I find it hard pick a favourite but my maternal grandfather
(the star of www.b3ta.com/questions/thrownaway/post222104) was a fucking wizard. He looked like Father Christmas, drank and smoked like the Scot he was, and generally had a great time. He was a man of contradictions, though - a heavyweight academic, his love of folk songs led him to believe himself to be 'one of the people' and he spent a great deal of time in dingy pubs where traditional folk singing still went on. This was before the 60s folk revival and the singers were more likely to be workmen than tweedy academics like him.

He compiled the Oxford Book of Ballads and his three volume Burns anthology was his life's work. He thought Dickens was fucking shit.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 8:25, Reply)