Thirty years ago, on the day after the August Bank Holiday, my brother started his first permanent job. This was a big deal, this was his major "moving away from home" moment, which I hadn't completely done at this stage because my job wasn't so far flung.
On the Sunday our entire family had piled into two cars jammed with boxes, cases and a half-dismantled bike. We set off early, in typical holiday weekend drizzle, and stopped off at a Little Chef along the way. It took just over two hours to make our way across Hertfordshire and up the A11, in search of the room my brother had let on the outskirts of Norwich. Before this point, other than a honeymoon and a holiday, our family had had nothing much to do with Norfolk. But this was the day my brother moved there, and our collective centre of gravity shifted, not that we quite realised the significance at the time.
The house looked decent, and the designated room was nice, although the whole place smelled somewhat of the spaghetti bolognaise one of the other tenants was making for lunch. We emptied the cars, and Mum made the bed while Dad popped out to find a paper. That done it became clear there wasn't much else four people could do in a small room, so we drove off to another Little Chef for lunch, because that's how the 1980s rocked. Our platters devoured we drove back, and then it was time for Mum and Dad to leave, and it's fair to say one of them found the moment of separation somewhat emotional.
I was staying over with my brother to help him settle in, indeed I'd be hanging around until his first day was over, which left us with the remainder of a bank holiday weekend to fill. We brewed some tea, we emptied some boxes, we retuned the TV and, erm, we went out for a drive to pass the time. On the Monday, after Rice Krispies, we set out on a longer drive, the aim being to spend the day in Great Yarmouth. But we soon discovered hundreds of other people had had the same idea, and got bored of sitting in jams, so diverted off and spent the day in Lowestoft instead. Lowestoft was not busy.
Tuesday was Work Day One, the tipping point into adulthood. My brother woke up earlier than strictly necessary, had breakfast, and slipped into a nice suit bought specially for the occasion. We chatted to pass the surplus time he could have had asleep, then off he went for his induction, or 'being thrown in at the deep end' as I believe they called it in 1988. This left me with a small number of tasks to perform in town, including getting an extra front door key cut, before meeting up at lunchtime to see how things were going. Things were going fine, aided by half the office staff not being back from holiday yet.
They let him out of work early, which was good because he thought he was going to miss all of Neighbours but instead only missed the first five minutes. Daytime television was just one of the casualties of switching from student life to the strictures of the working day. We cooked turkey for tea, carefully pre-packaged for minimum preparation by a caring parent. There wasn't much else on the TV, other than a new series of Telly Addicts, so we passed the rest of the evening in a pre-internet manner, hard though that is to comprehend these days.
And on Wednesday morning I left him to it. I wished him luck after breakfast and took the train home, where my important task was to answer every one of my Mum's questions and reassure her everything was fine. She'd be reassured to see how fine it still is.
Thirty years later I am back up in Norfolk staying with my brother, this time in a four-bedroom house, not kipping on the floor of a rented room. He's now due his 30-year Long Service award, because it used to be possible to join a company for life, and he's sort of managed that. Along the way he's acquired an entire family, which would never have happened quite this way if he hadn't found a job up here, neither would my parents have followed him a few years later. And now it's that family's turn to step out into the wider world.
This year Eldest Nephew has finished his education and is looking to find somewhere to live in a place called London. This year Youngest Nephew has flown the nest and moved further north than any of us have ever lived before. They've already enjoyed the parental taxi service carting all their worldly belongings cross-country. And this week Middle Niece starts her very first full-time job, though cunningly it's quite close to home so she's not having to fork out on accommodation costs just yet. But we've all still found time to meet up this Bank Holiday weekend and celebrate, enjoying a meal better than a Little Chef, somewhere better than Lowestoft, with the wider family.
Thirty years on it is the next generation stepping out and moving on, making life choices that'll define their futures, and so the whole cycle starts again. Heaven knows what lies ahead for them, but let's hope it turns out just as well.
