She was different things to different people, something I only realised later in life. A loyal and dedicated lifelong friend to some, a caring and devoted sister to others. A devout disliker of blue flatcaps apparently... To me she was someone with whom I always knew where I stood, in my youth she wouldn't let me get away with things ( quite rightly, she wasn't too keen on boys), whilst my mum and dad were away. But that's not to say she was a strict disciplinarian, far from it. She just made it clear that she knew what I was up to just enough to let my guilt stop me from doing it. As an adult I was her cheeky grandson and she was Gert, but the same relationship applied, she'd let me know just enough... I don't think we ever fell out, we were much to fond of each other for that.
As a family we moved a great deal from town to town, country to country, sometimes we all lived somewhere, other times it was just my mum and I in a flat in some distant corner of the world. I always used to say to my friends that I often failed to recognise the outside of whichever house we had because of the regularity of our moves, but I knew it was home by the furniture in the front room.
The truth is, of course that nana was one of those great consistencies in my life. If she was stood in the kitchen smoking her Rothman's, eating an orange doing the crossword and keeping her eye on me and making sure I wasn't up to mischief, then I was home. If that was Bush Hill Park during the school holidays, harrogate, the lake district, london or france it made no difference. There were many things that made our home, she was an important one.
Considering she was an Edwardian child, her sense of conformity was somewhat post-modern too. She had her attitudes and particular prejudices from that generation obviously, but she could always pull out from under her rocking chair a surprise. Whether it be happily watching a couple getting 'jiggy with it' on a beach (should the occasion present itself), or managing to quit smoking at 86 yrs old, after 60 odd years...
Nana, whose husband died in 1965, said only a year or so ago when she asked if I was "stepping out" with anyone and I had replied "no";
"ooh you do right" she said, "last thing anyone needs is someone always looking over your shoulder and checking up on them all the time. If you're on your own, you don't have to ask anyone's permission to do what you want, you can just go and enjoy yourself".
It makes me smile still. Of all the family I have, I always thought she would be the 'old school' one who'd be disappointed that I hadn't settled down and married etc etc. But here she was at 97 years old giving me her blessing and a good reason to carry on as I am. All with a knowing sparkle in her eye.
There are conversations she and I never had, I think now we didn't need to.
It'd be great to write how she changed the world, saved the poor and hungry of the third world or single handedly stopped the First and Second World Wars. But she didn't. She was more important than that. She was my Gert, my nana, in later years even a friend. It wasn't a surprise when she died but it was a shock. Somewhere in my head I had assumed she was immortal, because she has always been there.
I will miss her burps and her being in my life terribly.
Sweet dreams Nana. Goodbye.
xx
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