Brother Bert's centenary

Happy family: Bob and brother Bert, centre, with Rosemary and mother Gwen

Autumn. And a memorable date - my brother Bert’s birthday - it would have been his one hundredth.

A lot of memories, too of my big brother, five years older than I.

My earliest memories of Bert go back to the pre-war days when we lived at 6 St Anne’s Hill in Wandsworth, London. When I was five and Bert ten, we used to think up indoor games. My favourites were our versions of cricket and football, played on our lounge carpet using marbles, combs  and match boxes for wickets and goal posts. We could not persuade our sister Dorothy to join in.

We were always sports enthusiasts, especially cricket and soccer.  Bert would take me to the Oval to watch Surrey play and to Fulham and Chelsea football, sometimes with Dad. 

Bert always wanted to be there in plenty of time, but Dad and I liked to get there just before kick off.

Bert’s love of cricket lasted all his life, and he never missed Lord's test matches.

Bert and I were different characters. He was always quieter, more deliberate than I, especially when making important decisions. He admitted that his hesitancy, shared by Jean, his wife, did not always work. 

His plan to live in a bungalow in Penarth they fancied failed because they delayed the decision.They  settled for one in Cardiff.

Unlike Dorothy and me, Bert failed the eleven-plus exam but it did not prevent him from having a very successful career in the civil service, with a range of interesting positions from his demob after six years in the RAF. 

Like me, he found a fascinating job on retirement, travelling the world as overseas missions manager for the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce.

Jean’s early death was a terrible blow for Bert and Brenda that probably led to Alzheimer's that ruined the rest of his life.

How fortunate I have been to have had brother Bert, and sister Dorothy.