LH Confidential: Sister act is stronger now than ever

Jun 26 2009 by Lorraine Howard, Irvine Herald

I WAS inspired by a story I covered last week about two sisters who were reunited after 70 years.

Their tale got me thinking about my own sister and my relationship with her.

It has to be said that Linda and I had very much a love-hate relationship when we were younger, particularly during the summer holidays. Looking back, I think she tolerated me as I followed her about most days.

And while she was busy playing at football or golf or making rope swings, I never had her agility or sporting talent to join in.

She always claims I spent my youth sitting at the end of the path waiting for the ice cream van to appear. She was probably right as even now my hearing seems to be tuned in to the ting-a-ling of one.

But she’s always looked out for me and when lasses threatened to beat me up in Kilbirnie Public Park, she would walk me to the library on a Saturday to make sure I was all right.

So, I suppose, looking back we were closer than I thought and when our mum died, like a lot of siblings do, we quickly realised all we had was each other.

Don’t get me wrong, we can still have a good fight but over the last nine years, she has become a source of strength for me and I couldn’t imagine losing touch for 70 years like the two women I wrote about last week.

It’s her 37th birthday this week and it’s scary as I still see her as the youngster running about, getting into mischief or with a football under her arm, ready for a game in a park somewhere or burying me in the sand when we went trips to Largs.

But I wanted to wish my big sis many happy returns.