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My Nan
She was a ‘no frills’ gran with a sense of adventure and in me she found a willing travelling companion. We started off small scale, Nineacres with doorstop marmite sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper, always taking care to share her knowledge of birds and flowers around us. We progressed to visiting the city sights, staying with Aunty Ciss in London, very exciting for a country girl. By the time I was a teenager we had graduated to Europe travelling by coach with Nan to Switzerland and Austria, stopping off in France, Germany and Belgium. Experiences I would never have had without her generosity. We walked for miles marvelling at foreign countryside and taking interest in other cultures. Nan always travelled light and washed her smalls out each night before bed. She loved her food and on one occasion when we had a particularly rough channel crossing she sat eating fish and chips while everyone else on the boat was being seasick.
Nan was very proud of her religion, something that was important to her her whole life. When I was quite small I remember staying over on a Saturday night. Gramp would be banished to the back bedroom and I would get to lie in bed and watch the church spire in the moonlight. She always prayed before going to sleep and there was always a chamber pot under the bed. In the morning I would be despatched with Gramp up the belfry to watch the bell ringing before Nan would arrive to sing in the choir.
She didn’t believe in waste and was ‘green’ and recycling long before the terms were invented. I remember stopping to collect road kill to feed Randa, the cat, when we were on our Sunday afternoon drives. She washed out and reused jars, bags and paper seeing value in any item that could save a bob or two. She also frequented charity shops to keep up with the latest fashion trends and for much of her reading material. I share her love of reading and she passed many of these books onto me. Nan had a thirst for knowledge and an interest in many varied subjects. She read the newspaper everyday and liked to be up on politics, current affairs and sport. She had a great loyalty to Wales, the Royal family and Brasenose College as well as her own family. But she equally enjoyed her afternoon soap operas and of course Thornton’s chocolates.
She taught me a lot and gave me lots of wonderful experiences for which I am truly grateful. For my immediate family at least, this marks the end of a generation and an era remembered with great fondness.
And as she would say “God bless”.
Sarah
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