The gift that keeps on giving by Kayleigh Donn, Boston College

On the first of April 1995 I was born, yes, I can almost hear the laughter from an April fool’s joke you’ve just made. I was born during the time my mother wanted to watch Coronation Street, she said she still to this day doesn’t know what happened in that episode 26 years later. My birth was chaotic as it were, my dad was passed out for most of it.

My dad is a very…. Well let’s just say he has many phobias including one he has for Phillip Scofield, I have no idea why, but we tend not to watch This Morning. Anyway, at my birth almost everyone in my family was present.

Including my three aunts who didn’t get along at all, my aunt Patsy who was always the one who started the drama just by telling my aunt Doreen that her boobs are too big and that she needs them deflating then my aunt Vicky will start on Patsy for wearing her leopard print skirt which Patsy swears she brought in Asda when she was shopping.

Those were my mum’s sisters, my mum was the oldest and often the referee. Even buying birthday presents for me is a competition with those three, but I enjoy watching them tear their hair out over it because it’s like I’m watching an episode of Jeremy Kyle. As for my nan and grandad they were there too, my nan was telling the midwife all these old wives tales and how she should be the one delivering me whilst my grandad was asleep with my passed-out dad at his feet.