I have thought about him a lot these past few days. I often think about him but I seem to have thought about him more than I usually do. So I allowed myself to wander off down memory lane tonight. I dont recall a lot of my childhood from when we came back from Singapore,but I recall every moment spent with my Grandad. He stood over six foot tall and to a small child he was a giant of a man,but he was a gentle giant to me anyway. Granma never had a good word to say to him or about him,even years after he had died she would harp on about how hard he had made her life. She forgot we had ears to hear with and eyes to see.
I always thought my Grandad was magic,I guess part of me still thinks so even now,he had magic hands there wasn`t a thing that he undertook that he didn`t achieve ( apart from keeping his wife happy that is) They lived in a house with the biggest garden I had ever seen,the one in Singapore had been big but it was just grass.This was a garden,lush with flowers and bushes and vegetables all year round! I have to admit I was Grandads favourite,his Princess,thats what he called me,he never used my name always called me his princess.There were only two of us allowed to visit The Grandparents that was P and I,Granma didn`t care for the others for some reason and though we would all go on occasion when it came to holidays just P and I would go to stay.And then P stopped wanting to go because he didn`t like Granma.
When Grandad walked I had to run to keep up his strides were so big,he used to laugh at me at first then he would swing me up to be carried in his big arms or to ride on his shoulders,always letting me down before we came in sight of the house so 'She' wouldn`t know.He would often take me into the little village and would always buy me something,always when we came back she would say "been spoiling her again,you know she cant take them home" which was true,if I took them home they were taken off me and given to the younger kids so at Grandads they stayed. When I was seven he made me a dolls house,he spent hours locked away I at first thought that I had done something wrong because I was the one person he never locked his workroom door against,all the time he was locked away I would wander the magic garden where Grandad had planted nourished and grown all the flowers and bedrock plants. He could make things grow together that I had never seen together even since. There were two greenhouses at the top of the garden and in one of them he was growing Orchids,I remember the smell and the colours were so beautiful they were breathtaking.Above them and built into the wall was an enormous rabbit hutch which housed at that time three rabbits,one evening for tea we were having this strange meat and when I asked Granma said it was the rabbits,I refused to eat and sat there with tears running down my face untill Grandad without a word put down his knife and fork stood and picked me up and took me outside to show me the rabbits safe and sound. He put his hand on my head and said " I`d not let her harm what is thine Bairn" Only she did when I had gone home she killed them all,she told him when he got home she had found them like that.He never replaced them. Just as he never replaced the Orchids when she killed them one night when he went to play dominoes,she opened all the greenhouse windows. Sad Jealous woman,I always felt sorry for the bitterness in her heart for it stopped her enjoying so much.
My dolls house when it was presented to me was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen. Made from a wooden orange crate,it had two floors and the roof he had made provided a further attic room.He had sanded down every inch of wood and painted it on the outside to resemble walls.The inside he had made a living room complete with fireplace and tiny pretend coal fire. A kitchen with a wood burning stove and cupboards,proper stairs that went up to the attic,bedrooms and a bathroom. And the furniture had been made from matchboxes and cigarette cartons and matchsticks and lollpop sticks and they were crafted in such detail the tiny suite even had buttons on the cushion.He had wall papered and carpeted every room and there were even lights that ran off a battery. There has never been a dolls house to match that one since.
He would paint my Grandad,in oils,he was superb. I would sit and watch fascinated as he made these tiny squiggles of colour take on life and become a country scene or Rex his german Sheperd,or Granma when she was young and once even me. Me I couldn`t even sketch let alone paint,but he told me when I said why couldn`t I do it,because the others in the family could,he said that I didn`t need paint or pencils as he did because I painted pictures with words.He told me the last time I saw him to never give up writing,no matter what.
They stopped me going just before I was eleven,Grandad and the male parent had a big row in Grandadas workshed and I never went back there again untill after he had died.
He came to see us just once after that,which was a big thing because he never ever visited us in all the time we had lived there,as he was leaving he said to me I`m sorry Princess but I am always around.
A couple of months later we were told he had cancer,both lung and throat cancer,and six months later he was dead. They would not let me go to see him in all the time he lay ill,but I knew the minute he died.
And yes he has always been with me,guiding me when things are tough. He was and still is my Magic Grandad.