Mum's parents were ace. Dad's parents were horrid.
As a wee nipper I didn't get to see my maternal grandparents very often. Mum was a Dirty Foreigner, you see, and her parents lived in Dirty Foreignland. I only got to see them very occasionally, whenever they'd come to visit us, maybe once a year. My grandmother was a dab hand in the kitchen (reckon that's where my mum got it from) and would bake the house full of goodies at the drop of a hat. My grandfather was a dab hand in the workshop. One of my favourite presents was a wooden sliding block puzzle which he'd made himself. He was a cantankerous old bugger, prone to complaining about anything which took his fancy, but he made up for it with handmade presents.

Dad's parents, on the other hand, were fine, upstanding, decent British people, and thoroughly miserable gits with it. Spending far too many Sunday afternoons at their house was a veritable exercise in torture. I reckon I could cakewalk Guantanamo Bay after that experience. They never had anything nice to say about us (I have two siblings), frequently chastised us for any infraction real or imagined and, despite a long career in the catering business, my grandmother's cooking left a lot to be desired. There's a stereotype of we Brits, held by plenty of Dirty Foreigners, that British cuisine begins and ends with boiling things to death. My grandmother epitomised the stereotype. The only saving grace was her sherry trifle which, as the years passed, contained an ever-increasing ratio of sherry to trifle.

They're dead now, all four grandparents. All I've got are some vague childhood memories of pleasant but infrequent sightings, and unpleasant and all-too-frequent sightings. I don't actually know very much about any of them. They were all old enough to have served during World War 2, and I know my maternal grandfather was stationed in Europe for a while as part of the Colonial effort to see off the wicked Hun. I also know that my paternal grandfather spent most of his adult life as a barber. And that's pretty much it.

I'd like to know more about them, but I can't, not really. When they were alive I was too young to appreciate what they could offer apart from doughnuts, wooden toys, and vitriol. Mum's joined her parents on the Other Side (I'm not a believer, but she was), and Dad never really got on with, or talks about, his parents. I never really had a chance to ask them about their lives, their hopes and ambitions, and the things they'd seen.

If I could travel in time, I think my first port of call would be my own childhood, but as an adult, so I could talk to my grandparents and make an attempt to appreciate what they'd been through.

My grandparents (on both sides) had my parents at a late age, and my parents had us at a similarly late age, which is why I was still fairly young when they cashed in their chips. All I can offer is, for anyone still reading and not thoroughly bored to tears yet, if your grandparents are still alive, make the effort to get to know them. I wish I had.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Sat 4 Jun 2011, 1:55, 2 replies)

Good tale. Clicky for poignant thoughts.
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Sat 4 Jun 2011, 2:24, closed)

awwwww

(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Sat 4 Jun 2011, 8:29, closed)