Memories of the sixties, grandparents

Most people have four grandparents. Sadly, I only had two. Mother’s father died of tuburculosis when she was a child and my dad’s mother, Mary, who I’m named for, died five years before I was born. Even so, I count myself very lucky because my paternal grandfather, Pappy, lived with us and I spent many of my childhood days with him.

Pappy was a small man with dark, bushy eyebrows and white hair. He dressed in browns and greens, open necked shirts with small checks, knitted waistcoats and thick cardigans with leather patches on the sleeves. By all accounts he was a grumpy old man and neither Alex or Mother got on with him. That is not at all how I remember him though. He seemed to have infinite patience with me and would take me out into his shed and let me hammer nails into pieces of wood with a tiny hammer or help him in the greenhouse watering tomatoes or the precious fuschias he grew in pots. When I got my own garden the first plant I bought was a fuschia and I can’t smell tomato plants without remembering Pappy and the greenhouse.

Right in front of the shed window there was an apple tree and Pappy made a swing to hang from the branches. The seat had a rail around it to keep me safely in place and it was tied to a branch by thick rope. He would put me in the swing and push me through the window of the greenhouse while he worked. He must have been in his late seventies at the time but he was always out in the garden pottering or making things.

Sometimes we’d go out for a walk. Often this would be down to the bottom of the Big Hill for him to collect his prescription from the chemist shop.  Through the small square window panes I’d stare at the white polystyrene beans fascinated. On those days we’d always go a little further down to the railway bridge. Pappy would lift me up onto the wall and hold me tight while we watched for trains. We’d play a game of guessing whether the next train would be steam or diesel. The steam trains were my favourite with their chug, chug, chug, shrill whistles and white puffs of steam coming up towards me as they ran under the bridge. I will never see a steam train without thinking of Pappy.

On other walks we went further afield. The best times were when we walked the mile or so to The Triangle. There was a toy shop there and Pappy would take me in and let me choose small boxes of Leggo to add to our collection.  On rainy days we would tip the box of brightly coloured bricks out onto the dining room table and build things. Pappy loved Lego almost as much as I did.  A mile is a long way for a little girl of two or three but I don’t remember ever being tired, even walking the mile back. Perhaps this was the beginning of my love of walking.

One day when we were in the shed the sky darkened and there were sudden, claps of thunder. The loud noise frightened me but Pappy explained that thunder was nothing to be afraid of. He lifted me onto the workbench  and stood with his arm around me at the window watching the flashes of lightning, counting the seconds between bang and flash to know how many miles away the storm was. This was my first lesson in counting.  When it was over a bright rainbow filled the sky and Pappy helped me name the colours.

My other grandparent was Laura, known to me as Nanny. Like Mother, Nanny was a large woman. My memories of her are hazy because she died when I was four but what I do remember is a cloud of white curls, a colourful cotton pinafore and a warm lap. To Alex, she was Big Nanny because she remembered Mary, who was most certainly Little Nanny.

Mother and I would sometimes go on a big red bus to visit Nanny. This seemed like a huge adventure to a little girl. Nanny lived in a prefab in Bassett Green. These were single story houses made from precast concrete, hastily built after the war to replace all the bombed out houses. Of course I didn’t know that, all I remember is walking across the grass to her front door and being puzzled because she didn’t have any stairs. She did have a coal fire though and I remember sitting on her lap in front of it dipping into her tin of sweets while she told me fairy stories. My favourite was the story of the three little pigs. While Nanny said, “not by the hair on my chinny chin chin,” I looked up at the hairs on her chin and snuggled into her lap, Nanny and the three pigs inextricably linked in my mind forever.

Every Sunday Nanny would come to our house for Sunday dinner. Sometimes I was allowed to go in the car with Dad or Pappy to collect her or take her home. The nighttime trips to take her home would usually take us through Mansbridge past a pub that would feature large in my life in the future. Back then the new road hadn’t been built and we would drive right past the White Swan pub and over the little Mansbridge bridge, at night the pub was lit by a fairy lights strung under the eaves, their reflections twinkling in the river. To a small girl it seemed like a magical fairytale place peering from the back seat of the car.

One Sunday When Pappy drove Nanny home there was very nearly a disaster. We’d dropped her off and seen her into her little house then I got into the front seat of our little green Hilman. Back then there were no seat belts and I hadn’t shut the door properly. We went round the first corner and the door flew open as I slid across the seat towards it. Pappy put out his arm and grabbed me, saving me from falling out into the road. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said, obviously shaken and afraid he wouldn’t be allowed to take me out again. I never did but I never forgot either. It was my first brush with danger and with the keeping of secrets.

Even though I was brought up without the normal complement of grandparents and I lost the ones I had far too soon, I feel I was privileged to have known them. The memories they gave me are ones I treasure and Pappy, in particular, was a huge influence on the person I have become. He taught me to be curious about the world around me and for that I will be forever grateful.