Granny at the Grand

At the start of this century I was indulging in some small talk  [ a skill at which I remain a complete duffer ] with the late Michael Hare Duke, the retired Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane. Apropos of nothing very special and clearly sensing that my chat was getting ever smaller almost to the point of extinction, the learned prelate announced ' Do you know, my grandfather was alive at the time of Waterloo? ' Interesting but highly unlikely I thought as the battle had taken place a hundred and eighty five years earlier. It turned out, however, that his grandfather had in fact been born in 1814; had become a father late in life in 1874 [ or thereabouts ]; and the resulting son son had repeated this feat, meaning that the sprightly Michael had been born in 1925 and was now seventy five years old. He in fact survived until 2014, just one year short of the 200th anniversary of the defeat of Napoleon.

Now I can make no such claims about longevity or antique vitality but, deo volente, there should be a quarter of a millennium between the birth of my maternal grandmother and the latter stages of the lives of my lovely granddaughters who should still be going strong into the mid 2120s.

Anyway the grandmother in question, Kathleen Maria Richards was born in Wednesbury, Birmingham, in the late 1880s. Her family's business, Charles Richards Fasteners, made nuts and bolts and thank heavens for it, funding as it did the education, clothing and goodness knows what else of my siblings and myself, our parents otherwise knowing the proud merits of an impecunious existence. At some point granny met Henry Spring-Rice Pyper, destined at an early age to succeed his father as Headmaster of the Belfast Mercantile College [ now the Belfast High School ]. They were married in 1913; Spring, as he was known, succeeded to the headship in 1917 at the age of 30; they lived happy and fruitful lives in Donegall Place until Spring died far too young in 1937. Granny stayed in Belfast in the reasonably fashionable Malone Road, surviving loneliness and German bombs until she decided in 1946 to strike out for the south east of England. For here her children were settling; Arthur to run a prep school in Seaford, Sussex, and Diana, widowed in 1940 at the age of 22, when her fighter pilot husband made a tragic yet heroic exit, was now engaged to Paul Chamberlain and about to establish herself in Kent.

A lady of some style, Granny P decided to base herself in the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, while she searched for a permanent home. She went for a couple of weeks but in the event stayed for over twenty years. And for us grandchildren those really were the days, my friend; an exciting [ well it was 1954 ] trip over on the number 12 double decker bus from Seaford to Eastbourne; the slappiest of slap up lunches in the hotel dining room, followed by the delights of the ever so sedate entertainments on the pier  --  more fishing for ducks than what the butler saw  --  then back to the Grand for tea in front of a colossal fire and the delights of a six piece orchestra playing some well known melodies.

Its façade was suitably grand,
The palm court, the pier and the strand;
Gran liked it, one hears,
And stayed twenty years,
With drink in her bath, Gordon's brand.

This last allusion was a reference to Granny's predilection for a large gin or six of an evening. The official history of The Grand Hotel by Peter Pugh tells us ' Mrs Pyper was found dead drunk in her bath one night fully clothed ', evidence perhaps that the hotel was just right for her. It was very well run by a most genial manager of the old gentlemanly school, Dick Beattie and its drawbacks were few. We were sort of conscious as time passed that a substantial part of the family financial heritage was going on six clean towels a day rather than something useful coming in our direction, while more acutely, as a self conscious schoolboy, I dreaded Granny's instruction to make my way to the leader of the musical sextet to request yet another rendering of ' Teddy Bears' Picnic '. The pain involved in this, however, was as nothing compared to the agony of a smartish middle class ritual known as the Teenagers' Dance. I had neither the aptitude nor the desire to indulge in the esoteric challenge of ballroom dancing. As a result I became expert in sidling off to the gentlemen's room at crucial moments and staying there counting the minutes until another spasm of foxtrotting had passed into history.

In any event the purpose of recounting this forgotten narrative of  1950s social history is to set down the three pieces of advice given to me by my grandmother. She thought incidentally that I ought to pursue a career as an auctioneer, probably because she detected [ it was not difficult ] that I was incapable of the whole sotto voce thing. She was also prone at critical moments to remind us that ' blood is thicker than water ', an unpredictable grenade capable of seismic consequences when lobbed into a family discussion.

First, Granny was strong on questions of  allegiance, advising us ' Always live under the British flag '. This was the patriotic influence of the loyal Orange Order [ a respectable organisation sixty years ago ] rather than the far right nationalism of the residue of Mosley's followers. She need not have worried in my case; among my pet hates are hot climates, foreign travel and modern foreign languages [ the value of which for everyone else I fully appreciate ]  --  Morayshire and Oxford certainly; Montenegro and Oklahoma definitely not.

Granny was less successful when it came to her advice on relationships; no amor vincit omnia for her. It was rather ' Don't marry for money but marry where the money is '. Presumably admiring the example of her husband in this area, she would have been somewhat disappointed in me. However, as I chug towards the Ruby Wedding in less than two years' time and look back on a rather enjoyable and rewarding married and family life, I am resolved, indeed happy, to have incurred her displeasure.

Finally and most important of all: ' A thing you don't want is dear at any price '. There's that umbrella which is a real bargain at £7.50 but you have two umbrellas already so don't. And those enticing supermarket offers of three for the price of two making huge amounts of money as scores of us never get round to using or consuming the third entity before it grows stale or gets lost at the back of the fridge. If you don't want it or need it, regardless of the cost, resist the temptation.

I think that what I take from all of this in addition to appreciation for Granny's wisdom, easily remembered fifty years on, is the importance of talking across the generations. We, the aged ones, have a story to tell but the young too have worthwhile things to say as they make their way in the world and then make their world.

7th June 2017