Just do it - a tribute to lost grandparents
Just do it.
These were the favourite words of my favorite grandparent.
Elaine.
She wasn't really a grandparent. She was my maternal grandfathers second wife, as my granny had died before I was born.
So whilst I was growing up, Elaine was my grandparent. In all but name.
I knew no different.
And she was a wonderful person, someone who had an interesting life, that as an adult I wish I had gotten to know more about.
But sadly, one of the real follies of being young is you forget to ask and appreciate about the world that grandparents inhabited and the lives they lead.
She travelled the world visiting places like Brazil and New York working on stage productions.
Although the details are vague to me as, again, the folly of youth is not picking up enough of these wonderful tidbits.
And there was tidbits out and about, from talking about have wonderful and electric New York and America was to being able to say words in Spanish and Italian and talk about them was magical as a small boy of 7 or 8.
My Granddad
In many ways paying tribute to Elaine cannot happen with out also paying tribute to my grandad.
My granddad He was a football loving, tech lover, in his day gadget lover would have been the term.
He was superb at football, I’m sure if he has been born today he would have had a real at being at least a semi-professional footballer.
He spent time in national service, came from London armed was part of the generation that built Basingstoke as a community in the sixties onwards.
He started his career as a typesetter and later retained and did complete layouts for magazines including Hampshire life.
This looking back was quite the transformation to have learnt in the late 80’s early 90’s Joe to use computers.
Both played an important role in my development as as person and for that I will forever be thankful.
They showed me love and lavished confidence building attention.
Both have passed away now and the world is less for it.