THE BIRTHDAY QUESTION

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 47, 23 August 1930, Page 8

THE BIRTHDAY QUESTION

Princess Elizabeth's little sister will have her birthday on the same day as her cousin Gerald, Princess Mary's second son, and seventeen I days after her own mother. The Duchess of York was born on 4th August, 1900, and that date has therefore a happy significance for British people—a significance which may be recollected as an offset to the tremendous happenings on the fourteenth birthday of the young lady who is now Her Royal Highness. Three family birthdays in three weeks, and two of those of mother and daughter, are unlikely to affect detrimentally the fortunes of the Royal persons concerned. But with older persons one might question whether a little girl was fortunate or unfortunate in having her great feast-day so near to that of her mother. There is always the possibility of one overshadowing the other, and the scale of the celebration being affected. The small boy who is born too near Christmas this. His birthday and Christmas presents and his birthday and Christmas parties may be given at the same time—and he feels that he has lost something.' Also he runs a risk of being named Noel, a name of happy omen but not always suitable for a small boy who may be cheerfully grufoby and freckled and not the least golden-haired and cherubic. Still the Christmas boy is more fortunate than the unlucky youngster who may be born of mean parents on 29th February, or whose birthday is sth November. Unless the latter can keep the fact secret, he is sure to be called Guy. But the birthday misfortunes of all are quite overshadowed by the bad luck of the baby born on Ist April and having to live down that handicap. A Registrar of Births with any heart at all would refuse to record a boy's birth on that date. Girls do not matter.