A Role I Relish

My granddad had a moustache, tweed suit and a gold watch-chain. He lived in a large house where there was a tumultuous noise every hour as cuckoo and other clocks sang, rang or boomed the time. I wasn’t allowed to speak to him unless he spoke to me. My granddad was far too grand to talk to children.

Each time our family left his house, he would place a hand on my head and say, “Good boy.” I see him mow as he saw himself then: austere, omnicompetent, assured of eternal life.

I am rather different as a granddad. One evening Leah, aged three, and I were sitting side by side in the window bay, looking out. She pointed to a star in the sky.

“Are stars very far away?” I asked.
“Very far, “she said.

Then it started to get complicated. “Look, Grandad, “ she said. “The moon is bigger than it was yesterday. Why does the moon get bigger and smaller?”

I took three oranges and tried to explain how the moon and earth move round the sun. At the same time I thought: If she asks this sort of thing at three, what will she ask when she gets to six? At that age she might be posing questions that would have defeated Socrates.

The next morning my wife and I collected Leah from her playgroup. On the way home we passed a policeman. “Of course,” said Leah, “in the playgroup we have a play policeman’s helmet. That’s a real policeman. He had a normal helmet.”

All this was explained to us in a kindly way, in case we hadn’t grasped it. I began to think that, while demonstrating the earth’s rotation with an orange, I should have mentioned Galileo.

When my son and daughter-in-law told me that I was to become a grandfather, my feelings were mixed. I shared their joy, but was saddened that, at last, I would have to acknowledge I was at the Third Age, the early evening of my life. The evening can be the best part be the day, but how many of us rally believe it?

There is such a thing as being young at heart, young in spirit. Life is to be lived at each age. The there is no sadness, only joy.

I have entered into my role as granddad with zest. I bounce Leah’s six-month-old sister Grace on my knee, sing her songs and talk to her. I wheel my other grand-child, 20-month-old Daisy, round the supermarket in her buggy and pink hat. I talk to her as we go, recite nursery rhymes, name the goods on display. “Biscuits, soup, French stick, butter, “I say as an elderly lady stoops to admire Daisry.

Yesterday I saw a car sticker which read: “Happiness is being a grandparent. “It may well be. You can have fun with the children (and hand them back at the end of the day). You can be anarchic (go on the slide with them) and slightly subversive (buy them biscuits).

You learn an important lesson from grandchildren. Children live for the day. They have no time for yesterday. For an adult, to be childish is folly, but to see the wonder of the world through the eyes of a child is wisdom.

Grandparents, in their turn, are important to children. To have someone around whom the child’s mother or father calls “Dad” gives the child a sense of history, of belonging, a feeling that the world has been here for a long time and will keep going, no matter what.

Physically, being a granddad is tiring. When I stay with my daughter, Daisy wakes up with my name on her lips. She puts on my white socks. I read to her, push her tricycle, chase her round the table, play hide-and-seek. It is not yet 7 am. After breakfast, if it’s sunny, we go to the beach and, believe me, there’s no slacking until lunchtime.

Leah’s philosophy of life, like Daisy’s, is taken from Hamlet: “the play’s the thing”. But when I’ve had my turn on the swing and the slide, not to mention the roundabout, I am treated more gently. “You’re a little bit jaded, Grandad, actually. Have a rest.”

Time steals aways our youth, our friends, our days. When we die, all that lives on of us is the love we have given to others. All we remember, I guess, are those magic moments in our lives when
time stood still. Being a grandad has given me many such moments.

But just now I think I’ll sit down and read the encyclopaedia, so that I can answer Leah’s questions when she’s older. Then I’ll get fit. You have to be fit to go down a slide head first, to go with Daisy to the beach, to hold Grace up to the sky.