I loved my grandad, he was a man of very defined character.
These are some of the things I remember about him:
He took me and Natalie to his club when they did variety night at Christmas a couple of years, I remember the first time with the band asking “who likes the Pet Shop Boys?” and everybody else going wild, but me not knowing who they were. Club night would always yield the first selection box of the year too, pre-christmas.
I remember grandad taking me to Toys’R’us and buying me a present - a toy wild west revolver that cost £10 - a huge, incalculable amount of money to me as a kid. I don’t think I’d ever seen a £10 note before!
Then there was his big red sierra, and grandad coming home from emptying the machines all day. My brother and me thought that was such a glamorous job - all those coins! The shiny 50ps and the 10ps and the 2ps wrapped in tinfoil to make the machine think they were 50ps.
I remember him picking us up from our family holiday one year at East Midlands, in fact I believe it was on that journey from the airport he told us the famous woodworm story. What a story that was.
Of course I can’t even begin to recall the number of times grandad made me watch snooker throughout my life. Many, many times spent absolutely bored out of my mind in front of the TV. Luckily, I escaped most of the crown green years. Although one of the last times I ever really bonded just me and grandad was when he drove me to Nottingham and bought me my bowling ball. Perfect that was, and he was very happy to gift it to me.
One of my most vivid memories though, is the first time I ever watched an 18 movie.
Me and Dean were at grandma’s house on a Saturday night, staying over for some reason, but the only person in was David. He left us in the living room with a video from the video shop on, which he’d rented and watched the night before. It was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Commando, an absolute classic of the 80s action genre and still one of my favourites to this day. It was also really late, but never having watched an action movie with lots of explosions and car chases, we were hooked. About halfway through, as Arnold raids the weapons shop, grandad came in! he must have been at the club. And he wanted to watch it too, so he rewinded the entire thing so he could see it from the beginning! Mind you there was no complaining from me or Dean, we were mesmerised all over again!
I will never forget the day we got those navy gun shells that had been rusting in the garage, still important fixtures in our house today. Or the day I went around and grandad had put the slug killer on the lawn and there were hundreds of dead slugs absolutely everywhere - all brown and orange. It was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen in my life.
I’ll miss my grandad’s big gruff laugh and his big chin and the famous Tillett pot belly, but when I think about it there are two very defining things about grandad - one of them a vision, the other a myth/legend.
Firstly, when I think of grandad, the image that pops into my head is him in his natural habitat: On his big chair, with a bottle of whisky by the side and the sports blaring on TV. Grandad was never unhappy when he was like that. The second thing is The Club. Since before I was born grandad was a member of this secretive club where he’d play snooker, drink, probably do some dodgy deals and hang out with his pals, all of whom seemed to be called Bert. Aside from the aforementioned time when I was around five, The Club was this great mythical thing that existed somewhere in Chaddesden, but no-one apart from my grandad had ever seemed to visit. My dad, uncles, aunties, my grandma - none of them knew or had been to (to my knowledge, anyway) The Club, but grandad invariably was there. I guess now he’s gone to another club, far away. It feels like he’ll be back any minute. in the meantime, here’s to you grandad, I’ll have a tot for you.
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