Grampy Williams

I only ever got to know one of my Grandparents, 'Grampy Williams' my fathers father, he lived on his 'small holding' with Aunty Peggy and Uncle Frank. I don't know how he got the small farm, must of been an inheritance, because Grampy Williams couldn't have worked for it, with his two 'clubbed feet'. He was well known and well liked in Oldbury on Severn, he used to be the local postman, when I arrived on the scene he had already been retired for some time.
Grampy Williams occupied one bedroom and the main living room downstairs, Peggy,Frank and the occasional guest -me for instance- shared the rest.
In the summer if it wasn't raining Grampy would sit outside watching us work in his garden always with his dog by his side, he never spoke a lot, just watched us working.
Grampy, never clean shaven, always wearing his flat cap and waistcoat, he smoked a pipe and would now and then inhale snuff, his snuff box always in the pocket of his waistcoat, stained from the brown powder.
In the winter Grampy stayed mostly in his living room ,seat pulled up near the log fire, it's there that he taught me to play crib and dominos I was his partner playing most Sunday afternoons, Aunty Peggy would sometimes join us (with cake and tea- of course),Frank never would, Sundays were his hangover days. 
Grampy Williams had a soft spot for me, he never said it but I knew, he was the only member of my family to show any interest when I passed my 11 plus exam- a feat that gave me entrance to grammar school. I remember him saying "Well, at least one of you buggers has brains" which coming from him was more or less a 'congratulations', he winked and gave me Ten Shillings -a lot of money then.
Grampy ate porridge every morning without fail, he liked it boiled on the stove with water, then drowned in evaporated milk and a layer of sugar over the top. Aunty Peggy taught me how to make it, and to her surprise Grampy let me make it for him. 
I used to long for bad weather on Sundays so I could sit inside with him, he would silently listen to world news on his radio, now and again he would spit in the fire, his way of voicing an opinion I guess. We would sometimes listen to the radio ,'Billy Cottons Bandshow', 'Around the Horn' and my favourite 'The Goon Show' it was hilarious although it never made Grampy laugh, but it stopped him spitting in the fire for a while. 
His dog -I forget its name -was ever present beside his chair, it was a sheep dog that had been impossible to train as a sheep dog according to the farmer he bought it from and it should have been shot, but Grampy bought him and saved its life. Grampy also taught the dog to go to the pub off licence in the village and get his tobacco, the dog wore a pouch around its neck with Grampys money and a note for theLandlord, it would scratch at the off licence door until the landlord opened it . 
Grampy loved to bet on the horses, but never on the greyhounds, as he said "never bet on the dogs, they can't be trusted". 
One Friday evening I arrived for the weekend, and Grampy didn't want to see me, Aunty Peggy told me that the dog had been killed, "some stupid bugger in a car run it over and left it to die". The next day it was me walking into the village for the tobacco.
The weeks that followed saw Grampy change, even more silent than before, and he looked ill. Sometimes he would drink a glass or two of port, never the cider that was brewed on his property. Two glasses of port would get him melancholic, he would sing very quietly "if you ever go across the sea to Ireland" a song I can't hear now without thinking of him. 
A year or so after the dogs passing, Grampy devolped a form of cancer, he had an open wound around the temple area of his face, it got bigger by the day, it was as if he was slowly being eaten away. A nurse would come daily to dress the wound, I watched when I was there, it looked painful, but he never flinched, just stared out in front of him. Spitting in the fire when she finished. 
Sometimes he would be staring into the fire and I heard him say as if to himself "bloody stupid animal". 
When I asked him about the wound on his face, he would wink and say "it's a painful bugger that one is" that's as close as he got to complaining. 
I remember coming home from school one day when I was about 14, Terry my sister Maureens husband, was at our house which was unusual on a week day. Dad was very quiet and mum was trying to act sober. Terry told me that Grampy had died, I cried for two solid days. From then on the trips to help Aunty Peggy and Uncle Frank stopped too, my escape route from our house to the sanity of the countryside was lost, I wanted so badly to be there at the weekend to get away from the overcrowded house, the drunken arguments my mum would have with my dad, and the endless streets of our council estate. 
For a few brief years when I was a "whipper snapper" (grampys words) Grampy Williams taught me that silence sometimes says more than a thousand words, through him I learnt to enjoy quiet times. I never once heard him complain about his lot- his handicap ,the loss of his wife or the cancer and his approaching end. 
I think Grampy Williams was the closest I have ever been to anybody in my family , and the nearest I have ever been to a 'real man'.
Here's to you Grampy! you old bugger, and just to finish your song,  once I actually 'went across the sea to Ireland' and I 'watched the sun go down in Galway Bay', you were with me in my thoughts.