The last of the Fyfe Jamieson kids are growing up.

It’s impressive when teenagers roll out of bed before lunchtime but it can happen. Today, at 7.30 a.m. on the dot, on a still but snowy day, a wee purple car pulled up and picked up OnlyGirl. The driver was not only punctual but he’d remembered to bring some ski poles and the courteous, younger brother hopped straight into the back of the car on arrival.
Nineteen years ago, OnlyGirl was born in an Angus maternity home, the good looking lad who drove the car was there too. The mothers enjoyed their short sojourn in Forfar’s Fyfe Jamieson where the patients were treated like royalty. Carriage prams and floral, china teacups were in good supply; none of your NHS white elephant china and if you paid a tenner a day, a room of you own. Virginia was right, some money and a room of your own but she forgot the baby. Perhaps, ladies were given a dull, white cup and saucer, if they chose not to top up NHS funding but OnlyGirl and I didn’t stay long enough to find out. Longer stay patients might be able to comment, on white and floral cup rivalry and also, whether they too, were force fed full fat milk at every opportunity.For us, a speedy departure was necessary, OnlyGirl was baby number three, we had boys to get home to.

The good looking, dark haired driver was an earlier arrival, via Dundee and his stay at the Fyfie was somewhat longer. The mothers met a few weeks later; Forfar’s Victorian swimming baths provided the postpartum mums with a rendez vous. The boy’s mother was fitter but both exercised fiercely, as the swaddled, fortunate babes nested in carriage prams, to protect them from icy Angus winds. My next baby, who arrived just before Hogmanay three years later, can claim fame, he was the last baby born in the Fyfe Jamieson holiday camp. He has a cup for posterity. The Fyfe Jamieson is no longer but if you are rich enough, you can still buy into the name and they’ll throw a number in too. I’ve often wondered, if the occupants on the Fyfe Jamieson housing estate, are disturbed in the still of the night, by ghostly childbirth moans.

In a society where folk are always on the move, drinking global coffee from throw away cups, as the light changes from red to orange; it is smugly satisfying to watch a couple of growing up children add to their childhood collection of memories.