13 May Off we Johnny well, to my grandparents COMPETITION ENTRY
https://www.wasafiri.org/enter-the-queen-mary-wasafiri-prize/
My competition is the Queen Mary Wasafiri new writing prize and my entry is in the category of life writing. It’s open to any nationality and age group as long as you have no previous published book of this kind, which I do not. The word limit is 3000 words, and this comes in at 2996 excluding the title, so it just squeezes in. It’s life writing as it is writing, about my life. If I were to submit it for the competition, it would have to be in a4 size, double spaced and single sized only. It would have to be in the form of a word document or the equivalent. It’s a piece of storytelling, which all journalism is. The piece is about how my grandparents had such great influence on me growing up. I hope you enjoy it.
I grew up in a small town in rural Bedfordshire. You might have heard of Bedford, and you’re almost definitely aware of Luton, famous for it’s dubiously named London Luton Airport. Bedfordshire is in fact a couple of counties away from Greater London and is one of the few double landlocked counties in England. The county used to be known for it’s brickworks, with the London Brick Company, founded in 1900, choosing Stewartby as it’s headquarters. Stewartby is just under 53 miles from Trafalgar Square, the iconic landmark that Google Maps decides is “London”. Now, Bedfordshire is known for being the Headquarters of Moto and being the home of Toddington Services, a service station on the M1. When a place is known for it’s service station on a motorway, that tends to suggest it’s merely a location for travelling through, not staying put. But, as a child, I fell victim to my parents stationary tendencies, and without the ability to sprout wings and take flight, stay put I did.
I was born to parents not on the poverty line, but who by no means had any wealth behind them. My father grew up with two elder sisters and one younger brother with a single mother. My mother is the eldest of three sisters, who were lucky enough to have both parents around, but that by no means entails an easy upbringing. The regular meal of choice in their household was spaghetti with Brussels sprouts and tomato puree, occasionally served with a fried egg on top. This came to be a point of humour as I grew up, I would mock such a strange combination of flavours, already a food snob due to be my dads quality culinary skills. But now in my early twenties as a student in London, it seems to be quite a sustainable and frugal breakfast lunch and dinner.
Four weeks after my birth, my mother returned to work, to a career that didn’t fulfil her but just about paid the bills. My father also had to sing for his supper, quite vociferously, and therefore was not able to look after me in my infancy. That responsibility fell to my grandparents, the mother and step-father of my dad, who are to this day the most wonderful people I have ever known. As to avoid any confusion with my pair of grandparents, I named all four of them after their respective pet dogs, I had Nanny Koko and Grandad Jazz and Nanny Dougie and Grandad Charlie. I will be eternally grateful that they both had to canines each, making their naming so simple. It would have pained me to have had to leave anyone out. It was Nanny Koko and Grandad Jazz, the carers of two poodles, one black one brown, who were charged with looking after me as I morphed from infant to toddler to child. I don’t wish to play down my parents influential role in raising me, but I believe much of who I am today is thanks to them, be it positive or negative.
My earliest memories are centred in their home, at the top of a busy road in my hometown, next to the overly populated A1. Their house was a 5 minute walk from my childhood home, ideal for my parents who would drop me off before work every morning, that was when my day would truly begin. Much of my days from memory would revolve around food. We were always in the kitchen, which was conveniently next to the living room. I would start with breakfast, which tended to be a nice bowl of Weetabix, crispy on the top, soggy on the bottom, with a sprinkling of sugar on top. I get the feeling that my overly sweet tooth is can be attributed to my early morning bowls of wheat-y goodness. We would sit around the kitchen table and dig in. I could of course have eaten some other cereal which sat in the cupboard in the plastic refillable tubs. My grandad would feast on sugar puffs, which were for me at that age seemed to be an acquired taste, one which was acquired when your hair went grey and glasses were worn to read. His tightly curled short hair was greying and his skin was ageing, and it seemed wrinkles were forming more upon every visit, but he was still an active man. Next came elevenses, a mid morning snack. I was a growing boy after all. This would consist of a biscuit or two or three, sometimes a Rich Tea, sometimes a digestive. Sometimes required, but always desired. My grandma would sit, sipping her tea and I would munch. If I was lucky, I might be treated to wagon wheel, which were kept in a cubbyhole along the kitchen wall.
Between snacks and meals, my grandfather and I would take to the garden, where we would fumble around with bits and bobs. The garage was full of miscellaneous tools and objects to play around with. I’m describing the age of around 5 or 6, in case fears come to my mind of a toddler playing with saws. My two favourite items from the garage were a faded forrest green kneeling pad and a large hammer, or sometimes mallet, with which I would use to smash and assortment of stones on the patio bricks. We would marvel at the different colours that the smashed stones would produce as we hammered them in to dust. We would make patterns A couple of weeks ago at work in my middle-class coffee shop, there was a late Christmas gifting ceremony at one of the tables. I love to watch people receive gifts and in this case the receiver was pleased to unwrap a dark green kneeling pad, incredibly similar to the one from my youth. Nostalgia is defined as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past.” and I had never felt such a strong longing for my childhood days. We’d have lunch and return to the garden to continue our playful day, or ‘pottering around’ as my dad would call it. Grandad was the arch potterer, he could while away the day in the garden or in the shed, arranging the storage of his half bent and totally useless nails. But it was lovely to spend the time with him, he looked after me and I him.
Afternoon snack. This would normally come around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and the food that sticks out most in my memory is a couple of mashed banana’s with a dollop of jam in the middle. Again, my friend sugar is there, sweetening my tooth to near decay. My grandma and I would then take our seats on the soft sofa in the living room and turn the TV to channel 4. It was time for Countdown. I would spoon in mouthfuls of mashed fruit and try and guess the longest word I could from the anagram in front of me. We would laugh together as I tried to make up words from my young and limited vocabulary, only pausing with fear when the Churchill dog from the adverts came on screen, at which point I would cower behind the sofa. My grandma was a whiz, she was fantastic at the game and in general. I would sit with her as she wrote letters to her daughters and sons, her mother and brother. I would peer over her shoulder at her writing hand effortlessly gliding over the postcard or paper describing the days events or enquiring about her latest grandchild. I think my love for writing stems from the early days of watching her, wishing that one day I would be able to do the same.
We took a holiday to Southwald in Suffolk during this period, myself, my grandparents, and my cousin Lawrence. Me and Lawrence, who I didn’t really know, slept on bunkbeds in a small B+B on the coast. The room was large and I was too, larger at least than Lawrence, yet I still claimed the top bunk. I’ve always liked to look down upon things, which would bode well as thanks to all my eating, I was growing fast and would end up around 6 foot 2. The holiday turned out to be rather eventful, in between falling from the top bunk and remaining relatively unharmed, and eating fish and chips with extra salt on the shore, we took a walk up Southwald peir. It wasn’t the warmest summer day, and it was relatively cloudy as I remember. I had a blue polo shirt on with some nondescript cargo 3 quarter lengths. I was entrusted with keys to the room. This on it’s own was a proud moment, and I must have been swelling just a bit too much. Ice cream in one hand and keys in the other, I was swinging they key round my finger without a care. Perhaps if I was literally swelling, I wouldn’t have then dropped the key. It seemed to bounce on the wooden planks of the pier for an eternity, until it then dropped through the gap, and down in to the sea below. My heart dropped as fast as the key did. I felt the whole weight of responsibility come crashing down around me and turned a shade of crimson only to be replicated by a brush a acrylic paint. My grandparents were very kind about it, reassuring me that it was okay, not to cry and they would find it. And off grandad went, in to the sea, to retrieve the missing key. He found it, of course. That was the day I decided I was never going to do something so stupid again. I haven’t lost a key since.
When I started school, I found it early on to be quite a frightening experience. I was an only child, and whilst I had friends in the form of neighbours, I don’t think I was ready for such an extreme introduction in to the world of socialising. I had found solace with my grandparents and being around much older people, and the jarring idea of being with people my age every day became a little daunting. I was not to worry too much. My mother or father would drop me off at primary school in the morning, and when the day had finished, my grandad would be there to walk me home. Around the age of 6 or 7, I was given my first scooter. It was black and grey, with a yellow stripe along where you would stand. I wanted to scoot everywhere. My grandad being the kind individual he was, would bring it with him on the 20 minute walk to my school, slung over his shoulder. He would wait for me, and when the time came, hand over the scooter like baton and we would start the journey home. Sir Jimmy Young was a Radio DJ at Radio 1 when it first launched in 1967. One of his catchphrases was “Orft we jolly well go”. My grandad had his own take on this, and whenever we would stop on the street to observe something or smell some freshly cut grass, grandad Johnny would say to me, “off we Johnny well”. I became so accustomed to this, if he by chance were to forget his own catchphrase, I would remind him with glee, “you forgot to say it!”. We would sit at a bench half way home and talk and talk over god knows what, perhaps my day at school, or what it was that he had been doing that day. I was never allowed chewing gum growing up, I’m not sure why but I imagine it was to do with my ability to eat things very quickly, and perhaps from fear of choking. I was with him. We would sit on a bench outside a postoffice-come-shop, chewing over the day, and then I would pop in, purchase as much hubba-bubba as I could afford, and chew that all up too. “Off we Johnny well”, and we’re on the way home.
This would continue every day until I was 9, when one of the biggest bombshells of my young life was about to drop square on my head. It had long been my Nanny Koko’s dream to move to France. She and grandad were to move to Brittany and to renovate an old barn house in to a house for themselves and a house attached which was to act as a B+B. I’m not sure who it was that told me and exactly how I reacted when informed, perhaps it’s a lost memory or perhaps it’s been blocked from accessing but either way, in the aftermath of them leaving I felt a bit lost. What was to be my new routine? Who would look after me now and how would they ever compare to my grandparents, who had looked after me so well and built me in the young boy I had become. As it turned out, no one could compare. Still not old enough to be at home on my own, I was palmed off to a childminding group among children whom I couldn’t relate to, all because they’d decided to live their dream! How dare they. I missed them.
The emigration did have it’s plus points however. I got a guaranteed holiday every summer from as soon as they had moved over the channel. It began in the caravan in the massive garden of the land that they acquired. I would spend 2 or 3 weeks in there for a couple of years, bathing in the stand up shower, covered in mud from my day in the garden with grandad, spending the evenings learning new card games that I would go on to play to this day. Once the house was complete, I was given the top floor as my own, which we entitled ‘the crows nest’. The exterior was stone which has been pointed, with a light blue paint on the window frames. Inside, the walls were white. There was a large kitchen with an island in the middle, a wood burning fire in the living room. I loved it so much, and it would become the destination for many a summer holiday. There was a long walk through fields next to the house, and we would go together, taking the dogs. There were blackberry bushes along the trodden path from which my grandma would take the fruit and return to the kitchen to make a delicious jam. It was a french paradise for my summers.
During those years, my parents separated. It was a difficult time for me but when I was with my grandparents I was comforted. We spent Easter there the year of the separation, and whilst my thoughts drifted to my parted mum and dad, I was in a sense back to normality with my two favourite people. I had grown even closer with my dad, and that summer he dropped me off, I spent the first hour after he left crying in the bathroom, sitting on top of the toilet. I had just got my first phone, and I was texting him begging him to come back and get me, that I couldn’t spend two weeks away from him. I was sobbing and sobbing as he told me I would have to stay and that he wasn’t going to turn round. My grandma beckoned me out and talked me out of it. I just wanted my dad. But as the day turned to night and I settled down, I was at peace once more. That summer I was only supposed to be there for two weeks, I ended up staying for five.
I was 14 when my grandmother passed away. I was with my mum when I heard the news. Her and her new partner called me to their new living room and she told me. I didn’t want to believe what I was hearing and I wept. I curled to a ball on the couch. I cried and cried. I couldn’t remember the last time we had spoken on the phone or what I had last said to her. It hit me through my chest and ripped through my body like an earthquake shakes a building. I don’t remember much from that point until the funeral. I had come with my father who was stricken with grief. My grandad was to speak, and I gripped his hand as it was his turn. He could barely stand so I kept hold, and I walked him to the podium, both of us in tears. They were streaming down my face as I turned back, and listened to him speak, sat on my pew. I still didn’t want to believe that I wouldn’t see her again, hear her laugh or sneeze, louder than a hundred of mine put together.
I was 16 when my grandfather passed away. It wasn’t unexpected, his health and been an issue since a stroke in my earlier years, and the death of my grandmother left no-one to look after him. He was drinking more than he had been prior and things were only going one way. He was living mostly alone, in a country where he didn’t speak the language. I had spent a few more holidays with him, and I was ready for what came. I was not ready for the grief it caused. My dad’s voice cracked as he spoke at his funeral, and my heart cracked with it.
I will never meet such caring and generous people in my life again. They taught me to love and to laugh and to enjoy life and all the things that come with it. I will be eternally grateful to the man they made me. I miss them every day.
