The task was to tell a life story, through the medium of pictures. But I'm a man of words, many, many words. So I'm going to stitch together the photo based story with what I know best, blogging. There are supposed to be five youtube videos dotted throughout this post. If they don't appear click the links that I've placed, before where they are supposed to be, to view them.
This story is about this guy:
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| If you're reading this you probably know who this is. |
I still maintain that all newborns just look like...babies and this one is no different. But there is a key difference, between the one above, and all others. That is of course, that the one above is my brother. Brother in the traditional sense, we have the same parents, and the not so traditional sense, click here to see the humorous urban dictionary definition.
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| That's mum and dad. Notice the tin of danish butter cookies and sarum on the radiator? |
So those are our parents. Mum on the left and dad on the right. The fellow in the middle is my brother. He's turning 21 on the 24th of March 2015. And because of arbitrary societal definitions it's an age of significance. I think it's an American export, officially old enough to drink. Of no consequence to this lad as he, currently lives in Salford and is teetotal.
He was born in High Wycombe, Mum, Dad and I had lived there around 4 years when he appeared.
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| In case you were wondering where High Wycombe was, it's north of Marlow and not too far from the M25, urgh M25. |
This is supposed to be my brother's story so I'll try and keep on track. We only stayed in High Wycombe for a few months, From March till... I think we moved in June. This is based on the fact that I moved schools and was only taught by Mrs. Bennett, my year two teacher at Scartho Infants School, for a few months. First vid.
I suppose at this point I should refer to him by name. Something I rarely do. He is known by many names some call him small fruit, others call him short man, some people call him Maurice, others call him RAAAJAN! Rajan's time in High Wycombe was relatively short and consisted of friends, romans and countrymen coming to see the little baby. One thing that springs to mind is that we'd get foil balloons filled with helium and tie them to his wrist. He'd continually wave his arm around mesmerised or maybe irritated by the thing that was attached.
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| Temple Orchard, Amersham Hill |
That's where we lived when Rajan joined the family. I think it was the top left flat i.e. the top two windows furthest left. It was a magical place, with a massive common garden. You'd occasionally get deer popping in for a nibble! But it's unlikely that the baby Rajan would have any memories of this place so I shan't dwell.
Then cam Grimsby, named after the Danish fisherman who founded it. Owing to Dad's shift of workplace we moved to there. To a house on Juniper way, I want to say 21... I was going to go to google street view but they've gone off grid!
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| Pretty sweet location, within a stones throw of the hospital and not too far from Scartho school! |
It's here that Rajan learnt to walk and talk, two things he does on a daily basis. You know the usual little boy stuff. The house on Juniper was was tiny but we lived there for two years. Second vid.
For some reason I've lost the ability to record narration! Hence the switch from my resonant nasal tone to the unmistakeable sounds of Titus Andromedon singing Vesti La Giubba. This is what I would have said "More of that velvetine, bluish, purple couch! It was only a few years but he grew quite a bit. The lady in the pic is the first grandmother Rajan new." She's the grandma of some close family friends. It would be a five more years before Rajan met his grandparents in our homeland of Sri Lanka. Third Video
And that was Rock Lee's theme, but you already knew that. As you can see we loved to party and mostly because of the food but also because it was an excuse to gather the Tamils in the area for something of a knees up. It's at this point that I noticed the caption function on movie maker, hence the hilarious captions! You're welcome.
Following that brisk two years what came next? East End Close, Number 1 East End Close to be precise! Do you remember I said that Scartho School was a close to Juniper way? Well it was still a 10 minute walk. East End Close was literally behind the school
Sensible kids would take the blue route it's a pavement followed by a paved path that lead directly to the back gate of the school. I took this route when I was on time, rare to never. More often than not I'd scuttle along the red route which was a pavement followed by a swift dive through some bushes to a muddy path that ran between the school fence and a hedgerow. This would be our house for the next eight years.
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| Mmm nostalgia |
I am flagging I've been at this for most of the day and I've had to resort to caffeine for the third time. Lets hope it makes me alert and doesn't just kick up my heart rate. For some reason when I add a youtube vid it kicks one of the other vids out. Urgh html embedding on blogger is not straightforward!
Back to the story so little Rajan is two and we've now moved to Scartho, its' still Grimsby but it's also a village. Here's where he went to nursery under the watchful eye of Mrs Norris. I should add that we were raised as vegetarians. For lunch they'd bung him a jacket potato. Sounds like a sweet deal but when you are a tiny boy presented with a giant potato you admit defeat. But the staff had been presented with an ultimatum by our lovely mother, he has to eat all his lunch. So this is when Rajan pounds piled on pecause of potato! Fourth Vid
He would later follow in my footsteps, quite literally, as he want off to Scartho Infants and then Juniors. Whilst I was something of a testing student, able but idle, Rajan was something of a prodigy. Grimsby was also where we were introduced to a sleepy little Labrador which Rajan would later name Tim. Little did we know that Tim would become our most significant teacher. It was all going smoothly but then something changed. We moved to Sleaford and we've been here ever since, that's a total of 13 ish years in this sleepy little town. Fifth Vid
It's an odd mix of retired folk and school kids! Doesn't make sense right? Well it's the sort of place you retire to but it's chock full of rather good schools thus attracting school kids. It's around this time that the potential of Rajan's big brain was unlocked. At Scartho he was something of a big fish, quite literally he was a big kid. But here everyone was studious so he out studioused them. One of his major beefs was that he got the highest mark in some test or other at the beginning of the term. They administered the same test at the end of term, he scored the same which was still the highest in the class. Did they reward this sustained dominance? Nay they rewarded the student who improved the most!
This was of course at the esteemed William Alvey. Where Rajan honed his 11 plus skills to gain access to Carre's Grammar.
This competitive streak continued and Rajan excelled academically. There were some forays into the realm of the sporting. Badminton, tennis and karate were regular past times. The first two fell by the way side but karate continued until he shot off to Uni. Coincidentally I worked in a call centre with the son of his former senpai, not all that interesting but most definitely true.
It's around now that the photos dry up, the older you get the fewer photos you feature in. Until you get to Uni and you hit the student social scene. There is bound to be a friend who insists on snapping every moment you are in da club. And it definitely looked that way....
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| He still falls asleep on any car journey over 20 minutes |
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| Will jump at the chance to deliver a lecture to an empty lecture theatre |
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| And has a signature face that has inspired a host of wannabes |
