My Grandad........ ok ......more

Grandad would play all the old songs, I mean they are ancient now but they were WWI and WWII songs, more I than II! I loved to sing along and, for some reason known only to him, his favourites were ‘Oh! My Darling Clementine’ and 'Keep Right on to the End of the Road' (as we sang them so often - especially Clementine - I learnt all the words, so it became one of my favourites too). I would help to get the accordion out of the pantry as, being a small house – two up two down – storage space was not a considered a necessity. I wonder what happened to the accordion…………… well, now I’ll never know, it might possibly have been given to one of my uncles or cousins. (I have a family tree all printed out, maybe I’ll put that on here one of the days). Grandad also had a crystal set, he also had a radio that was large and was atop a shelf by his chair, an ‘Old Moore's Almanac’ hanging on a nail by the side of the chimney breast where he sat. Why, do you ask, am I rambling on about these? Well, it’s all part of Grandad. He used to have the radio on but when I came round, I was allowed to listen to the crystal set, especially at ‘Listen with Mother’ and ‘Children’s Hour’ times. I suppose this is why I like listening to the radio even today. The crystal set was set up high on the wall and had headphones to go with it, one day I will find out what exactly it was but for now the most I can say about it was that it was a radio transmitter. At a quarter to two I was allowed to listen in to ‘Listen with Mother’ and then it was put away until five o’clock when once again the headphones came down and I was allowed to listen in. At my young age, this became a magical thing, this disembodied voice talking to ME and the adults just weren’t there. I loved the stories, kiddie ones at lunchtime but allsorts at teatime, losing myself in them as they were told – a bit like Jackanory but no visuals. The radio held nothing really after that experience, when Frieda came with us I had to share or listen on the radio but it wasn’t the same. The ‘Old Moore’s Almanac’ was a predictive magazine, A5 and it told horoscopes and world events, and when to plant vegetables and could be quite exciting to read, especially what was going to happen. Then in the front room was the piano and so long as I was not too noisy I could play on that to my heart’s content, eventually reading a bit of music and with Mam’s help learning to play it. It was only basic, not the way my Mam played, and she did try to show me, but I enjoyed myself, which is the main thing. So there was Grandad in his house and there was us visiting during the week after he had stopped cycling over to Stechford. Then the day came when I was told that we had to pack our things as we were going to live at Grandad’s house!!! This must’ve took a lot of organising, we were a family of five, although Tony was now in the Royal Artillery, we still had all his belongings at our house and there was Ena and me, we had stacks of stuff and of course Mam & Dad but that is another story. For now …. We moved in with Grandad, he had the back bedroom, Mam & Dad slept in the front bedroom and Ena and I slept on the bed settee in the front room. The front room became out of bounds after I went to bed so really there were four people living in one room, Tony had to sleep on the settee when he came home for the Ena's wedding.