Little Sister Syndrome – it could be terminal

"We won't!" came the defiant cries of me and my brother Ryan. Convincingly affronted by the notion, no sooner had the front door clicked shut and we were power bombing each other on an upstairs mattress.

Seemingly seven foot tall for as long as I can remember, Ryan is 20 months my senior. So naturally, I was often on the wrong end of a wrestling manoeuvre that laughed in the face of the 'don't try this at home' warnings and occasionally left me in A&E with concussion.

Sometimes it was faux martial arts if we'd watched Karate Kid, or boxing if we'd seen Rocky. It wasn't always combat though; sometimes we'd play post offices and I'd be a customer and he'd stamp my letter. Or he'd pretend to be Bruce Willis and I'd be a terrorist.

Once, he nearly kicked my skull off my shoulders because I threw a hardback annual at his head.

Thinking back to it, we weren't all that nice to each other. Being the littlest, I seemed to draw the short straw quite often.

I think I suffered from Little Sister Syndrome.

Sometimes we'd be happily playing and, mid-game, one of his pals would knock the door for him and he'd go and play elsewhere, leaving me looking forlorn staring at Pop Up Pirate wondering whether this was life.

In another memorable instance, Ryan and I found our Christmas presents while on some fact-finding mission of boredom. It was the day I discovered that Santa wasn't real, so for me it was traumatic anyway. But for every day thereafter, for what felt like 25 years, Ryan used the discovery against me.

If he wanted a go on the Raleigh bike we shared, he'd threaten to tell mum I found the Christmas presents. I remember feeling tangled up with guilt, and in the end I confessed everything to my mother in an emotional outpouring only to find that she didn't, actually, even care.

In a typical older brother way, he'd ignore me at school, get annoyed at my asking to hang out with him and his mates. And, as we entered our teenage years he would, intimidate boys so much that no one wanted to chat me up for fear of the wrath of Ryan. Come to think of it, they still don't.

Despite the fact that we were often mean to one another, my brother was and still is, the funniest person I know.

When we were very young, he went away for an overnight stay at an activity camp with school. I can't have been older than seven or eight, and in his absence I wandered aimlessly around, doing nothing because I wasn't sure how to function without him.

Similarly, his appendix burst in the summer of 2000 and I remember crying myself to sleep at the thought of him having to stay in hospital. When he came round from surgery, groggy from the anaesthetic, he asked for me and held my hand. It was possibly the only tender moment we've ever shared in years of super kicks and elbow drops.

Now, as adults, he the father of two beautiful kids and I'm still an annoying little sister. I follow him around, laughing at everything he says and persistently elbowing him at even the idea of something funny.

The symptoms of Little Sister Syndrome no longer feel terminal, but I'm sure his Big Brother Syndrome is much more difficult to live with.