‘Oh my bonny boy is young but he’s growing…’

So how did that happen?
In the blink of an eye – he is grown to this!
But some things don’t change. He’s still wearing a United away strip under there and his most prized birthday present was the t-shirt showing the iconic Cantona giving a Crystal Palace fan a flying kick! Perfect to irritate his South London peers.

And the stuff of all those years in between, sharing the limelight at the wedding, watching the helicopters, walking along the river wall, swinging ‘really good’, kicking bus stops, Debussy and ‘the bells the bells!’, running into the sea with shoes on, HMS Belfast, War Horse, trying to be a goalie, Christmas pantos, desperately wanting a dog, cricket, revising for GCSEs that didn’t happen – all now rolled into this one lovely kind and upright package.

So happy 17th birthday Ethan!

Oh my bonny boy is young, but he’s growing…

21 May 2021

And this morning, as we recovered from our first family visit yesterday to celebrate the birthday, the radio told me it was Martin Carthy’s 80th today – and they played this wonderful song. And there was my title!