Chapter Fifteen - Paternal Grandfather

My paternal Grandfather, named Stanley Edward was born in 1890. He was a Methodist lay preacher, which meant he preached now and then in the church he attended and in other local churches. Probably, it also meant he could help with certain services taking place in the church and possibly communion. I think at that time he went to St Marks' Baptist Church. I feel so sad to say that I never heard him preach. My dad once asked me if I ever heard him preach and by what he said, he was a good preacher. My dad was very proud of him. I called my grandfather Grandad.

Grandad was quite tall for his generation, about 5 feet 11 inches and he was quite well built. He was not tall and thin like my dad. He always wore a hearing aid and he had a 'Hitler' moustache which I never liked at all. It used to prickle me when he kissed me.  He often wore brown suits and white shirts. 

He was in India in the army during the Great War (WW1) and during WW2 he was an ARP warden, going around making sure no lights were showing in houses. He was trained in First Aid which he used on any casualties they found when digging out bombed houses. How traumatic that must have been at the time; enough to give a person nightmares. Never knowing what he might find as he scrambled through the rubble, looking for bodies or people alive. What terrible sights he must have seen. It takes guts to do that and I am sure I couldn't do it if you paid me a million pounds.

About five houses next to their terraced house had been bombed, so the war came very close to them. The houses had to be demolished and the land was left very rough for all of the time they lived in the house, full of bricks and stones. And one air raid shelter had been left standing next to their garden wall belonging to the house next door.

An elderly friend recently said to me that she was a child in WW2 and she was always terrified of being buried alive if a bomb hit her house. Fortunately, it never did. She used to argue with her mother about going into the shelter as her mother didn't want to go, but she was too afraid to stay in the house.

I am very proud of all Grandad accomplished in his lifetime. He was a very good role model. My dad loved him very much and he was certainly a father and grandfather deserving of respect.

At my church, Easton Road Methodist, Grandad ran a mid week club for teenage children called 'Christian Endeavour' which sounds very Victorian now. I longed to be old enough to join it as my sister went, but it was disbanded due to lack of support as the congregation dwindled down. This happened a lot in the 1950's. Lots of my friends at the time did not go to church.

As a younger man, Grandad worked as a tanner working with leather. Later in life, he worked at Clifton College which was a boy's school. I think as a caretaker of sorts.

Grandad was a terrible tease and as a child I didn't like it, but I loved him very much and he always had a twinkle in his blue eyes. He used to hug me very tightly, in a bear hug. He called my Grandmother, either 'Mother' or 'Flo.' She often called him 'Dad.' He used to tease her, by untying her waist apron and letting it fall to the floor. He thought it was very funny, but I think it wore a bit thin sometimes! She used to say 'Oh, Dad, stop messing about.' 

Grandad could be a bit disapproving and he did have a bit of a temper. If he got really cross you would know it, but that was not often. He was very clumsy and he often broke Grandma's ornaments. Lots of them were held together with glue! We've all seen him put on his coat and swing it around knocking things onto the floor as he did so. Clumsiness and heavy handedness run in the family. I can be both of those things. I also have a few ornaments held together with glue, but I am much more careful since I retired.

When I was getting married and my husband and I went to visit them, Grandad told me all you needed as a Christian was the bible. He gave me a verse:

Ecclesiastes Ch. 11 'Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you.' I think this means give generously and it will come back to you. Like Karma. What goes around, comes around. I think this is very true.

I spent a lot of time with them both him and Grandma. She taught me to play lots of games like draughts, tiddly winks and ludo. I liked playing cards in particular.  Games like Rummy, Sevens and Patience. I love nothing better than a game of Wist. The four of us, mum, dad and my sister used to play now and then and I always partnered my lovely dad and my sister partnered my lovely mum. My husband does not like cards and refuses to play for some reason. It annoys me.

Once a week I used to go to my grandparents house for tea. My sister was doing something else and never came with me. Grandma used to make lovely cakes with a cherry on the top. She made no other cakes than this, but it didn't matter as they were the loveliest cakes of all. Unfortunately, we didn't ask her for the recipe and, although nice, our fairy cakes are nothing like hers. She often gave me Ribena blackcurrant drink which was a real treat for me. We had bread and butter, jam, cheese and meat or fish paste sandwiches. She used to make a white blancmange with cornflour and sometimes she made a strawberry flavoured milk jelly. I loved it; well I am a foodie and everyone knows it.

Grandma encouraged my love of Rupert Bear and she cut out the stories from the newspaper and stuck them into scrap books. I read them often. Rupert Bear will always be my favourite children's story, although I have a fondness for others as well. I still have four of my Rupert Bear books.

We often visited Grandad and Grandma on Boxing Day for tea when my cousins used to come with Aunt Alice and Uncle Ray. Grandma used to say, 'Let's go upstairs and see if Father Christmas has left us any presents.' So she and I used to go upstairs and find a pillow case full of presents for the children. Mine was always a Rupert Bear Annual book which I loved.

My school friend, Geraldine sometimes came to play with me at Grandma's house. I think she came to tea sometimes too. She lived three doors down across the back lane. She was my closest friend at the time. Every week I was given sixpence pocket money to spend at the shop. If Geraldine was with me, she would get sixpence as well. I always bought a bag of penny sweets or a chocolate bar. There was a bar of chocolate then called 'Five Boys' which was Cadbury's chocolate with the faces of five boys printed on it. I think the first face was happy and the last one was in tears. How funny is that! I loved it, of course. Cadbury's is still my favourite today.

Grandad loved his little garden and had a pink Hydrangea shrub in the corner, I hated it at the time, but I love it now. He had green fingers and I think I've got those genes from Grandad. He always had an allotment where he grew vegetables and lots of Dahlias. I stick to flowers, I'm not good at fruit or veg.

There was a concrete air raid shelter in their small garden and one time Geraldine and I played in there making it into a den. It didn't last long as it was dark and damp. I can remember us cutting pictures out of magazines and pasting them into a scrap book.

It has made me feel quite sad thinking about my grandparents. They were very kind hearted, upright people. I never heard them quarrel or say unkind words to one another ever, although Grandad would get very cross about things now and then. (I think I take after him!) Grandad could look quite stern at times, my cousin was a bit scared of him, but he was never stern with me or my sister. Grandad always carried Nuttals Mintoes in his pocket, which were cream coloured creamy mint sweets, which he shared with us. I think they still make them, they were lovely. He sometimes had a tin of Fisherman's Friends (strong cough sweets) or a tin of tiny black things called 'Negroids'. I think these were a strange taste, maybe also for coughs or colds. What a racist name that was! Good grief, wouldn't be allowed today and I should think not.

My grandparents old Victorian house was demolished to make way for a new Bannerman Road school and nursery school in later years and they moved out of the area to Fishponds where they had an apartment with an allotment outside. I saw them less frequently after that. Grandad started a worship group in Fishpond's community centre and was very much a part of it. He was the kind of man people could respect. Unfortunately, he grew very deaf with old age and it was very hard for anyone to communicate with him and he fell into a silent little world of his own at the end. Grandad still had an allotment which he dug until the age of 86 and he died of old age when he was 88. My son was six weeks old when he died. My Grandma (step grandmother) died of breast cancer three years later, my daughter was six weeks old when she died. If ever there were bitter-sweet moments in my life, it was these.

My old school was pulled down a few years later and a new school built and the road my grandparents lived on was swallowed up and disappeared within the grounds, although some houses either side still remain today.