My nan and grandad
When I was a kid, every so often we'd go visit my nan and grandad. They only lived just around the corner, less than five minutes' walk away, but we only visited them once a month, or even less frequently if we could manage it.
No one enjoyed visiting my nan and grandad. It was a chore. We'd all sit there on the sofas, bored, while my nan made comments about the weather or recanted to us the gory details of the latest ghost story she'd read in a murder magazine. Sometimes she'd get a photo album out with pictures of when we were younger. There'd be my brother with a bowl-shaped haircut and me with a missing incisor, dressed in the uniforms of a school we didn't go to anymore.
My grandad would be there too, sitting in his chair (no one else was allowed to sit in his chair). He was a Polish immigrant and he didn't speak much. I always assumed it was because he had a poor grasp of English making it hard for him to communicate with us, but thinking about it, he had hearing problems as well. Anything you said to him had to be said loudly and clearly, or else he'd just give you a lost, confused expression.
My nan
My nan was a typical old person. She had a perm. Her back was hunched over and went she went out (to go to church or to take the dogs for a walk) she wore a big pink coat that was several sizes too large for her, even on hot summer days.
She had this trick where she'd take her top teeth out her mouth. Then she'd wave her teeth in the air at us. I always loved it, and I still do today.
Then there were her toes. When she took her shoes off, which thankfully wasn't very often, her second toe on each foot was horrendously twisted. Her toes overlapped her big toe. She explained her toes were twisted from wearing shoes that were too tight when she younger. I made a mental note to always wear shoes that fit me.
The sight of her twisted toes scared me and her false teeth grossed me out. Maybe I should have been worried about what would happen to me when I got old like her. But I didn't as I knew I'd never get old.
Whenever a plane would fly over the house, which was often because we lived near an airport, Nan would point at the sky and call me over. “Look Paul, quick!" she would say, ushering me to the garden to witness this modern miracle. “Quick, it’s going!" I'd come and look, and it was just some Ryanair flight to Benedorm or a British Airways 747 on its way to Dublin. But my nan never got used to the sight of planes, and every plane caused her joy.
My grandad
My grandad was twenty when World War II broke out. The Nazis invaded Poland and captured my Grandad. They forced him to work on a railroad, and he had to wear the letter P on his clothes to identify him as a Pole.
At the same time my grandad was building railroads for Nazis, the Nazis were flying planes over England and dropping bombs on major cities. One of these cities was Birmingham and one of the bombs landed on my nan's house. The house was blown to smithereens. Fortunately, my nan, only four years old at the time, was hiding in the bomb shelter at the end of the garden, along with her brother and her mom. Her dad was at away at war so fortunately, none of the family was hurt.
I have this photo of some of the bomb damage to houses in Aston, Birmingham:
My nan has always claimed that the man dressed in black and staring at the camera was her grandfather, or my great-great-grandfather:
And he may well have been. Who can say? What matters is that my nan survived the war, as did my grandad. My grandad go came to Birmingham, looking for work and a better life. I don’t know much about Poland but I do know it must have been pretty bad over there for people to actually think Birmingham would be an improvement.
My grandad met my nan, and I guess it was love - you know how the story goes - and they got married and had two children, one of which was my dad. My granded had children at a late age, in his 40s, and as a result, he was already old by the time I was born. So I always knew him as this strange little wrinkled old man. He couldn’t speak much English, it seemed all he could say was our names – “Paul” he would say, in a hoarse old man's voice, while becoming with his finger for me to come closer – “Paul” – and he'd motion again for me to come even closer, to come and stand right next to him - “Paul” he'd say a third time, and I'd come and stand so close to him that I could smell his old man breath, and then he'd stuff a £5 note in my hand and make a shushing noise, as if to say, Don't tell your brother and sister or they'll want £5 notes too. It was our secret.
When he got very old, his only hobby was growing sunflowers. My grandad loved sunflowers. He would grow these great towering sunflowers, easily 6 feet tall, 7 feet tall, even 8 feet tall, taller than Michael Jordon, tall enough to reach the sky. Every year he would be out in the garden, front and back, tending to these monstrous sunflowers.
But eventually my grandad grew too old to tend to his sunflowers anymore. One year there were no more sunflowers, and the next year he died, aged 85. There were no more sunflowers in the garden since then.
My nan lived alone after that. Alone, except for the animals.
The animals
My nan owned a whole menagerie of pets, including, throughout the years, dogs, rabbits, mice, hamsters, tortoises and birds. It was like Dr Doolittle's house. She could have made money calling her house a zoo and charging people money to come to see it.
She had these canaries in a cage on the table. There was a green and yellow one and a blue and white one, and all they'd do all day is chirp incessantly. The noise would have driven me mad but my nan must have been used to it (either that or she didn't have enough brain left to become mad). Then there was a tank of fish. The fish didn't seem to do anything except stare out of the water. They would swim away, frightened when I put my hand next to the tank.
It seemed that most of the animals suffered health problems. I don't know if that's because my nan adopted sick animals or if the animals became sick from the poor living conditions at my nan's house. Whichever one it was, my nan would always be saying things like:
"Blinky got into a fight last week and lost an eye. I’ll have to change his name to Winky.”
"I think the dogs ate one of the rabbits last night."
"Flopsy's moulting. I think it's because of the trauma she had in a past life."
"She's allergic to grass but she keeps eating it. I can't stop her."
"Most of the tumour has gone, but he'll always be blind in one eye."
And the bills for visits to the vet were astronomical. Vaccination? £51.75. Tooth extraction? £369 One time, a dog ate a plastic figure, resulting in an x-ray (£369) and intestinal surgery (£929). We joked that most of her pension went on vet visits, something that may not have been far from the truth.
The dogs
Then there were the dogs. No one else wanted these dogs because they had health problems or behavioural issues. Some of them had been kicked and abused by their previous owners, and now they piss on the living room floor periodically. Others had weird injuries ("he lost his eye after the fight") or health issues like diabetes.
My nan always owned one or two dogs. When one dog died, she'd just get another to replace it. Her house reeked of dogs. The stench would hit you as soon as you walked through the door: the smell of fur, congealed dog food, and the slight stink of shit, a smell I've come to realise is common to all of God's animals. The smell reminded me of a farm or a sewage treatment plant. And the chairs always had dog hair on them, so if you sat in one of the chairs, the hairs would stick to your clothes.
Whenever I visited my nan, I'd knock on the door of my nan's house and immediately from inside came the sound of barking. You could hear the dogs inside, barking, yipping and growling themselves into a frenzy. The smaller dogs only made annoying high-pitched yips but the larger dogs made quite scary deep barks and growls, which always made me feel nervous.
Then I'd hear my nan scolding the dogs from inside the house. "Stop yer barkin'! Stop it!" Her angry words never did make the dogs stop barking though. If anything, it incensed them to bark lounder. Finally, she'd open the door, just a crack to stop the dogs from escaping outside. "Ohh, Paul, it's you!" my nan would say.
I'd go inside, and the excited dogs (usually two dogs, one big and one small) would jump up at me, almost knocking me off my feet. Their claws would dig into my coat and their hot, fetid breath would stink my face. Then the dogs would then run around the living room wildly as if they hadn't seen another human being for years. Finally, my nan would lock them in the back garden, where they'd howl for attention.
It was thanks to the visits to my nan's house that I learned how to deal with dogs. First, you have to do is put your hands up as if in surrender (so the dogs can see your hands and also so the dogs can't bite your fingers off). And then you start stroking the dogs, stroking the dogs on the head and on the back, stroking and stroking as if your life depends on it (which it probably does). If all goes well, you'll become the dog's best friend.
I've always imagined that in the scenario of a guard dog chasing me, perhaps a Doberman Pinscher with a mouth full of sharp teeth, I'd know exactly what to do: stop, put my hands up, and then stroke the dog. Like that, I'd befriend the dog. Then I'd make a quick getaway by climbing over a chain-linked fence while the dog watches, its head tilted quizzically. And I'd have my nan to thank for my escape.
Maybe I should be more afraid of dogs. My aunt's dog (this was an aunt from my dad's side) once bit a pensioner so hard on the face that he was left drinking through a straw. There was a news article about it:
A PENSIONER has been left drinking through a straw after a normally ‘lovely’ dog sunk its teeth into his face. [...] As a result of the attack, the 69-year-old had four puncture wounds, 32 stitches, loss of muscle, tissue and saliva glands and damage to his nerves. He also has permanent numbness meaning he has to drink through a straw and doctors said he may never recover from his injuries.
To the credit of my nan's dogs, they never attacked anyone, as far as I know.
The biscuit cupboard
My nan was always complaining of constipation. "Oooh, I've had terrible constipation," she would say. "I haven't passed my bowels for five days now," or something like that. I suspect the reason she had constipation her diet, which consisted of nothing but biscuits, cakes, and chocolate. That's all she ate (or so if seemed to me). If you asked her for an orange she'd give you a chocolate orange. If you asked her for fruit she'd give you fruit gums.
Ironically, all the digestive biscuits she ate did nothing to help her digestive system. In fact, they made it worse.
There was a cupboard in her living room where she kept all her snacks and treats. Things she kept in this cupboard included:
Garibaldi biscuits
Garibaldis are thin hard biscuits with fruit in the middle. The only person who bought them was my nan, as far as I knew.
I didn't know where the word "Garibaldi" came from so I thought they were named after a bald man called Gary.
Cadbury's Roses
A tin of Cadbury's Roses, expired ten years ago, that no one would eat except my nan. Now, if she had Celebrations, that would have been a different matter. Those I would have eaten.
Crisps that you salt yourself
My nan had these weird crisps where you had to add the salt yourself. They came with a little blue packet of salt and you had to pour the salt on the crisps yourself. The idea was that you could salt the crisps to your taste.
My brother never got to try them and he has always regretted it. He wants to know what crisps taste like before they're salted.
Paranormal magazines
My nan loves ghosts. She had stacks of ghost magazines in her house that she would pull out whenever I visited her.
"Paul, there's a good story in this one about a man burned to death in his flat and came back as a ghost."
"Thanks, Nan, I might read that one later," I'd say.
She likes telling stories about ghosts too. She would say things like, "Your great-grandad used to work as a night watchman at an old manor house and one night, he heard banging coming from the attic. He went up to the attic and opened the chest and he saw the ghosts of two little boys in the chest. The boys had got trapped in the chest and died."
She also had loads of magazines about crime. They went into great detail about murders, describing all the limbs and blood.
What I want to know is where did she get them from? They aren't the kind of magazine you can find in shops so who is her supplier? Who was were supplier for her ghost and murder magazines? I don't know.
The last time I visited my Nan's house
The final time I visited my nan's house was in 2015. As I walked down the path, I discovered, with a mild jolt of shock, there was a sign in Arabic above the door. I couldn't read the sign but I imagine it was some blessing from Allah. Given that my nan was a die-hard Christian, and would never convert to Islam, I took this to mean that my nan had moved away. She didn't live there anymore. I walked away, in shock.
No one had told me my nan had moved house. I found out later she'd gone to live with her daughter, Dawn. But I'll never be able to step foot in my nan's house again. And that makes me feel like part of my life has gone.
At least the smell of dogs will still be there though. I don't think that will ever leave.
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