WE have just celebrated my mother's eldest sister's birthday, at a pub, near her home in the Midlands.

Auntie Elsie is the sole survivor of her five brothers and sisters, that included her youngest sister my mum, and she was determined to celebrate as disgracefully as possible.

I had not seen cousins from my mum's side of the family for years, and enjoyed catching up with them on family reminiscences and sharing tears for our beloved parents. More cousins, anxious to know how we had fared in the foot and mouth crisis, swamped John. With all the relatives on this side of my family being city dwellers, every one of them equated farm - foot and mouth - wipe out.

It was very touching to hear their concern. You hear a great deal about the town/country divide but I find, generally, that people are very caring and worried for the rural way of life. Unless they work for DEFRA that is.

Auntie Elsie's two sons had organised the party and the time came in the evening when her youngest son, my cousin Robert, took the microphone over to share some moments of his mum's life with us. Close by hovered his eldest brother, John.

Now, John and Robert have taken very different paths in life. Cousin Robert started off life as a delivery lad for a local bakery. Meeting a very ambitious young lady, who happened to work in the personnel department of large tobacco manufacturer in the town, his career prospects improved dramatically with the help of a fake CV and several exam successes to his name. He needed no more help. He's had a spectacular career, which only goes to show that exams mean very little when you get out in the swim of life. His sons have both gone to university, have jobs in the City, and Robert and his wife enjoy a very comfortable mode of life.

His brother, cousin John, was the bright one at school. But hated it. Despite a string of 'O' levels, he decided to go down the pit, just like his dad, my uncle Bob. John has spent a life lurching from redundancy, to pit closure, to unemployment. His one daughter, three marriages back, rarely speaks to him but had come for the evening for her grandma's sake. As had the four stepchildren from John's latest marriage, none of whom seemed to get on with anyone.

Cousin John is presently employed as a carer for my auntie and does a bit of decorating on the side. A very nice man, he enjoys a cigarette and has consequently got a permanent wheeze in his voice, unlike cousin Robert, who only sells the weed and has not touched a ciggie in his life.

Come the speech and Robert went back in Auntie Elsie's life virtually to day one. When he came to the occasion of his elder brother's birth, a heckling voice interrupted the speech.

"I wasn't born then. I'm not as old as that."

With that, Auntie Elsie and all the rest of the cousins piled in on top of him with dates. If John were to be believed, Auntie Elsie should still be drawing child allowance for him rather than paying him as a carer.

The dispute was still not resolved by the time we left, back to the peace of the countryside, where the sounds of the local shoot may well be my cousin John sorting his little brother out.

Updated: 08:47 Thursday, November 22, 2001