My Secret

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I have decided to tell you my secret at last, but please don’t tell everyone just yet.

Is the door closed? Have you checked the room for hidden microphones?

Alright then, here it is: I am a GIANT.

There, I have come out of my unusually tall closet at last! Are you shocked? Did you have any suspicion at all?
I was not born a giant. My Dutch parents, both small but perfectly formed, had eight children ranging from the Mini-Model (my sister Tonny) to the We-Don’t-Care-How-Tall-It-Is-As-Long-As-It-Fits-Through-The-Door-Type (Me).

Was it the unusual diet of Edam cheese and salted liquorice that made some of us shoot up like the proverbial beanstalk? Was it the urge in the Dutch to stand as tall as they could, to keep their heads above the ever-rising waters?

But why then is my little sister Tonny, when in her garden, often taken for a statuette? (I am trying to avoid the word gnome here as you can see).

A construction fault? A kid-set with parts missing?

By the time I was fifteen, I had mushroomed to 1m80 (or six feet for all you people who STILL don’t understand metrics).

I started having problems when I went out dancing. Stiletto heels were in and they added another ten centimetres to my height.

I can still see the look of horror on the faces of the shorter males, who seemed to be in the majority in those days, when I slowly unfolded to a dizzying height and they were forced to talk to my then 34 A bosom.

The Italians, guest workers in Holland, had the habit of sneaking up next to me and putting a hot, red ear against my bare arm, just above the elbow, at which point all their short mates burst out laughing.

But my time came a year later; a first date with a gigantic blond guy who was an unbelievable two metres ten tall ! A month later I posed for some fashion pictures for which I had to look even taller than I was. I spent hours practising my autograph, just in case I became a world famous model.

But marriage, not fame, arrived. I became a tall poppy again while living in France.

In the village my height was discussed loudly and at length by people who pointed at me shouting: “Oh, la Grande!!”. They thought no doubt that someone that tall could not possibly be French and her ears were probably too high up to hear much anyway.

In supermarkets I was an all-time favourite, with so many little old ladies asking me to get items off top shelves, that I considered turning it into a full-time job.

When I arrived in New Zealand, I decided to keep my height a secret and go under cover.

I tried not to let on I could see comfortably over people’s heads. Friends, who thought of themselves as “too tall”, never realised why they felt so much more positive about their height when standing next to me. I never gave the slightest hint that the air up here is so much purer and that I am also closer to the sun!

So why, do you ask, did I decide to tell you my secret after all this time?

I have a son, who is the first in a new generation of giants. He measures 1m94!

When my little boy was home last week, he stood next to me and casually put his elbow on my head.

And you know what he said?

He laughed and said: ”How are you, Shortie?”

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