Today, strangely, would have been my grandfather's 103rd birthday if he had lived that long but sadly nowhere near it as he was 66 years old when he died. Paternal grandfather that is. It all seems so long ago now as I was just a child but I can still remember that shrill screech piercing through me as he sharpened knives on the concrete steps. And those are the memories I hold dearest. I blank out the last years of deterioration and his epic fight to cling on. He was a fighter. He'd been on 3 different boats that had been sunk - quite literally a Jonah my uncle would say. I have his medical report from when he was plucked out the North Sea with hyperthermia. My gran told me of the difficult months after. But he was a fighter. His dad died before he was one and by all accounts his step father beat him to the point that he joined the army at his first opportunity. His difficult times were just beginning but that is a take for another day.
What saddens me is that I did not get enough time with him. Or at least time I remember. From a very young age he and my gran took me on holiday each year. Always seaside towns in Scotland and England. I have the photos but not the memories. That though is more than my maternal grandfather though who I don't even have a photo of and most likely never will. He was killed in a traffic accident before I was born and had an equally eventful life having been born out of wedlock in Reading and adopted by a much older couple. Im not sure why he ended up in Scotland but presume it was the RAF which he worked in before joining the fire service then the prison service. I do wish I could put a face to what little I have on him but as I said that is very unlikely.
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