I always remember our mum saying that right from when he just a few years old, whenever people asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would always say he wanted to be a sailor.
And so it was, as soon as he was old enough he joined up, and off he went to HMS Raleigh for his training.
I guess it wasn't surprising that my brother joined the Navy. His grandad, our mums father, ran away to see at the tender age of 14. He joined the Merchant Navy, lying about his age so he could enlist.
Also our dads middle names are very nautical, but I'm not revealing them as I doubt you'd believe me. ;)
As I'm mainly writing this blog post to go with one single photograph, you'll be pleased to know I'm not going to ramble on and on about my brother and his Navy training, this is as I said a blog post, and not a book. Although I could quickly and easily write enough to fill a book; I remember so many funny stories about his early days in the Royal Navy.
Anyway, I was sorting through a box of old photos a couple of days ago when about halfway down I found lots of old letters. Initially I just put them to one side, well, into another box to be burnt actually.
I am very neat and tidy by nature, much preferring not to have too much stuff cluttering our house. But I am also sentimental, so after putting dozens of letters into the burn box, I thought maybe I should open a couple of the envelopes and read the letters.
As soon as I started reading the first letter, that I'd randomly picked, my eyes welled-up with tears.
Now I knew why my mum had kept the letters all these years.
My brother isn't what you'd call an overly emotional person, but obviously being away from home and his loved one, during a war, would make the toughest bloke express their emotions in a different way.
So, I read a couple more of the letters, and by this stage my eyes weren't just watering, I was sobbing my heart out.
Crying gives me a headache, so I didn't read all of the letters, and I'm not sure if or when I will read the others, but the few I did read were full of love. Raw, honest love.
I guess that's to be expected when the author didn't know for certain that he would return home safely.
I remember the Falklands war clearly, it completely controlled the lives of my family.
I was at secondary school, but I would run home every lunchtime to be with my mum, who was always sitting watching the TV news, (no internet access with 24 hour news in those days), she was always on edge waiting for any sighting of the ship my brother was on. Or praying that the phone wouldn't ring, as that would surely mean bad news.
We told everyone we knew not to ring us unless it was an emergency, we had to keep the phone line free, just in case there was news about my brother.
For some of the time we knew where my brothers ship was, but there were also times when we couldn't be told for security reasons.
I remember one day after school I was sitting with my mum watching the news, and we spotted his ship. Oh my God! We were overcome with emotion. Understandably.
My mum not only wrote letters to my brother, she also sent lots of parcels of all the things he'd asked for in his letters.
My brother is a proper mans man, as the expression goes, he's a bloke, tough and manly. So we were a little surprised when in one letter he asked mum to buy as many pairs of thick ladies tights as she could fit into a standard size shoe box.
The Royal Navy had told relatives that shoe boxes were the permitted size of parcels.
No, my brother wasn't getting in touch with his feminine side, he was cold, freezing cold. And so were his mates, which is why he wanted lots of tights, they wore them underneath their uniforms to help keep warm.
I don't remember my mum sleeping much at all during the entire Falklands War. She just couldn't relax, always hoping for good news.
We joined up with other families of sailors through a Royal Navy support group, which was an essential lifeline for my mum.
It was through this group that mum met a couple who went on to become very good friends of our family. They had a son on the same ship as my brother.
Every tiny piece of news would be swapped between my family and theirs. It was comforting knowing someone who was in the same boat (pun unintended) as we were, who understood what we were feeling and thinking.
The Admiral was really good at keeping the families as up to date as he could about everything that our boys were experiencing.
So between the Navy news, the TV news, and chatting to other sailors families we had a pretty good idea of what was happening to our loved one so far away from us.
One morning as I was getting ready to go to school, mum said I should stay home.
I immediately thought she'd heard some news, but she assured me she hadn't. She just said she had a bad feeling. So I stayed home.
I told her my brother was fine, we hadn't seen anything on the news that would imply there was any trouble, but she said she knew something bad was happening. She said she could feel it.
So we sat watching the news. Nothing.
All day, afternoon, and evening, we waited for the news to come on, then we'd sit in silence waiting for anything that mentioned my brothers ship, or the area where he was, anything. Nothing.
That evening I went to bed as usual, but in the early hours of the morning I woke up to loud voices.
I rushed downstairs, my mum was up and dressed.
As I entered the living room I could see she was on the phone. She looked up at me and mouthed the word, Bomb!
I collapsed on to the sofa. Waiting to be told any news.
The caller was the Admiral. Obviously there were lots of families who needed to be phoned, so he wasn't making small talk.
Mum thanked the Admiral for phoning, and came off the phone. She grabbed me, hugging me so hard I could hardly breath.
Tears streaming down her face she told me that the ship my brother was on had been hit by a 1,000lb bomb.
And then she told me miracles do exist.
Mum wasn't a particularly religious person, but she told me she'd been praying all day. She said she sensed the ship, and more importantly her son, my brother, was in serious danger, more danger than they'd ever been in since the start of the Falklands war, and she told me she'd been praying for a miracle. She prayed for him and his shipmates to be safe.
Mum said miracles do exist.
The bomb that hit my brothers ship, had miraculously not exploded. It had caused serious damage, but it did not explode.
I don't have the words to accurately, or adequately express the emotions we went through that day, or the atmosphere in our house.
The bomb hadn't exploded, but we had to wait a long time to find out if my brother was alright.
And then the phone rang again. He was safe. Thank God!
I remember everything about how the Falklands war impacted on my family, I even remember writing as essay for my English class about it, which I also found in the box with the photographs and letters.
I remember it all so very clearly. And yet, I don't remember it. It's clear, and it's hazy.
I guess that's the bodies way of protecting itself from stress.
It's been interesting finding the letters that my brother wrote to us from his ship during the Falklands War. They stirred up emotions that were buried long ago, but came back with such powerful force I felt as though I was right back in our old house all those years ago.
I wish my brother was here with me now. I'd give him a great big hug. I'd also give him his letters as I'm sure he'd be interested to re-read them, and surprised by their sweet, emotional, and truly loving content.
And I'd tell him, miracles do exist - even in war.
Ha! This blog post is quite clearly not the one paragraph post I intended to write.
And I only took one photo
of the letters, so it looks very wordy.
And I haven't read it through, so no doubt it's full of spelling and grammar mistakes, because it made me cry just writing it, and I can't cry anymore today.
It's all muddled-up. It makes sense in my head, but then my brain thinks millions of times faster than my poor index fingers can type.
And I vaguely remember being taught at school that you shouldn't start a sentence with the word And.
But ever since I noticed that one of my favourite authors often uses 'and' to start a sentence, I thought why not? And I like the way it looks, and the way it sounds in my head when I read it, And...
I also remember being told that you shouldn't start a sentence with the word But.
But that same author does that too. So, if it's good enough for a best selling author, then it's good enough for me.
Not that my writing is comparable in any way to a professional author. I know that. Believe me, I know.
So, there you have it. One photograph of a few letters sent from my brothers Royal Navy ship to our mother during the Falklands War. And rather a lot of words, when simply writing Letters to mum from my brother during the Falklands War underneath would have sufficed.
The End!
Well, it's the end for now. I may, in the future, write a proper blog post, with exact dates, places, names etc.
Then again, I'm not sure I've got enough tissues for the sobbing that would induce.
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