They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
The lasting memory of my childhood weekends is waking before dawn on a Saturday morning to the smell of sweet brewed coffee. I would dress in my warmest clothes and meet my grandad, Joe in the kitchen of my grandparents two bedroom council house.
He would be dressed smartly as he always was, trousers shirt and tie everyday without fail, his jet black hair with only the hint of grey in the sideboards glistening with Brylcreem in the style he always wore in every memory and photo I have. He would put on his big brown donkey jacket and pack a bag with a flask of hot white coffee with sugar, two plastic cups, a biscuit each, usually Kit Kats and then we would head off in his small ford fiesta.
The drive to the beach seemed to take an age in childhood, in reality it's about a fifteen minute car journey. We would park at what used to be known as the block yards, now it's a housing estate and and marina.
There used to be a small car park looking out on to the beach. The docks were to the right, with a small walkway that led to the Pilots house, he was the officer who saw the boats in to dock. We would leave the car walk to the pilots house and turn head down on to the beach.
Sometimes we would talk about the sea, about what the boats carried and about what shells were which. Sometimes there would just be silence. As a child I never really understood what that silence meant but I instinctively knew it was important, to him it was something he needed something that even though he was standing there with me it took him away to some memory I was not party to,
At six year old you don't really question silence you tend more towards play. I can remember running ahead of him down the beach in search of shells, stopping every now and then to look back. I can still see him now standing on the shore line gazing out to sea watching the waves roll towards the sand, then slowly retreating back again. He never explained what he was thinking and I never asked, some days I wish the me that I am now could be the one on the sand looking back, walking back and asking him what he was thinking.....
As I grew older I had so many questions to ask my grandfather and in his own way he answered them. But his answers were always tempered and I knew it.
After he died when I was 16 I met with his brother my Great Uncle Edwin. He had more elaborate stories to tell me of the life my grandfather had led. This made me curious as to what stories had remained untold.
A few years ago I started researching my grandfather's past this blog will tell the story of what I found out and illustrate how I imagine certain events may have happened.
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