Bo’s Memories of Grandad
Bo writes:
Invalided out of the first world war when he was run over by a gun carriage Grandad was disabled for life. I’m not sure if his diabetes was a result of his injuries but he was blinded losing an eye and most of the sight in his ‘good’ eye and had severe wounds to his chest, arm and head with a silver plate being used to replace part of his crushed skull. He was certainly one of the first people to receive such treatment and survive.
Once he recovered he was granted a ‘small holding’ a barely sufficient land holding which was operated as a market garden growing fruit, vegetables and flowers. Every day through spring and summer ‘flower ladies’ or wholesalers would turn up at 7b to collect huge baskets of flowers. Most of the produce was sold in Brighton. Greengrocer agents would also turn up most days to take away heaps of beans and peas, potatoes and salad crops and herbs. The butchery wholesaler would come to collect industrial quantities of parsley which would be used on butcher shop windows to ‘dress’ the cuts of meat.
In the early years he did what he could to help but as his blindness progressed he did less and less and gran earned their living working all hours of the day. I remember that grandad still pottered to help with planting etc. He would set out a rope ‘line’ and hoe along it, then go back along the row dropping in seeds and raking the furrow over, then moving the line. Because he could not see what he was doing sometimes he only moved one end of the line. When spring came round one would see three neat rows of peas or lettuce then one which formed a ‘V’ or ‘W’ with the next row.
I mostly remember him sitting in the corner of the living room smoking. Ever so often he would take off the handkerchief that covered his eye, then furiously run the empty socket as it itched, before re-folding the handkerchief and slinging it around his head once more.
Each evening there was a routine bordering on a ritual. After ‘dinner’ gran would check the bottle of pee grandad supplied to test its sugar level in order to give him the correct dose of insulin. Filling the formidable syringe she would rub his arm with alcohol before administering the jab. Every time she did so there would flow from his mouth an extraordinary invective of swearwords and curses heaped upon gran. She would retort by telling him not to show off.
He would settle back down into his chair and light a rolled up cigarette using a wooden ‘spill’ taking a light from the ‘range’. He would sit back in his chair as the radio was turned on to warm up so that at precisely 6.45pm he could listen to the Archers, a tale of country folk which is still going strong today, the longest running radio programme in the world.
At 7.00pm the News followed and this too must be listened to in absolute silence with grandad’s ear cocked to the Home Service.
At 7.15 conversation could resume unless he fancied listening to a ‘talking book’ supplied in a fat pack of 78 Records on which were recorded novels, travelogues and biographies such as “Moby Dick’ and ‘The Kontiki Expedition’. These were supplied by the charity for the blind ‘St Dunstans’.
Grandad sat in his grey serge trousers and old green jumper as enthralled as we grandchildren. The green jumper was covered in holes caused by the embers from the spill or rollup falling unnoticed to his chest. Occassionally, they would burn through to his skin and evoke another stream of curses, much to our amusement.
When asked, aged six or seven, to describe my grandad I said “He’s little and he shouts”.
Grandad within touching distance of the old ‘steam’ radio.