Snapshot: Grandpa, the quiet backbone of the family
This photo shows Grandpa, my sister Lottie, Nanny and me in Devon. Lottie is, as usual, unfazed by the fact that a photograph is being taken and is instead fascinated by a spiky flower that she is poking Grandpa with. I’m on the end. Half smiling for the photo while pretending to be a model posing for my latest shoot. In reality, I think I was just fed up with my sister’s inability to sit still for a picture, no matter where she was or what she was doing. Some may call it a talent.
Behind us is Challaborough Bay and, out of shot, sits Burgh Island – where Agatha Christie set some of her novels and where we would find hidden treasure coins in a derelict hut. In the background is the small caravan site where we spent many idyllic childhood summers with our grandparents – a home away from home.
Grandpa is a keen horticulturalist, a man with an all-round suntan who rarely leaves his beautiful back garden. He tells us stories we have heard countless times before, although we can never quite remember the punchline or understand the joke. He still claims that the major scar on his chest from a heart operation happened when he got the skin caught in a zip. His loud, reassuring Black Country laugh, which hasn’t changed in the 17 years I’ve known him, always cheers us up. I still don’t get Grandpa’s Christmas joke about the man with the three-legged turkeys. (Don’t ask.)
Grandpa was 75 two weeks ago. He is the quiet backbone of the family, loved by his wife, children and grandchildren. His cheery spirit and enthusiastic attitude to everything complement his wisdom and life experience. Grandpa has taught me, and continues to teach me, that if you do what makes you happy, you will go far in life. His success and happiness proves this perfectly.
The only rule Nanny and Grandpa imposed on our caravan holidays was “no sweets before breakfast”, and it is one I still follow religiously.
Grandparents are a gift, and we are very lucky.
Georgina Marple
Playlist: The day I met ‘Uncle’ James Taylor
Sweet Baby James by James Taylor
“Goodnight you moonlight ladies / Rock-a-bye sweet baby James / Deep greens and blues are the colours I choose”
When I was a kid, long car trips were accompanied by the sound of James Taylor on the tape player. His distinct voice – sweet but sharp – echoed through our house; I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know the words to songs such as Sweet Baby James.
The songs formed the soundtrack to my childhood, moments of joy but also utter shame – such as the time when I left the album JT on the dining room table in direct sunlight. A bit too young to understand vinyl, I didn’t realise that this spelled doom for a record. It essentially melted, and, head hanging, I had to confess to my mom.
Fortunately, we had plenty of other James Taylor albums – not to mention those of his brother Livingston and his former wife, Carly Simon – to keep us going. Livingston had a song about the Taylor family, and James’s Sweet Baby James was about his nephew who shared his name. There was a sense of family surrounding James Taylor. It was reinforced by the longstanding presence of his voice and the sound of his guitar at home. It felt like he was a not-so-distant relative.
That’s what I intended to say when, at age 19, I met him. He made a surprise appearance on my college campus, and I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Afterwards, I stood by the stage, hoping to shake his hand – I was willing to risk being annoying; after all, this could be my one chance to talk to him. When he came out and briefly chatted with us, I blurted out, “You sound like my uncle!”, as if I loved his music because it reminded me of some middle-aged man who played guitar at family gatherings.
He looked amused. “Well, give my regards to your uncle.”
That was, of course, not what I meant. I don’t even technically have an uncle. I was just trying to explain how much his music meant to me. It was weeks before I could listen to him again without cringing – I’d embarrassed myself in front of one of my heroes.
In fact, I’m cringing now, recalling it. But I console myself with the knowledge that he must have met some even more awkward fans in his nearly 50-year career. In the meantime, I’ve decided never to try to talk to Carole King. She’s nothing like my aunt.
Matthew Cantor
We love to eat: Wales Coast Path cake
Ingredients (makes two cakes)
225g butter or margarine
280g granulated sugar
250ml water
450g mixed dried fruit (raisins, sultanas, currants)
110g glace cherries, quartered
2 eggs
450g self-raising flour
Set the oven to 150C/gas mark 2. Put the butter, sugar, water, dried fruit and cherries into a large saucepan. Over a low heat, melt the sugar and butter. Cool slightly. Add the beaten eggs and flour, and mix well.
Put into two large, lined loaf tins. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, then check with a skewer to see if they are ready. If not, leave for a further 15 minutes.
Since June 2012, my husband, Steve, and I have been walking the Wales Coast Path with a couple of friends. We started in Chester, and after 83 days, over a large number of trips, have just achieved the 800-mile mark, and have about 75 miles to go to reach Chepstow. We started with day trips, which became two- and three-day trips and then week-long trips as we got further from home. It began as a bit of a joke after we read about the opening of the path, and we had no thought of walking the whole way around Wales, but we became hooked.
Our 800 miles of walking have been fuelled by this excellent boiled fruit cake. It has sustained us through an amazing variety of Anglesey landscapes, the endless ups and downs of the beautiful Llŷn peninsula and Pembrokeshire sections, long sandy beaches and boring road stretches, the frustrating estuaries where we walked for two days up and down and ended up in clear sight of where we started across the estuary, the urban landscapes of south Wales with their fascinating industrial heritage and the unexpected beauty of areas we would never have otherwise visited. The fruit loaf is perfect with our coffee as we hit the mid-morning energy slump.
We hope to finish the path next spring and intend to celebrate on a beach with champagne and, no doubt, a slice of Wales Coast Path cake.
Carolyn Weber
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