Birth cerfiticate

Diary Monday 28^th July 1997: I had to drive to Little Kew Road where I could register my new born son. Little Kew Road is a residential street off Maxfield Avenue in Whitfield town. The registry office was on the veranda of an unassuming house. A desk was set up directly behind the grill. On it were some large pebbles and some spiral-shaped objects, made of metal and probably belonging to an ancient car. The plastic black desk cover was disintegrating. The floor of the veranda was painted that wonderful deep rich red. Behind the desk sat an elderly and rather stately man with a pencil moustache. He exuded a calm authority that I wish were mine. We introduced ourselves and exchanged a perfunctory amount of small talk. He had worked for most of his life for United Biscuits in Fulham, London. He thought England cold. Now, in his retirement he filled in registration forms for new-born babies. He inherited the job from his aunt. It is about his way of writing that I want to write. He sat behind his desk, with an ordinary ballpoint pen, took out a book of forms and began to write. His letters were formed so carefully, so slowly, so meticulously. The end product was not necessarily more finished or calligraphic than any other hand-writing. In fact the letters and words he formed so slowly and so deliberately were really rather ordinary. But it was the meditative pleasure to see him write and recite to himself, sotto voce, the salient facts of my son’s being.