Lend a hand

I remember when my grandparents moved into the city to be closer to us. They left behind their garden with willows and acorn fairy houses down by the river. Gone too was the workshop of wonder where dolls houses and other crafted beauties emerged. And they also said goodbye to the giant Tiger that roamed their lives (for those wondering — he was a beautiful Great Dane).

Their new place was literally up the road from us. Really really close — a manageable amble for even for a sloth-like teenager like me. It had views out over Durban, but it had little magic. But Granny’s beloved kitchen was hidden in the rear — a dark uninspiring room. And in it they lived for what must have been 7 years, until Grandad got sick.

My Grandfather Gavin, was a slab of a man. Born in Yorkshire — hewn from hard work along with 5 brothers down the mandatory mines, with no achilles heel, other than the flat feet that saved him from the frontline in WWII. The feet that also carried him around the wards helping others — where he met my Grandmother, Bunty.

She came from a different world, raised by merchant wealth and the help of a nanny. She spoke many languages, and was well educated in almost everything.

Romance bloomed in amongst the shelling of London, and my mother was born into a world where sides had to be taken. Not only sides in the war, but also the sides of a poor Yorkshire family who were willing to accept such a union.

My Grandmother was transplanted into a life of sharing and less and hands-on work. There were 6 brothers to feed, and only one bath-tub in the centre of the kitchen that used once a month for it’s true purpose, rather than as the base for a huge timber dining table placed on top. Where a conveyor belt of Yorkshire puddings and onion gravy were served to properly fill the gap before the prized roast beef and veggies.

Despite being estranged from the family that had outsourced the raising of her, my Grandmother had a benefactor in her merchant father, who liked his new son-in-law and backed the growing young family to start a new life in South Africa.

This led to them, as well and my mother and her 2 younger brothers boarding the Winchester Castle in Southhampton on the 6th of April 1948 and setting sail for a new life in a country abroad.

They landed in the Western Cape in South Africa — where they grew apples — and then decided to move to the midlands of Natal to farm there. A decision that led to some tough times that interweaves with my mother’s story, as well as back to them living just up the road from us in their 70s.

As I had started to say — Gavin got sick. It was brain cancer, and after spending many hours watching rugby with him on endless Saturday afternoons, there came a time when my weekend visits were to help him have his weekly bath. You see I too am fairly well built — it must run deep in the coal-mining genes — and it came in handy to help him undress, and get into the bath to bathe.

I remember pouring water over his balding head and washing him like the young son I would have about 10 years later.

I remember how gentle and tender it felt to be with him there in those moments of vulnerability for him.

I am truly grateful for the chance to have been able to lend a hand to him, and for the gift it then gave me.

Thank you Gavin.

This story was inspired by the reality at this moment in my life.
My wife has broken her right hand — thanks to a late-night teenage tickling session on the couch gone wrong — and a coffee table that literally broke her hand’s fall.

Lend a hand popped into my head the other day, and surfaced here in this tale to you all.

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