GRANNY RACHEL
Granny
would put two dots
of snuff
on her left-hand thumb,
hankie
ready in her right hand,
and with
two rapid sniffs,
the
brown dust disappeared,
inhaled,
a satisfying fix
followed
by a hefty nose blow.
In the
years after World War Two,
when a
generation had had enough,
people
were entitled to enjoyment
and for
Rachel, my Granny Millar,
it was
two occasional dots of snuff.
We
didn't call him Grandfather or even Grandad. He was Granda, my mother's father.
He was a small, slight man but with the work ethic and grit of somebody twice
his size. I remember he did the annual wallpapering and decorating in our
house, always with a cheery demeanour, the occasional whistle and, every now
and then, a song to himself. He had a stammer, quite severe at times, but that
made him all the more endearing. He would give opinions and tell stories,
sometimes struggling with certain words that simply refused to roll off the
tongue. But, and I recall this very clearly, at a family do, he sang
the song Nellie Dean and it was beautiful, even to a young kid like me. When he
sang this simple little tune, the stammer was dead. Instead, he had the sweet
voice of a tenor, unforced and pitch-perfect. "There's an old mill by the
stream, Nellie Dean," he sang and, you know, he looked happy and content,
a small man but a great Granda.
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