Brainiac

Today

Writing to my sister today, I was reflecting on the varying qualities of us four siblings. "There's no doubt about it", I wrote "Chris is just cleverer than I am."

In My Day

It's difficult enough having older siblings always there to point out the inadequacies inevitable to your junior status, without it being obvious that they are cleverer than you anyway. This was nowhere more obvious than in my relationship with Chris. David was away at boarding school for so much of the time that his undoubted braininess was less in daily evidence, so to speak.

Chris was often left in charge of Beatrice and me and, if Mamma's diaries are to be believed, was very good at it. It seemed that whatever he turned his hand to he could do well. He was good at maths and English and music and sport and so on. He was also clearly quite good-looking. I clung tenaciously to my superiority in the arts world but I remember one year we made our own Christmas cards and I thought that Chris's were superior to mine both in point of design and use of colour. And he once did a design for the family Christmas cake that made it the cake to end all cakes.

I think I probably believed just about everything he told me into the bargain and it's only in adulthood that I've separated out the true from the rubbish from the teasing.

One Christmas I was given a puppet as a gift. It was a string puppet and I loved it. I called it Poko which was about all the ownership I could claim. I was only nine and, maybe, if I could have taken Poko away in secret to practise, I might have mastered the necessary skills. Chris took up this puppet and immediately was master of the art. There's a picture in the family album that says it all.

I am ever grateful to Chris for being my champion, friend and mentor, but I have to remind myself that I've made a pretty good hand out of adulthood and that there is more to life than braininess.