Yesterday, I shared a poem about my great grandmother. Today would have been her two hundred and fifty fourth birthday and her cake would be a fire hazard. She would have been a hundred and twenty seven years old… and if that seems to make little sense there is a simple explanation. Like the Queen, she had two birthdays. Unlike the Queen, my great grandmother’s situation was due to a clerical error, her birth having been recorded as ‘the 30th, the last day of March.’

She didn’t quite make her century, thus missing out on the royal greetings for the second time in her life. She had never forgiven my great grandfather for dying when he did for that same reason… he had quite inconsiderately chosen to shuffle off this mortal coil shortly before their 60th wedding anniversary, thus denying her the privilege of a message from the monarch.

She…