My grandad was a hard-working, gentle, kind and patient man. He would take me absolutely everywhere. I remember walking with him for miles and miles and, unlike the treks to the next village, I don’t recall complaining about walking.
Close to the Pit Rows was a country lane and we’d wander down there, into the fields (only if there were no cows, remember, Grandad didn’t like animals too much). He’d teach me about all the plants, what their names were, what they could do – medicinally etc. and what plants not to touch.
The memories of those plants stayed with me and I know the names and properties of plants without realising exactly where that knowledge came from. I just know what things are. I’m not too hot on which mushrooms are ok, so I won’t chance that, but berries along the walk always taste better picked right from the hedgerows, I think.
Blackberries, raspberries, sloes, damsons, wild apples – crab-apples are sour but so tasty. There are also tasty little nuts inside cherry pits and other stoned fruit. Grandad sometimes ate an apple whole, core, pips and all – so I know for a fact that an apple tree will not grow inside you if you swallow the pips!
Grandad had a beautiful garden. The grass was mown and edged to perfection and his roses were set out in symmetrical beds in a simple maze formation. I’m not sure if he made the maze for me or for his own pleasure. I think the rose-beds were set out like the picture, but it’s been such a long time, I can’t remember.
I think it was laid out like this, but it doesn’t seem quite right…
I know he started growing strawberries for us. He dedicated a small patch just for us and taught us (most likely just me, the other two didn't seem interested) how to weed and care for the plants. Perhaps that’s where my green thumb comes from? I’m passing it down to my granddaughter too.
As I said, he was such a patient man. He never raised his voice or hand to me – except for that one time…
Now, what you have to realise is this. I was a tough little kid, as I mentioned before, I was made to hit another kid because she’d hit me. The other kid was at least 2 years older than me, so I’d imagine she was quite a bit bigger than me when I was five.
Having said that I was a tough little kid, used to smacks, slaps and tellings-off, this story always makes me smile.
Grandad had planted some Livingstone Daisies.
It took me years to find what they were called. I just knew them as ‘Sunshine plants’.
These daisies had opened and were glorious, just outside the back door, at the top of three steps.
The tiny me took the heads off them – I don’t know why.
Grandad became the angriest I’d ever seen him (he probably looked a little stern). He tapped the back of my hand with two fingers as punishment.
Maybe it was because Grandad NEVER hit me, or because I knew I’d disappointed him, or because he’d never told me off before, I don’t know, but the wailing that small tap on the hand set off brought my parents, aunts, uncles and grandmother running to see how many limbs I was missing.
I remember most vividly the laughter as the explanation that Grandad had-had-had-slapped-me sniffle, wail, cry.
The contrast between never being hit and being used to it has stayed with me. Even at that young age, I was used to physical punishment and just didn’t cry when I was slapped. Because Grandad had never hit me before and I never expected it, the slight tap on the hand was a bigger, more painful punishment than any my parents dealt me.
That particular lesson stayed with me (although I didn’t realise until just now as I write this).
The only thing I learned from the beatings my parents gave me was how to take a beating and that is a lesson I NEVER wanted my kids to learn from me.
Wow… that went very dark, very quickly.
I’ve told you that Grandad didn’t like animals. One day, a sparrow flew down the chimney (as they used to do back then).
Grandad went outside to wait for my grandmother. She came up the street and wondered why he was outside. “I’ve just come to meet you…” he said. She didn’t believe him.
Rather than letting the sparrow out of the window – or at least opening the window, grandad had shut the door in a panic and gone out of the house.
Grandmother had to re-decorate the room. There was soot EVERYWHERE!
Pictures from Google Images