May Your Tribe Increase
Topic: In the News
Can you imagine having eighteen children? Possibly - lots of people had very large families in the not so distant past. In Spain in the Sixties, General Franco used to give an annual present of a house to a poor family with the most children. I stayed with my sister in Madrid helping in her English Nursery Class in 1961/62 and I can remember a winner with twenty-four children! It must have been very hard for the runners-up who were persuaded to try for one more child in the hopes of gaining that coveted prize.
So, now you have eighteen children, can you imagine having one hundred grandchildren? And eighteen great-grandchildren? Well, this is the family of a Norwegian couple, Randi and Filip Bekkevold, who have just celebrated the birth of their 100th grandchild. [See this article on the BBC World News]. And they say they know all their names! I know I wouldn't, for sure!
That reminds me of a much-loved teacher in my primary days at the Manor House Convent School in Finchley, North London, who called everyone "Girlie". One day, she was surrounded in the playground by a mass of lassies clamouring for her attention (including me) when the school's Groundsman approached to ask her a question. She turned to him and, without thinking, said, "Yes, Girlie?". She never did quite live that one down!