Knocked for a sixer

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I had a huge surprise the other day. A nephew rang asking about some of our ancestors. He also said he’d discovered that I had another brother who died at birth! At nearly 80, I’d never heard of another brother, and I was inclined to think he’d made a mistake. When I rang my sister next day, she confirmed it. My parents were married in 1937, my (other) brother and sister (twins) were born in 1938, and I was born in 1946. The little boy would have been born somewhere between them and me, so to speak. My sister said she didn’t know about the child until her five boys were well and truly grown. My mother apparently said they were poor as church mice and they (the medical staff, I guess) didn’t try to save it. Maybe it was premature or whatever but now we’ll never know. The subject came up when my mother said the boy that died would have been a friend for my brother who had very bad sight and eventually went blind. In those days, a lot of babies didn’t survive for too long. I find it hard to believe that I’d never heard anything about the child before now, but I guess it’s not something where you go ‘By the way, did you know you had another brother?’