After my Nana went in 1999, my pa remarried at 80. He had such a positive loving relationship with Nana, I don’t think he would have known how to live alone. The year he was alone was terribly sad. It was great to see him setting off on adventures again with a companion to care for him. He was a big traveller.

Today I have been thinking how lucky I have been to have a grandfather, that I enjoyed being with, until I was 41. I lost my Nana when I was 34. They were both really important loving forces in my life. I lived with them (and my parents and Auntie) for the first 5 years of my life. Pa used to say to my boyfriends, “She’s a wonderful girl, bit spoilt though!”. He should know, they were the one who couldn’t let me cry as a baby so my parents tell me and endless other kindnesses in the years to follow.

When my daughter was two months old, my husband and I moved in with Nana and Pa for some months whilst we looked for a house. Nana had just had a hip replacement operation, so I cooked for Pa and helped out whilst she was on the mend. It was a beautiful time of my adulthood and I cried when we moved. Everyone was astonished thinking I’d be delighted to be buying my first home, but I didn’t want to leave their warm and loving home.

My children were old enough to know both of them and loved them as I did. I think we were incredibly lucky.

They were really there for me for such a long time. I remember as a child asking my Nana to promise me she would never die. She never would make that promise. She reassured me telling me I would be fine when it happened, I would be ready. I wasn’t, but I can’t complain how long they stayed nor the quality of their presence in my life.