50 years of Honor

The story of me and my little sis

Today, my wonderful sister Honor reaches her Golden Jubilee!

I promise you that is far more traumatic for me than it is for her. It troubles me to have such clear memories of half a century ago.

It was late on a Wednesday night that she made her slightly traumatic entrance into the world. I was thrilled to have a wee baby sister. And when I saw her I just loved her. She was so adorable.

I was desperate for her to be called Diane, a battle that I lost. In my parents’ baby book, Honor was directly under my Dad’s name, Homer. I couldn’t argue with fate, and, to be honest, a character so unique needs a unique name. Honor suits her perfectly.

I’m not going to lie, it was a bit complicated. Suddenly having a sibling after almost 8 years on my own was a bit tough for me to process, but I adored her without reservation. I loved to hold her and take her for walks in her massive Silver Cross pram.

She had a massive personality from the start. Babies aren’t supposed to walk at 9 months, but she wasn’t for letting a wee thing like gravity hold her back. She cruised round the coffee table in the lounge and I can remember her falling asleep, standing up, with her head on the table. She has always been determined and focused in everything. While I was happy to sit on my arse and look at books till I was nearly two, she needed to explore the world and always on her terms.

Sleep was something she decided was an optional extra for a few months when she was a toddler. My poor parents had to work full time on next to no sleep themselves, dealing with her wakefulness in shifts.

When things didn’t go her way, she had the most monumental tantrums. There was an iconic explosion on a sunny walk in the Islands in Inverness when she was about 18 months old. She was wearing a gorgeous orange gingham smock dress with green ribbon. My Dad captured the full descent from petted lip to full lying on the ground rage and the photos come out at every opportunity.

She loathed and detested getting her hair washed and would not miss an opportunity to run away given half a chance.

She had a fascination for creatures that I could never understand. While I have never been able to stand anything that slithers on its belly, she would collect worms in a bucket and and call them her friends.

They were not the only creatures she adored. She would dress our Yorkie, Jamie, up in her dolls’ clothes and push him around in a pram. He loved it.

A few years on and our relationship had taken a bit of a dip. I was a very grumpy teenager, she knew how to wind me up. When she was about 8, she even made a formal written complaint about me to my parents:

Dear Mum and Dad

I have a nasty old sister. She gets on my nives. I do not like the way she treats me. Will you smack her very hard, please. She asks me to get her drinks when she is doing her homework. I have to do everything for her. I do not like her. Love Honor.

Thankfully, our relationship has improved immeasurably since those days.

In the 90s, I was in awe of the way she pushed boundaries in ways I’d never have dared when I was a teenager.

By the millennium, she had 3 children under 8 and was also training as a nurse. This meant a daily commute of around 80 miles on rural island roads in all weathers. The same determination that had her doing laps of the coffee table pulled her though. Again, when her youngest children were in early primary school, she got the books out again to become an advanced nurse practitioner.

And as if this was not enough, she is also a fully trained fitness coach. Her classes are hugely popular. You may not believe this but I actually went to one of her body pump classes once. I was much fitter then, but I have absolutely zero co-ordination so this was never going to be my thing. But she is such a good teacher. Whatever stage you are at, she gets the best out of you.

In 2011, having rarely been on a bike in her life, she decided to accompany her now husband on a cycle. Just a wee one. From Land’s End to John O’ Groats. The months of training she put in, going up and down every hill around Loch Ness was yet another example of pure focus and determination.

Her six children are all very different but have all inherited in some way her originality, her not taking no for an answer and her dynamism. She’s done a great job with them.

At the end of 2020, she moved from Inverness to just down the road from me. We have almost the whole family within a 15 minute drive of each other, which is just wonderful. Her home is often the scene of noisy hilarity. Honor loves to party. She loves to feed us all and in many ways she is the sun in our family. She’s our keeper of confidences and our support in good times and bad.

One of the best moments of my life was when I was driving my niece Laura to her wedding with her sister Emma and Honor and the four of us singing Angels by Robbie Williams at the very tops of our voices.

Her name easily adapted when Laura gave birth to her happy, giggly baby girl last year. Lucy adores her Nonna whose rendition of Two Little Speckled Frogs, complete with actions, should really be on the stage somewhere.

And you haven’t lived until you have seen her do Defying Gravity from Wicked.

And lest you think she is perfect, I feel that you should know that she is not above cheating at board games. I have not forgotten the time she incited her son to steal one of our pieces of pie when we were playing Trivial Pursuit. We still won though.

Of my parents’ two daughters, she is the one with taste, style, practical competence and a perfectly tidy house. I am the one who understands electoral systems, the science of political campaigning and whose house is always in a state of such chaos that any burglars would just assume that we’d already been done over.

The first half century with my beautiful, irrepressible sister has been a blast. I can’t wait for the next.

I can’t tell what is planned for her birthday because that would spoil the surprise or surprises, but I’m looking forward to the next wee while.

Sister, enjoy every moment of your Jubilee. Happy 50th Birthday.