An Unoriginal Blog, or my Granddad Smith

This blog was inspired by Viv's moving tribute to her Granddad.

My Dad's parents lived in Wales. It was a 6 hour trip by car or train and that deserves its own story. But that was a holiday. Grandma and Granddad Smith was every day life. This is my story of them, but mostly him

Grandparents aren't supposed to have favourites. But my Grandma Smith (my Mum's Mum) chose me from her five Grandchildren from her three children. I was number 3, the only child of her only daughter. When number 5 came along, he was my Granddad's favourite.

If you looked at Grandma and Granddad, they're a bit like the saucy postcards, he was small and wiry, she was very matronly, and utterly devoted. Grandma kept a perfect house and Granddad did the man jobs, like the coal, the garden, the food and the fire. He was your archetypal dour Yorkshireman. Never raised his voice. Never had to. He had PRESENCE.

My Granddad started in the pits aged 14, but I don't remember him working. I'm told my Granddad used to take me out in the pram. This was quite unusual in those days, not a manly thing to do. My mum's eldest brother got wind of it and suddenly cousin number four (his first two hadn't been that involved with Grandma and Granddad) got deposited and he and Mr Bland, who lived opposite, took me and number four out in the prams and literally walked the wheels off it. That must have been a sight. I'm sure no one said a thing. Because they were both brilliant.

After I was born, Mum went back to work after three months and I spent my time at Grandma and Granddads, where Grandma and I made cakes: pastry bases, jam splodge, sponge top; a kind of Bakewell. And we got to lick the whisks. They had a big Grundig stereogram, a bit like this  which I used to listen to all the odd SW stations from all over the world.

After I went to school, they were still my wrap around child service right up to when I was 16.

She made clothes for my Panda and teddies and she was wonderful. I don't know if I remember her face or I've put her face on her from photos. If anything she's more of a Mammy figure, like the housekeeper from Tom and Jerry.

Mammy from Tom and Jerry

Then, after 18 months of stomach cancer she died on Jubilee Day. I was 6.5. My Granddad was devastated.

Every morning, every night, every meal he would kiss three pictures of her around the lounge and thank her for his food. His food? He'd never had to cook in his life. So when Grandma knew she was dying, she wrote down instructions for his food so he could follow them. Even down to the Bakewell cakes, which, as you will now understand, I didn't name. Poor Grandma, in my family they're now known as Granddad Buns. I wish I could get my hands on that book.

So I spent many days still with Granddad Smith. We used to go across the road to see Mr Bland, who'd put on a record of Val Doonican singing Paddy McGinty's Goat


and Rafferty's Motor Car.



Even now these songs mean a lot to me.

Most of the time he was to be found in his deckchair outside the garage, or shovelling coal in. Or we had a pair of walking sticks he'd cut down and we turned them upstairs and played golf, trying to get a golfball into the airbrick outside the house. Sometimes we'd go to the rec and play pitch and put. But none of this happened until he'd made the morning trip to the cemetary and back.

Quite often we went to where Granddad worked an acre of land, belonging to Grandma Bland. From this he fed his children with potatoes, carrots, broad and runner beans, before my time he had pigs on it, and my personal favourite, peas, which in season I'd "help" him pick by eating as many as I could fresh from the pod. When the weather turned we'd sit on old car seats in the pig shed and he'd take his old penknife and peel an apple in one and hand me slices. In his garden, he grew dahlias not for show, but just because he liked them.


I think I can count the number of times I went upstairs in that house on the fingers of my hands. Upstairs was for best and for bed. There was a downstairs toilet, in which, instead of toilet paper, was the opened paper bags that the meat had come in from the butcher's. Proper John Wayne. Made Izal look positively absorbent.

Dinner time was ALWAYS 12. When I was asked what I wanted, I always wanted scallops: thin sliced deep fried potato, cooked in a small blackened milk pan. Often served with cold mutton from the shops at The Pond. No telly except for at 12 til 12.30, children's tv. Then off.

Irrespective of the weather, the fire wasn't lit until 6pm. He had a proper old coal fire I wasn't allowed to play with.

Christmas Day he used to come to our house. He'd have to be picked up from six miles away and sat in front of his food by noon. He never said anything. It's just how it was.

Speaking of Christmas, for birthday and Christmas you got £5 each until you got a proper job. I was only the second to go to college. His favourite just never applied himself. He was going to be a sportsman, but wasn't good enough. By the time he realised... well, another story.

So, when it came to my birthday and Christmas and I was back from college he'd take one look at my long hair and say "when are you going to get a haircut and a proper job?". His hair was one of those wartime short back and sides where the sides are skinned. A proper MAN's haircut.

So after college I decided I didn't want a real job JUST yet and left for Australia in the November. One day, sitting in Sydney in the April sunshine I went to the Post Restante and got a letter from Mum and Dad. My Granddad had had a stroke at the age of 85 and died. They deliberately didn't tell me until it was too late to come home so I didn't have to make that decision.

So, this dour man, what did I find out when I got home? Every week he'd given my mum £5 "for when he gets back".

When the will was read out, the only thing that was specifically left to anyone was that stereogram. I have it still of course.

Unfortunately I never got to say goodbye or thank you, and he never did find out I'd got myself a proper job and haircut. I hope you're proud of me now.