New Painting - Granny and Granddad

The photo said it all: granny loved to get granddad drunk! Thus a painting had to be done 😂

My grandparents on my mother’s side were our 2nd parents (but no, they weren’t drunk - well maybe a little to be able to handle my sister). They became acquainted as pen pals through a mutual friend, whilst granddad was in the army. A previous drawing of mine is from a photo showing granddad on camp in Cairo writing a letter, likely to granny. They met at Euston station in London and were married until her death in 2003. She always said he reminded her of Gene Kelly - though he couldn’t dance anywhere near as good apparently!

These two, along with our great grandmother aka ‘nanny’ (granny’s mother, who would live with them until nanny’s death - see a previous digital sketch of both her and granny together), were the kindest and most gentlest of souls. This certainly rubbed off on their children and further down and out the family tree branches.

We’d spend Winter holidays at the ice rink, Summer holidays at the park, accompanied by granddad, to return back to their house for lunches prepared by granny. They only lived about a ten minute walk from our house, so we saw them near enough every day, with school lunchtimes and after school hours spent there, helping granddad with his crossword and receiving extra curricular lessons in the arts and culture from granny. She would tinker on the piano, jam to classical music, crochet, write poems and documented life in daily diaries with brief notes on what happened each day over the course of 3 decades. Needless to say, we learnt a lot more than we initially thought about our parents’ swift courtship (from a few dates to a pregnancy in mere months, oooher 😏)!

When granny died, that artistic kinship was lost - how I wish I could share this all with her now! I found myself having to build a relationship with granddad, realising how we’d actually never really talked much before, and though he was generally a quiet fellow, he was a lovely, cheeky little chappy. We had back to back birthdays, the 27th and 28th January respectively, so I think we were kindred, Aquarian spirits 🥳The next, near enough ten years involved joining in the day trips with his old folks club, helping with more crosswords and indulging him in his other big love - photography! His work, as well as my mother’s, can be found on the website (Rose and Jim Photography). He managed to experience the best of both of the photography worlds - film and digital - and was never without a camera in his hand (though he didn’t make it to owning a smartphone, how his mind would have been blown!).

For granddad’s eulogy, my uncle wrote some words that have always stuck with me: he was slow to anger and calm in a crisis. And how, indeed, he was.

In addition to the painting follows a lovely little letter he sent to the local paper. I love the words “we had a hard, but very happy life.”, which sums up his outlook completely.

Cheers to Jim and Eileen! 💕