Although sadly I never knew my father’s parents, my maternal grandparents were a cherished part of my early life.
They lived in a council house in South View, Mendham, where they had brought up their family, and every Tuesday we would go to visit them.
Tuesday was the shop’s early closing day, and Dad would drive Mum and me from Dickleburgh in the morning before the opening for the day, dropping us (when I was a pre-schooler at least) at the fork in the road just before Shotford Bridge crosses the Waveney. From there Mum would walk and I would use my current favoured means of travel – tricycle, scooter or whatever – to Nan and Grandad’s house.
Dad would then close the shop at 1pm and come to Mendham to join us for the rest of the day.
At that time there were only two grandchildren competing for attention: my cousin Anthony and myself, and conveniently there were two grandparents, so as if by tacit consent he attached himself to Nan and spent most of his time at their house cooking in the kitchen with her, while I was Grandad’s little shadow. He loved his garden and I loved to be with him, so on would go my wellies and I was never happier than when picking pea pods and eating the contents, picking strawberries (likewise) and generally checking to make sure that anything he grew was edible. I must have been so helpful! And looking back I suddenly wonder whether it was Grandad that was the attraction or the fruit and vegetable-filled garden!
Grandad was my first hero, and although there were bits of his life that I was totally oblivious to at the time, such as a history of mental breakdowns and illness, I still remember him with enormous affection. What granddad said was law.
As a little girl of two or three I was apparently in the habit of losing myself in a task that I enjoyed, to the extent that I would ‘forget’ to visit the loo. No, I didn’t have an accident, it was just that ignoring a call of nature can lead to everything, sort of, getting blocked up…. and then I couldn’t go.
Mum tried the sovereign remedies of the time: Syrup of Figs – tasted nasty but didn’t help, and on more than one occasion a bar of soap put in the offending orifice. Nowadays that would definitely qualify as child abuse, but it was done with the best of intentions, but to no effect.
So it was left to Grandad to come up with the solution, and he did! He nailed a horse shoe to the door of our (outside) toilet, and assured me that would do the trick.
And guess what? It did! Grandad would never have known what you meant by psychosomatic conditions, but he found and cured mine!!
Sadly, my relationship with this wonderful man was cut short when he died shortly after my fourth birthday. Happily for him it was sudden: he was watching TV after tea (in those days we had dinner at lunch time and tea – ie bread and butter, salad, cakes etc, about 5pm) while Nan washed up and made a cup of tea. When she brought him his cup he was dead in his armchair: a massive heart attack. One of my early memories is of sitting, playing, under my Nan’s dining table (which I now own) while she and Mum sat either side of the table crying. I am told that when we went into the house, having been summoned by Nan, Grandad was still in his chair and Dad had to carefully steer me through to the kitchen because if I had seen him I would immediately have run to sit on his lap – an active child, apparently his was the only lap I would sit on for any length of time, snuggling against him rather than wriggling away within seconds as was my habit with anyone else.
I wish my sister and brother, let alone my own children, had had the chance to know him.
Grandad holding my cousin Anthony, while Nan holds me.