My Granpop

Up to the age of six, I lived next door to my Granpop.
He was father to seven children, one of whom was my beloved Mum.
He named her Susan but she also used the name Maxine when she became a model.

He went by the name of Arthur Clarke and was, quite simply, amongst other things, fantastically bonkers.

Whilst my mum was growing up he was a baker and had his own shop.
He told me a thousand times the story of how my mum sold the sawdust-filled pretend pies from the shop window. I enjoyed the story every single time.

(I'm never sure whether it was actually true, that one man came banging on their door on Christmas day with a fake pork pie in his hand which my then teenage mother had sold him.)

I always felt he was especially fond of my mum and I think she was his favourite - he was very proud that she won a scholarship to private school. He used to call her "Lady Pheobe"... and would naturally expand this title with the byline - "Lady Pheobe, dips her comb in her teapot."
As you do...

He told me that my sister Gemma was actually born without a nose and that he had to make her one out of dough... which obviously then entitled him to sing to her, at every opportunity "There's no business like dough business..."

Granpop specialised in making me laugh.
Over the years he got so confident in my finding him funny that he coined a phrase that I have stolen and use myself - "funny lamp".
(yes I know, innovative and witty...)
He would catch my eye, point to the light fitting and mouth the words. And I would always laugh. Why I laughed I'm never quite sure but it eventually got to the point where he could just nod in the direction of the lamp...
Sometimes I laughed just to humour him and then that would make me laugh for real. I loved his disregard as to who had just died/divorced/stopped speaking/any other family drama - a funny lamp is a funny lamp afterall.

Even when it had been far too long between my visits to his house - I would knock on his door - he would open the door and say, "Dustbin men round the back" and close it again.
(He would let me in eventually...if only to point at his funny lamp.)

Apparently when I was about 3 he pinched a single currant from my toasted tea-cake and I threw an earth-shattering tantrum which he never forgot.
I'm sure this can't possibly have been true...

On Wednesday June 3rd 2009, my Granpop left this planet.
He was 94.

I know he missed my mum/his daughter terribly so I like to think they are together now.

I also like to think when my time comes he'll be waiting at those pearly gates to deliver his line: "dustbin men round the back".
And I will laugh.

Farewell Granpop, I'll keep my eye on that funny lamp.