted a Leprechaun. His little bottom lip started to quiver. His big blue eyes opened wide, and the water flooded out. No amount of assuring my parents that it was a put-up job was going to convince them. Or staunch the flow. So Neil got a Leprechaun.

Of course, there were still the odd moments of joy, although because I was at school I sometimes missed them. Like the first time Neil realised he wasn't going to be that small forever. We had wooden bedside cabinets, basically just a wooden square with a shelf half way up to reinforce it, you all know the type of thing. Neil was in the habit of playing with his. He emptied its contents and crawled through the middle. Until, that is, the day he discovered that he couldn't crawl through spaces that small any more. My mother got him free (eventually!), but it was an unmistakeable sign that Neil was growing up.

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