Closely related in April

I was born on the first of April. So I am an April Fool. Some of my fellow April fools may be ashamed of the day they were born, but it has always made me feel special. Every year on my birthday I am privileged to be on the receiving end of good wishes, birthday presents and practical jokes. Family and friends are in good form, and even people who don’t know me well and may forget other birthdays nevertheless remember mine.

When I was a child my mother used to come into my bedroom early on the morning of 1st April, pull back the curtains, and say “Oh look, is that snow on the ground? ” Snow on my birthday, hurrah, I must check this through the window: “April Fool !”

In Belgium an April Fool is known as a poisson d’avril – an April Fish, and there is a special way of celebrating. On my birthday one year, when we lived in Braine l’Alleud and I used to take the train in the morning to Brussels, Paola and the children were particularly affectionate. They hugged me tightly as I put on my jacket and overcoat to walk a mile to the station. As I stood on the crowded platform, some of the hundred other commuters were looking at me oddly. We boarded the train and a lady came up to me and whispered: ” Monsieur, vous avez un poisson sur le dos “. “Excuse me sir, you have a fish on your back”. Sure enough, on my back of my coat, attached with sellotape, was a child’s drawing of a fish, cut out of cardboard. “Aha,” I thought, “well done kids, you really fooled me this time. So that’s why you were hugging me this morning. It’s good that I found out before I got to work where I really would look stupid.” I took off my overcoat, and as I hung it beside the seat my fellow passengers were smiling. Another little fish was fixed to the back of my jacket. My family had fooled me twice! It was only after I had spent a couple of hours in my office at the European Commission, with my jacket hanging on the back of my chair, that I was informed that there was a small fish on the back of my shirt.

This year I have been approaching my birthday less with excitement than with trepidation. A few weeks ago I passed the exact age, 66 years and 11 months, that my father had reached when he died of a sudden heart attack. It was an event that changed my life, and I couldn’t help recalling that Dad’s two brothers, Uncle Robbie and Uncle Sam also suffered from heart disease and followed him to the grave when they reached the same age of 66.

My cousin James, Uncle Robbie’s son, often reminded me of this coincidence. James was born on 10 April 1955, just nine days after me. As boys we spent many holidays together at the family farm in Ballybradden, Co. Antrim, and at Rossnowlagh in Co. Donegal, where we learned to play golf on the little 9-hole course which used to lie in the sand dunes, and sadly is no more. James left school at the age of 15 to join the army, and later worked in the United States, England and France. I lost touch with him for many years, but we met up for a day in Paris in 2017. We were both then contemplating retirement, me to Brussels and he to Réunion, a French territory in the Indian Ocean.

After our meeting James and I kept in touch on Facebook. He posted stunning photos of Réunion. He was a skilful photographer, and the volcanic tropical island, with its jagged peaks and sparkling waterfalls was a spectacular location. Even in this paradise James continued to worry that the curse of the Hanna men would be called down upon the pair of us in our 67th year. He sent me urgent messages. He had a new theory that something in the water of the well at Ballybradden must have slowly poisoned the three brothers. I told him that the culprit was cholesterol, and that our generation, who take daily doses of statins, had little to worry about. “We will get through this together”, I reassured him. “After all, our grandfather lived to a good age. Let’s meet up in Paris next April and celebrate reaching the end of Route 66.”

Alas, it wasn’t to be. In January of this year, James set out for a hike to a place he loved and often photographed, a famous beauty spot, where a jade lagoon lies at the foot of a steep ravine. Carrying his expensive camera, perhaps trying for a new angle, he lost his footing on the treacherous trail, slipped and fell to his death.

I miss my cousin James, more than I might have imagined. In some ways we were different. His father inherited the small farm, but by the 1970s this was no longer economically viable and James had to leave home and make his fortune elsewhere – in the army, as a driving instructor and a long distance lorry driver. My father, the eldest son, was given a University education, and so I was brought up in the city, went to University and followed a professional career. But when James and I sat down together in a small restaurant in Paris and looked at each other, we saw the same Hanna genes, just in a different configuration. As children we had often been made to stand back to back to be measured, and, although I was the elder, as I reminded him each year on his birthday, James may just have had a half inch on me.

The photo is of our two families in the summer of 1960. My family was on holiday in Portballintrae and James’ family must have come to see us there for the day. My mother was probably the photographer. Uncle Robbie, who adored my sister Anne Louise, is holding her aloft, with Dad behind her on the left. James stands at his father’s feet and I am on the left. There are many family resemblances.

My 67th birthday today brings mixed emotions – sadness, relief, joy and perhaps some foolishness. Oh my goodness, is that snow I see out of the window ? No really, it is. You’d better have a look outside.