Love letter to my Nan

My Dad phoned earlier to say that Nan died this afternoon after a month's illness.


As a child I loved her unconditionally, although when I was a teenager she sometimes made me angry.  But most of all she made me the woman I am today; she taught me how to love and nurture people, that food is a weapon of love, that you can never have enough flowers and that you should laugh every day.

She wasn't always been a good influence; she was an outrageous flirt - charming all my boyfriends - I too am a flirt, but unlike Nan I can't flirt with those I genuinely like.  Like her I adore the sea; although she could not swim  - I can picture her now, wearing an emerald-green swimming costume and a swimming hat decorated with flowers, standing beside me as I practised front crawl, insisting I didn't splash her as she didn't want to get wet.  I can feel that icy coldness, the salt water in my eyes and mouth and that heart-bursting love I felt for her.

 I could confide my nastiest, most ungenerous thoughts to her and  know that she would always love me and be on my side.  Her advice was sometimes flawed; she thought I should give University a miss as it was full of 'posh people' and I wouldn't fit in.  But she also inspired me to read and to tell stories.  When I stayed with her I would sleep in her bed with the slippery, shiny green eiderdown and she would tell me stories from her childhood about moonlight flits, her own much beloved Granny, her irascible mother, louche uncles and a crazy woman who roamed Ramsgate chopping the pigtails off little girls.

I did tell her I loved her, but she always said we'll have enough of that old china and offered me a biscuit..

So Tiny Woman with size 3 feet, lover of raw cabbage and banana sandwiches,  who preferred animals to people (your two grand daughters aside), wearer of emerald green jumpers, scented with Coty's L'Aimant, skin-smooth with Oil of Ulay, I just want to say to you, wherever you have gone to, that there will always be a part of you somewhere deep within my soul.

Thanks for everything Nan

Nan, me and the broken arm

About a week after I have broken my arm - plaster from wrist to elbow - term ends and I am due to go to Ramsgate with Nan.  No one at home is very sympathetic about my injury - it was my own fault and I just had to lump it.  I am sad that I won't be able to go swimming in the sea (one of my all-time favourite activities) as the plaster has to stay on for 6 weeks.  It is a nasty itchy thing (even the frequent use of a knitting needle for scratching doesn't help) and now has many obscenities written and drawn on it - Ah! The originality of youth.

But Nan, being a fellow hedonist feels my pain; decides there is no reason why a broken arm shouldn't stop me swimming.  Every time I go into the sea -  four or five times a day whatever the weather - my arm is wrapped up in several plastic bags and secured with elastic bands.  The cast does limit my marine activities: front crawl isn't feasible - you end up hitting your head with the cast quite often - although a sedate (slightly lop-sided) breast-stroke is just about manageable. The plaster does get a bit soggy, but usually dries out over-night ready for the next day's dunking.

Strangely the broken arm never healed properly (it is thinner than the other one and I can't put any weight on it - those who know me may come and inspect it).   I sometimes wonder if it was the swimming that did it

Nan and the knitted swimming costume

Unlike her nemesis Nan-next-door,  Nan wasn't such a gifted knitter.  Most of the things she made bore little resemblance to the original pattern; for instance hats could double as small sleeping bags.  When she finished whatever garment she was knitting we had an interesting ritual ,whereby all family members tried it on to see who it would fit; poor Dad was frequently offered cardigans in pastel colours which he generally declined.
Actually I'm surprised Nan continued knitting after her first experience with wool.  As a child Nan lived with her family in Ramsgate, but she was not allowed to go onto the beach as Great Gran thought it common. Once she started work Nan gained more independence and ignored most of her mother's dictates including the forbidden beach. One summer she decided to knit herself a swimming suit that no one else would have.  She said she felt fantastic tripping down to the sands and revealing her white costume to her youthful admirers.  Her splash in the sea was also satisfactory -but she would never go deeper than her shoulders as she couldn't swim and she didn't want to get her hair wet.
Her return to the beach was not quite so triumphant; the white wool had stretched alarming and the costume was almost completely transparent.  She rushed back into the sea and stayed there until the beach emptied as none of her 'genetlemen' friends would bring her a towel.  Home-made swim suits never featured on her fashion agenda again.

Nan, Pépé and the lamb chops

Most of my childhood holidays were spent in Ramsgate as we could stay cheaply with Nan's mother, a deceptively sweet-looking old lady.
One summer when Nan and I arrived at Great Gran's flat after the lengthy trip from Oxford to Kent we were greeted by the lovely, greasy aroma of roast lamb.
 'That smell's good,' says Nan enthusiastically - it being sometime since we'd eaten our banana sandwiches. 
Great Gran smiles indulgently 'I always do Pépé a couple of lamb chops on a Saturday, don't I my darling boy?' 
Great Gran's small grey poodle wags his stumpy tail.  'If you two are peckish I think the Chippie is still open.'

Nan and travel sickness remedies. Part III.

Occasionally while staying in Ramsgate we would take a trip to France (Boulogne or Calais - I can't remember which).  My other vehicle of choice for travel sickness was the ferry - something much smaller than the car ferries around now. 

Neither newspaper nor pennies would do for mal de mer.  Nan's first anti-nausea strategy at sea would be for us to sit on the open deck. I would then be instructed to look at the disappearing landscape;  unfortunately my extreme short-sightedness had not yet been diagnosed  - so horizon-spotting did not have the desired effect.  By the time land disappeared we'd have blue lips and bloodless extremities; Nan would sigh and reluctantly say: 'We'll just have to go downstairs - nothing else for it!'

So down below deck into the smokey bar.  Nan would order a medicinal brandy  (generally a double) and I would have a fizzy drink.  If the fizzy drink failed to still my churning stomach I would be given sips of brandy.  It would be true to say that I have rather hazy memories of our French day trips.