My maternal grandparents were nasty, sneaky old trouts. But did Granddad apologise from Beyond The Grave?
I used to dread going to stay with them. They didn't hit or grope me to get their kicks, far too sly for that. Instead they'd tell my mother that I'd misbehaved, knowing that she'd beat the living crap out of me.

As an example, Granddad once started slurping his drink at the table and winking at me, trying to get me to join in. Knowing it was a trap but not daring to refuse him I slurped too and he told Mother that I'd been making dirty noises while we were eating. Hardly sat down for a week after that belting.

Anyway...
He eventually croaked, unmourned by me, and I never thought about him from one year to the next. Then a few years back some relatives dragged me along to a Spiritualist meeting, where the medium picked me out and seemed to be passing on an apology from my grandfather on The Other Side. He'd been selfish and cruel to me when I was a child, it seemed, and he was very sorry.

I was a bit flabberghasted, as I hadn't told anyone about the grandparents' nasty ways. I'd only been a little kid, nobody would have believed me and it was in the past anyway. So how did she know? Had I really had a message from Behind The Veil?

Eventually I worked it out. The medium'd pick out a woman old enough to have a dead grandfather and fish a bit to find out whether she'd been fond of the old man. If she hadn't, the medium'd feed her the 'sorry for how I treated you' line. Every now and then she'd turn up someone whose granddad abused her. I bet there were often tears! That medium must've looked like a genius.

My own kids' grandparents were nice to them. If they hadn't been I'd have sacked them off. No, I don't believe he was sorry, either then or after he joined the Choir Invisibule.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sat 4 Jun 2011, 15:18, Reply)