LITTLE Lewis Laycock doesn’t know he’s born. Principally, this is because his arrival in the world only took place a few days ago, so life is a simple round of feeding and sleeping: but boy, is he in for a shock when he takes a good look around him.

Lewis is the tenth child of John Laycock and wife Sally, of Welwyn Garden City – and alas for him, he’s the first boy in the family.

His nine big sisters may be of course be paragons of virtue. But speaking as the eldest of three children, the youngest of whom was a boy, I know just what misery can be heaped upon the odd man out.

My younger brother was regarded as a mixture of doll, stage prop, victim and patsy by his two big sisters, of whom I regret to say that I was very much the ringleader.

No indignity was too cruel. He was regularly forced to pretend to be the dog/patient/loser/third girl in our so-called innocent childhood games.

Crawling on all fours, taking ‘medicine’ concocted from the contents of the baking shelf, playing dead or being tied up at a stake, and even being dragooned into wearing female clothes: all were part of his lot as little brother, and yet during his early years he remained a trusting and good-natured child.

He could be relied upon to believe our tall stories of poltergeists tapping on the pipes in the airing cupboard and disembodied hands flying through the open bedroom window to throttle the unwary sleeper.

He would own up to things he had never done, even, on one occasion, confessing to writing his name on the bedroom wallpaper when I was the actual culprit. (I had worked out that putting my own name to the vandalism wouldn’t have been the brightest idea).

There was, however, one advantage in being the only boy. He at least didn’t have to share a bedroom, which was obviously useful to him because, oddly enough, he would spend more and more time in there, alone, as he grew up.

Maybe it was because he found it so hard to get into the bathroom or on to the phone, both of which became increasingly female territory as we evil sisters hit our teens and the hormones began to rage.

All this is, of course, years ago, and Little Brother has long since forgiven us… we hope. These days, the most that happens is the odd misunderstanding over, for example, Christmas presents, when he tends to remodel us as the domestic goddesses he would like us to have been.

So we can always look forward to gifts such as kitchen scales, aprons or serving dishes instead of chocolates, jewellery or perfume.

I, for one, can hardly complain. Not after the time I bought him a pair of driving gloves, having forgotten he’d just broken both wrists in a biking accident.


* INAPPROPRIATE presents are hardly confined to siblings. How many of us ever get what we really want for Christmas? The V & A Museum of Childhood has stirred a nostalgic longing in me by launching an exhibition of must-have gifts from yesteryear.

High up the list is the one present I’d always longed for but never got: the Spacehopper. Ungrateful for all the lovely presents I had been given, I watched in envy on Christmas mornings as neighbours’ children bounced about on theirs.

Why they should have held such allure is hard to say; they were, after all, ugly oversized orange balloons. But to this day they can generate that pang of childhood longing.

Note to Other Half: that doesn’t mean you should buy one for me this year.