Dear Fatty Read online

  My Grandma French is a minx, always quick with a gag and a wink and, to be honest, quite saucy. She always kept a bodice-ripping ‘Mandingo’-type book next to the loo – they were pure eye-poppin’, gasping delights for me. On one of our moorland outings, I was directed to the impossibly tiny house her whole family lived in while her father was in service as a chauffeur to a posh family near Two Bridges. The big house where the posh family lived is next to the tiny house and is now a hotel. I suggested we went in for a cream tea and she said she couldn’t possibly go in, that she wasn’t ‘allowed’, which of course was a throwback to her childhood. Eventually I persuaded her and we sat and had a slap-up tea and a good gossip in a room she had previously been forbidden to enter, a trespass that somehow made our scones even more delicious!

  As we were driving away, up the long driveway, she pointed at a big, bushy tree on the right-hand side and said, ‘See that tree? That’s where me and your grandad first …’ and she winked. First what?! First let him kiss her after waiting so long? First let him go ‘upstairsies outsidies’? First held hands? Surely not first …?! Surely my granny wasn’t telling me about her first bonk?! Was she? I asked her, carefully, and she just tapped her nose. So I guess I’ll never know, but she obviously remembers it very clearly. Lucky her!

  My grandad Les was a real catch, albeit a bit of a rogue. I remember he had an amazing thick shock of hair and huge hands. He was very manly and always busy. He had been a milkman, but later, when I was very young, he was a newsagent with his own little shop on a housing estate called Ernesettle in Plymouth. He got up early every day to do the papers and to run a mobile newsagent from the back of his van at the Bush factory nearby, providing all the workers at the start of their day with supplies of fags and sweets and papers. He managed his team of paper boys like an army squadron. I clearly remember the bottom room of the shop where the papers were sorted into the bags and numbered with stubby pencils so’s the boys knew where to deliver them. It was a loud, vulgar, cheerful atmosphere. The place and the boys smelt of ink. There was shouting and rude jokes and cussing and BOYS. Lots of BOYS! Half an hour of raucous sorting and then the bags were hoisted over adolescent shoulders and the squadron was off yelling their goodbyes to ‘Father’, as they called my grandad, and then silence, and all that remained was the lovely smell of recent BOYS!

  There was always a shop dog, an Alsatian, for protection. Carlo was the first one that I remember. A huge handsome dog (but then, I was smaller, so he was probably just Alsatian-sized), who was so patient and tolerant day after day. Sitting on the front step of the shop while endless children came up and hugged him and poked his eyes and tickled his ears and kissed his nose and fed him sweets. He put up with all this fussing without a single grumble – I know because I was the perpetrator of many of those protracted hugs and kisses, (obviously he preferred my embraces to all the other kids’ …). Then one day I witnessed a shocking change in the behaviour of this dog that made me respect him and his like for ever after. Grandad had locked the shop at the end of the day and he was doing some finishing up in the bottom room, the sorting room. I was with him, and someone, mistakenly believing no one was at the shop, tried to break in at the door where we were. The dog switched into a total killing and maiming machine and barked and snarled and slavered at the inside of the door. It was a terrifying sight, and I couldn’t quite believe it was the same dog. This was a supreme working dog with utter control over the right response at the right time. There were no break-ins at the shop when that dog was presiding. There were also no incidents of biting or grumpiness around the kids either. He was a bit of a hero for me. Carlo the Great.

  Grandma and Grandad lived at the top of the hill near the shop, in St Budeaux, in a cosy little bungalow they bought when the whole road was first being built. They put down the deposit after they saw the foundations and Grandma still lives in that same house today. Forty-odd years ago, the land between their house and down the side of the hill towards Ernesettle was all woodland with a huge creek at the bottom and Grandad would walk Carlo in this woodland every day. He even had a sort of allotment in there where he kept geese (his passion) and lots of chickens. I loved going on these steep walks with him and the dog, our breath visible in front of us and our feet crunching through fallen twigs and leaves. He told me frightening, cautionary stories about children who had died playing in that muddy old creek where the quick tides were very dangerous. It worked. I always stayed away.

  I have many lovely memories of my grandad, a very powerful one being his eccentric obsession with bargains. If he found out that something, anything, was going for a song, he’d find a reason to get there and snaffle up the bargain, whether it was something he needed or not. Hence, for years, he had two pairs of enormous department-store front doors leaned up against his shed. He had no use for them as far as I knew, he’d just got them for a good price. Likewise, he used to go to jumble sales and pick up stacks of ties. So many in fact that eventually they had to move the thousands of ties into a caravan parked in their drive. Pretty soon it was impossible to get into the caravan at all, so really the caravan simply provided a gigantic metal covering to keep the millions of ties dry and warm. I suppose if anyone had thought to hitch the caravan to a car, the ties could have actually gone on holiday to the seaside.

  Another love of Les’s was his aviary. He had various versions that I can remember, but the main one was in a shed in the garden. He chiefly bred budgies but he also had parakeets and lovebirds and canaries and all sorts of other feathered wonders. We grandchildren often witnessed the amazing moment the eggs cracked and the stubbly little pink alien fledglings flapped and waddled into Grandad’s nest-box world. Each one was a proper little miracle to him and therefore to us also. I never tired of seeing his huge hands delicately holding those tiny, colourful birds. They were calm in his gigantic palms and he handled them like jewels. He was not always so sensitive with us mini-humans. He was quick to chide or discipline us if we put a foot wrong, but he was also fair and ultimately wanted to have a laugh, so all was forgiven. We all loved him.

  So, anyway, sorry, I keep trying to tell you about Marjorie but my mind buzzes around all these other potent and irresistible recollections. Where was I? Oh yes, I was telling you about how inspirational she is to me. It is an intense pleasure for me to know how deeply she is loved by so many. If at the latter end of my life I can claim a fraction of the profound and sincere affection that is felt for her, I will be happy. That is just what she is. Happy. So long as her beloveds are well, she asks for nothing more. She has always been generous with what matters most: her time and her care. Due to the impracticality of the geographical distance, she and I have always written to each other about once a month. In this way, she includes me in the vital family loop, making sure I know exactly what’s happening with my cousins and my aunties and uncles. She tells me all about the new babies and the hilarious toddlers and the spats and the celebrations, the births and the deaths and the fabric of the lives of our little tribe. She makes sure I am not a ‘celebrity’, that I am a granddaughter, as equally cherished as the others. No more. She earths me so that any sudden lightning that strikes, be it some glitzy prize or scary trauma, can be grounded through me without toppling me. She is proud of me, but she is proud of all of us equally. She is one of the few people who doesn’t give me a metaphorical top billing – because in our family there is no billing. I am safe in the certain knowledge that with her I can just be me and that is enough, she will always love me, flaws and all. She is my ultimate proof that love is always the answer. She is loved because she loves. What more is there?

  It is my heaven to be around her. I recall sneaking into her room, and snuggling up in bed with her along with various cousins, on cold mornings after Grandad had gone to work. Condensation on the windows, and stories, sometimes read and sometimes made up. I remember fitting into her shoes when I was about six or so because her feet are so very tiny – I think she takes a size 2. Some of t
he shoes had heels, which felt very grown-up, but there were other, special shoes that were magical because they were her ballroom-dancing shoes. High, dazzling, flawless golden Faerie Queene shoes … which fitted perfectly! Imagine the joy! She was a wonderfully gifted dancer and in her rather unlikely (height-wise) but strangely hypnotic and graceful partnership with Grandad, the two of them not only taught but won lots of trophies. Somehow, when we granddaughters tried these shoes on, we borrowed a tiny bit of her innate glamour and elegance. It was a rite of passage to pass through this halcyon, and cruelly short, phase of time when Grandma’s shoes fitted.

  There was one other phenomenal world that Grandma let us into. The parallel universe of wondrous joys that was … the loft. A small metal ladder would be winched down and, if we were lucky, she would invite us up the ladder and through the small attic opening in the ceiling of the hall. This was a portal to her personal domain which was in an entirely other galaxy. It was not a loft, it was a twinkling constellation where all the tiny little stars could shine, and each star was a doll.

  A doll, sometimes still resplendent in his or her own little box. Dolls from every country in the world, proudly displaying their national costume in miniature glory. They were sent or given by family, friends, ex-paper boys, mothers of paper boys, anyone really who had travelled anywhere. Some dolls wore hand-knitted or hand-sewn outfits to celebrate every kind of weather, occasion, fashion trend, sport, film, etc. Some dolls were big and blousy, some were tiny and delicate. Some had roll-around eyes. Some had perfect little bags, gloves and shoes, some had painted fingernails, others had eyelashes. It could so easily have been sinister, I see that as an adult, but it really wasn’t, it was a staggering, magical collection that enchanted every kid who saw it. Like going into Santa’s grotto at Christmas, it sparkled and gleamed and delighted us. I went up those little steps into the loft recently to find a small empty space with no trace of the former magic. I thought I might have dreamt it. I asked her if I had remembered it correctly and, again, she just winked and hugged me …

  So that’s Marjorie, my lovely dinky fairy grandmother who smells like cake and only comes up to my shoulder, who has sent me a tenner in every birthday card for 50 years and never once forgotten. A dainty little lady with a towering powerhouse of strength inside her who has guided us Berrys and Frenchies through two warfuls of hell and all kinds of sun and storms for ten decades. She is my yin and I call her Good Granny.

  Then, of course, there is Evil Granny. The yang. Grandma O’Brien. Lillian. Fag Ash Lil. Did you meet her? I can’t remember. She wasn’t evil really – just very, very bad. She died a few years ago at the respectable age of 93, I think. Another stayer. Actually, some of the most fun I had in my teenage years was with her, but I was nearly always aware that whatever we were doing was probably illegal and certainly unhealthy. All around Lillian were lies. Lots of lies. She would encourage me to lie so as not to get into trouble if we were up to something illicit, she told me lies about her childhood and her marriages, she told her own kids lies about many things and she lied to get her own way. On top of that, we all lied around her – elaborate lies about how we were going to be abroad at Christmas so that we didn’t have to witness more drink-fuelled rantings and bad moods. Lies about how much pocket money I had in my purse so that she didn’t scrounge it all. Mostly little, practical lies, but lies nevertheless.

  Lil was a tricky woman with a colourful history, a sharp tongue and a short fuse. Her family were from Cornwall, her mother was Sarah Babbage from Menheniot, who became a Collicott when she married. Grandma’s favourite aunt, who eventually lived with her, was Aunt Fan Rainey née Babbage, who lived just outside Saltash at Stoketon Cross until she was too blind to cope. Lil herself had a first marriage nobody seems to know much about, to a boxer, and she lived in Polperro where my mum’s eldest sister, Wendy, was brought up until Lil married my mum’s dad, John McArthy Alfonso O’Brien, and came to live in Plymouth, which is in Devon, which is A LONG WAY from Cornwall. In the same way Yorkshire is a long way from Lancashire. A long way. McArthy was in the Royal Navy, then left and ran various pubs with Lil, who couldn’t have been better placed to indulge in her favourite hobby of tasting lots and lots of alcohol … It was when the two of them were running a pub called the Antelope in the Octagon on Union Street in Plymouth, that my mum gave birth to my brother in the upstairs room. A real Plymouth ‘bey’! (boy)

  From what I can gather, Lil didn’t seem to have a single maternal bone in her body. This did not prevent her from having more children: my mum Roma, Terry, Owen and Michael. She seems to have regarded her kids as either troublesome pests or domestics, except her first-born, Wendy, who was prized, protected and praised. When my mum talks about her childhood, she describes herself as ‘the scrubber’ of the family, meaning, I hope, the cleaner. Their upbringing was pretty tempestuous with Lil dishing out physical and verbal abuse in equal measure. They learned to dodge her and it seems none of them could wait to leave home. But those stories are for them to tell, I can only recount my experience of Lil. By the time the grandchildren came along Lil had mellowed a bit. She could hold forth when in her cups and she could often be a complete selfish pain in the arse, but I loved how uncontrolled and tough she was. She was sly, and never short of a con or two, always on the lookout for a way to make a few bob, at whatever cost. At some point she had worked on a stall in the Pannier Market, a beautiful, light, airy covered market in Plymouth. She knew all the stallholders back then, both reputable and otherwise. There used to be a big trade in second-hand jewellery and she knew how and where to get a good deal. On one occasion, I had need of her skills in this murky area.

  I was about 15 and a friend of mine from school, Patsy Ritchie, had invited me to come home with her to Gibraltar for the holidays. Her dad was very high up in the medical arm of the navy, a surgeon captain, and was stationed there. Patsy had been telling all of us about the quantity and quality of dreamy boys in Gibraltar, when all the navy kids returned home for the holidays, and she wanted me to come and share in the rich pickings. I desperately wanted to go, but didn’t have the funds and my parents didn’t have enough cash to spare. So my dad struck a deal with me: if I did a paper round for him for a month, he would pay my wages and then double it to make up the required amount. I can’t remember exactly how much it was, but I do remember that however hard I worked on the paper round, I fell short by £40 even with Dad’s help. Time was running out to buy a ticket, and mindful of the certainty that all the best Gibraltar boys would be cherry-picked if I didn’t hurry up, I felt hopeless. Mum noticed how sad I was and came up with a brilliant, generous solution. She went and furtled about in the attic for a while and returned with a flat velvet box. She explained that inside was a set of jewellery which she had never liked – they were pearls and she had always superstitiously believed that they bring bad luck. However, she felt guilty about owning such beautiful jewellery and disliking it so much, so she was glad to give it to me as a sort of task. My mission, should I choose to accept it, was to take the jewellery to the market and get the best possible price for it. She said I would certainly be able to get £40 but that I should barter, vigorously. OK. Off I went to the market, feeling a bit nervous about the whole dealing issue but determined to make the cash.

  As I entered the vast hall, who should pop up from nowhere like an elderly Rumpelstiltskin, but Lil. She was curious as to why I was there, we went for coffee and I explained my predicament. She asked me how much I needed. ‘Forty quid,’ I told her, ‘or more.’ She took the box with the pearls from me and told me to leave it up to her, that this was, after all, her world, that she knew all the tricks and would undoubtedly do a better deal than I ever could with my middle-class wimpy sales technique. She was, of course, absolutely right, so I sat tight nursing another revolting Nescafé until she returned, smirking, ten minutes later. ‘Who’s your favourite gran?’ she said as she sat down and triumphantly counted out the tenners on the table. One, two, three, fo
ur – great, that’s my target. Then, oh God, here comes more – five, six. £60! I couldn’t believe it. What a result! Big victory hugs all round, more coffees and some celebratory dough cakes too, which I happily paid for, oh and some bread and cakes for her to take home for later. Of course, my pleasure.

  Feeling delighted and a bit smug, I went straight to Mum to show her my winnings. She asked how I’d done and when I told her about the £60 she didn’t look as pleased as I’d hoped. She asked which stall I’d decided to sell to and I explained about meeting Lil and letting her do the dirty deed. She grabbed my hand muttering things like ‘I’ll kill her’ and ‘canny old cow’ and other, ruder, grumblings under her breath. Within minutes, we were at my gran’s flat in Rendle Street and Mum marched me in, demanding that Lil give me the rest of the dosh. ‘Rest of it?! Eh?!’ Lil looked a bit sheepish and eventually relented and reached into her handbag. Then laid three more tenners on the table. I was aghast. Mum said, ‘And the rest …!’ Eventually there was £100 on the table. I was speechless. She had done a deal for £160, but she had decided to pocket £100 of it as a sort of commission. As far as she was concerned, I had what I needed and a bit extra, and she had something out of it too. She didn’t see it as my mum did – nicking money from your own grandchild! – not at all. My mum had known all along the pearls were worth a lot; she wanted me to have the experience of finding that out and doing a good deal for myself; she hadn’t anticipated Evil Granny interfering. I always kept my eye on Lil after that day. She was quick. Very quick. And slippery.

  Lil loved to have a good time. A drink, a song, some darts and a fight would be the perfect evening for her. Any chance to put on a rabbit-skin fur coat, lots of lairy bling, a big gash of red lipstick and some click-clacky shoes was all right with her. She was a Beryl Cook painting come to life. She took me to arcades and pubs and bookies. I got drunk, I caught nits, I occasionally walked home on my own when she was too pissed to remember I was with her. It was never dull.