Granny Saved My Life

In the streets of London, I gaze fondly at old houses with a basement, reminding me of  my Granny’s Victorian house, which provided sanctuary to me for five years.

Granny was a stately, well-dressed figure, never outside without a hat in her seventies and eighties. She was eccentric, eating bowls of  porridge travelling to the train station, leaving the taxi driver to return her crockery. Careful with money, she saved food and when my sisters complained “That’s gone bad,” she’d reply, “Only bought yesterday.”

When we were little, Granny would amuse us by pretending to be a tiger, brushing her hair down and growling fiercely. She would plonk away on the piano, singing (How Much Is That) Doggie In The Window, and more. She would take her grandchildren swimming in the sea. Before, Granny would change into her bathing dress, a linen coat and hat, some vintage buttoned canvas shoes, and walk to the seashore. Sitting on seaweed absorbing iodine was healthy, she claimed.

Granny was my mother’s mother. Her father, a doctor, died when she was young, but, trained as a teacher, she made her own way in life, through six British monarchs and two world wars, with her husband and two sons dying in her lifetime.

I was two and a half when she first saved my life. Naturally, I don’t remember but apparently we were moving house. My mother was preparing the new place, builders were working,  so Granny was drafted in to look after us three children. My older sisters were at school. My eldest sister recounted, “It is mid-morning. I am in a lesson when there is a disturbance. The classroom door is flung open, revealing Granny. Pointing at me, she says, “That’s her,” and I am swiftly removed from the room and swept off with my younger sister. Apparently, I was the reason. 

Decorators were painting the sash windows in the old house, leaving them open to dry. I went upstairs two floors, when Granny came looking for me. Climbing up on the open window sill, I pointed, “Look Granny, ladybird.” She pulled me back, stopping me falling. Reaching the end of her tether, she took us to her own house where she would have control. Granny later told how she snatched me from the jaws of death!

As my father  moved around a great deal for work, we lived with Granny several times. For some weeks, she taught me, aged six, and my second sister, aged nine. Seventy years later, I still recall exciting trips to museums and listening to schools’ radio about the ancient Greeks. However, Granny had a daily snooze. Once my sister and I went on our own to the park next door and were discovered by a truancy officer. Granny had to explain why we were not in school.

The second occasion she saved my life was less dramatic, but more significant, happening when I was older so I do remember.  Her house was very familiar — I felt more at home there than at most of our residences (In my ten years at boarding schools, we lived in eight houses.)

It was just a short walk from here to the boarding school, where I was sent from eight to thirteen. Being away from my family was an enormous shock — my grandson of ten has still never left home for one night, except with his parents. My sisters were also sent away at the age of eleven to boarding school in the same city.

This boarding school was relatively enlightened for 1950s England, but of course low level bullying, freezing temperatures and awful food prevailed.  I was only caned once, while some older day-boys even asked to become boarders as they felt it was more interesting. For a small, shy boy,  this experience could have been appalling. I saw other boys in tears, but Granny’s house provided  a sanctuary for me, saving me from depression at a vulnerable age.

My parents would stay at her house occasionally but I also met Granny and my sisters here regularly other times, where I munched toasty crumpets in her little kitchen on chilly, winter days. On Sundays, my sisters’ housemistress would announce, “All girls must be back by 4 o’clock except for Mrs Hunt’s grandchildren.” And she never locked her front door so I went regularly into her house whenever I wanted.

As a keen reader I relaxed with her books. Discovering Sherlock Holmes stories in the original Strand magazines began a lifelong passion for thrillers. I also perused tales of my uncles’ adventures — rescuing a man from a stormy sea, merrily playing international sport.

Her house was crammed  —  landscape paintings, clocks of all sorts, marble heads and photos of uncles and the yachts they sailed. Her basement  was jammed with exotic treasures — an aunt’s glass eye, false legs (probably leather riding boots with wooden boot-trees inside), my uncle’s international rugby jerseys, a treadle sewing machine, clothing, and bolts of cloth. Presumably this is why my sisters and I became hoarders. 

In 1959, aged thirteen, I left this school and was sent hundreds of miles away to a brutal Scottish boarding establishment, where I never saw my sisters and my father only once a term. There was almost no privacy. Bullying was intense, particularly harsh for new boys, subjected to vicious initiation rituals. Utterly miserable, I could not tell my parents. My father, who had lost his own father when he was ten, always kept a stiff upper lip so I had to do likewise.

Then in my first term, I was told via a letter from my father that Granny had died. Overwhelmed, I sobbed heavily in the toilets, the only private place, blaming the school for her death. Now in my eightieth year, having regularly looked after my grandchildren, I realise how demanding child care is and how loving she was, never becoming angry. For this little bookworm, Granny and her house had been lifesavers.