I’ve talked about my family before, I’m sure, but this week I’ve found myself thinking about extended family as a form of identity, all over again.

My granddad, with two of his younger brothers, outside their house.

My granddad was the eldest of six children, which meant that my dad grew up in something of a clan – he had two siblings, and ten cousins on his dad’s side of the family, to say nothing of a stack of cousins and second cousins who were from his mum’s side. Families in those days had a lot of proximity about them. They all lived within a few miles of one another, in North Liverpool, and the ones who didn’t, didn’t go too far – Aunty Gwen lived in Parbold, Uncle Alf moved to Rainford, but mostly, they were less than ten minutes apart by car. Also, those of them that held on to the faith of their childhoods, tended to stay in the one church.

My dad’s generation, of course, were the baby-boomers (he only discovered this about himself recently, I can’t imagine where he’s been). They were the ones who did the 11+, and saw driving their own car as less of a privilege than a right, and would move towns for a job, and be the first in their family to own a house. My dad’s cousins were much more geographically disparate. We lived in various bits of East Lancashire when I was growing up, and Tim moved from Southport to Altrincham, and Phil spent about fifteen years in London, which was as close to the edge of the earth as made no practical difference to the rest of us.

Some of the cousins lost touch, at that point. There are at least four or five whom I know I would not recognise if I met them in the street – although one of that group is my “friend” on Facebook, and lives ten minutes walk from my house. I’ve not been round, though. A core, who stayed in Liverpool, also stayed in the church, and helped to create a kind of home base there, that the rest of us came back to, periodically. My grandparents and two of their children went for a communal living approach, pooling their resources to put three generations into a lovely big Victorian house in the suburbs. The house became another sort of base – there was always someone in, there, and when you arrived, you instantly felt part of the big family, probably just because a good proportion of the family were there already.

That house is where the Christmas parties were held (Boxing night, every year), with all the little traditions, including the one where Father Christmas arrived, and handed out presents to everyone (for hours…) in return for a rendition of Away in a Manger. One year, my granddad stood in for Santa by appearing in drag as a Christmas Fairy – drag isn’t something I would ever have associated with him, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, and as far as I know, it has never happened before or since. Increasingly, for me, part of generation number three of the ever more separated, and ever more numerous family group, the Christmas party was the only time I ever saw most of those people. We have less and less in common, and less and less to tie us together.

And yet, we are still tied together.

I heard a story, today, of one of my dad’s cousins, who’s immediate family had drifted away from the group, and who, now in her fifties, is missing her family, to the point of feeling quite resentful about it. It touched me. I don’t know this woman from Eve, but if she has discovered a need in herself to reconnect with the Family (that makes us sound like the Sopranos, and nothing could be further from the truth), then I’m pretty sure we have space for her. Why not? She belongs with us. She should have been here all along.

My great-grandma, with her grandchildren at Christmas - the generation before mine!

For various reasons, the Christmas party did not happen last year, and isn’t going to happen this year. It remains to be seen whether two years out will mean the end of it, forever. I’m really not sure how much effort is reasonable to expend, in an attempt to bring together a group of people who otherwise get along fine without each other. To bring any real substance to those relationships, I’m pretty sure we’d have to meet more frequently than that, and I’m equally sure that if someone were to do something off-the-wall, like host a family open house once a month, nobody would show up.

The fact is that our family is too big, now. Including spouses, there are knocking on for fifty living descendants of my great-grandma. So, it’s hardly surprising – the family is losing it’s structural integrity, because in modern life, when we live so far apart, and have such busyness to contend with, it takes all our energy to maintain our closest family links. The second cousins once removed are just once removed too far.

That kind of makes me sad. I’d like to find a way to fix it, to make it possible for the group identity to continue, because it’s a key part of my own sense of identity, and I suspect, I’m not the only one. I’m just not sure that it’s possible.

25 Random Things Share Rules:
Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. I am blonde in my head, even though I haven’t looked blonde since I was about seven.
2. I have two degrees, one in Literature and Media Studies, and one in just Literature.
3. I wrote an entire MA dissertation on the Chalet School, and it was a darn sight more fun that Shakespeare or Dickens could ever have been.
4. I’m not sending my kids to school.
5. I have researched my family tree to the point of having 645 names in it. That’s quite a lot. I come from Wales, and Ireland, and Wirral, and Manchester, and Shropshire.
6. The most interesting story I found in the tree was of the man who married one sister, then ran off with the ten-years-younger sister, lived over the brush with her for 30 years, had a stack of kids, and finally married her when first sister died.
7. I didn’t intend to quit work when I had Daisy, but I’ve got no intention of going back, now.
8. My youngest, Henry, has never been in his pram, having travelled everywhere in a sling until he could walk, and even now when he gets tired. He’s 19 months old, now, and it’s looking increasingly unlikely that he ever will. I did toy with putting him in the seat of the shopping trolley, yesterday, but didn’t do it.
9. I couldn’t quite bring myself to get rid of the pram. Might celebrate his second birthday by throwing it out.
10. I make slings for friends, especially pregnant friends, but I could never sell them, because my sewing really isn’t of marketable quality!
11. I think 25 things is a lot.
12. I went to two primary schools, two secondary schools and one sixth form college.
13. I’ve only ever worked for two people – St Rhadagund’s Christian Holiday Centre, and Liverpool John Moores University.
14. I’m better at attention to detail than big projects.
15. I still don’t know if I’ve finished having children.
16. I’m not ready to have another one yet.
17. I’m still breastfeeding H.
18. I play the viola, but not often enough to be any good.
19. It’s so long since I’ve played from music, I think I may have forgotten how.
20. People think playing by ear is clever, and/or hard. Believe me, if it was hard, I’d be too lazy to do it.
21. I sometimes think that someone who studied literature to the relatively high level that I have ought to read more. I hardly ever read novels, don’t buy a newspaper, and search the internet for intellectual stimulation, with varying degrees of success.
22. I wasn’t fat when I was a kid.
23. I don’t eat enough fruit.
24. I don’t eat enough vegetables, either, but I do like vegetables. Sadly, the rest of my family don’t, really. They all eat fruit by the hundredweight, while I just sit here getting scurvy.
25. I am married to the best husband on the planet, which is hard luck on the rest of you.