I just want to put here what I read at the funeral:
Firstly thank you all for coming to say goodbye to a remarkable man. Son, brother, husband, dad, grandad, great grandad, friend and growing up know affectionately by my friends as grandad squirrel. My first story isn’t really mine to tell as it starts when I was born. My parents lived above a shop in Clifton in what was to be a particularly harsh winter, the flat had no heating, grandad was not having that for his grandson so in the first of many times he looked out for me he confronted the landlord and quickly got that sorted. What was said between the two I don’t know but the fact I’m here to tell you means whatever it was it worked.
Fridays was always tea at his house growing up and while 3 generation of the women of the family started their soap marathon, achieved by starting on one channel at around 3:30 and then switching backwards and forwards up to about 8 o’clock taking in programmes from far flung corners like Australia’s Sons and Daughters to the home grown talent of corrie. Grandad would get an old roll of wallpaper and cut a piece to fit the kitchen table and we would spend the time drawing on the back and although he never outwardly displayed any art he was extremely talented, as he was at everything from fishing to flirting, predicting the horse racing to gardening. He was my go too for tips on toms, beans, the grand national and everything in between. But sadly that advice like so much of his worldly wisdom only lives on in those he imparted it to. He should have written a book but he was too busy in the greenhouse or tinkering in his shed. So I decided a few years ago that there was so much more to him than even I knew and in fact if I wanted the answers to all the questions I had, I would have to write that book. I provisionally entitled it ‘The extraordinary life of an ordinary man’ and was gearing up to go round with pad, pen and tape recorder. I would finally hear his side of the night he met Joyce and maybe how he found the strength to carry on when she was taken from us at such a young age, what he did during the war and why exactly did he like egg custards so much? But life kept getting in the way I had the idea but not the time, then the global pandemic hit, suddenly I had the time but wasn’t allowed to see him as so many of us weren’t. When we finally came out of that I readied myself to restart the project but life had other ideas I procrastinated and grandad had his stroke, he’d cheated death before it will be fine I thought but he soon found it harder to speak and even harder to remember. I had lost my chance. I’d never know where he got the shopping basket from that he attached to his bike to transport his veggies, how despite being deaf as a post could still hear the opening of the biscuit tin at 20 paces in the dark and just how many dog biscuits he kept in his pocket at any one time in case he met someone with a dog, so as to strike up a conversation with the owner and make a new acquaintance or friend, fluffy or otherwise. Because when all was said and done that was what he was about at his core, life and the living of it, the great outdoors, the allotment, the fishing, the pets and People his family, friends, acquaintances and even strangers. So If I can ask you take anything away from today its that if you have someone you love and haven’t told them in a while, do it. If you need to reconnect with an old friend, make time. And in an ever-fractious world just been nice to one another. It is what grandad would have wanted. I recently moved house and in doing so kept finding letters he wrote to me while I was away at university, constantly supportive, funny, caring, wise and always containing a fiver. Because he was all those things and more as anyone who knew him can attest to. There is an old saying that you should never meet your heroes well all I can say it that’s pretty hard when your related to them.
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