G is for GRANNIES

Dad's mum lived into her nineties. I knew her from her mid-seventies so I had missed the most of her life and she, mine. Her husband had already died before I was born, so I only have a mental picture of that grandfather, formed by the stories that have filtered through from family and other sources. Granny subsequently lived with us for all of her life, since dad and mum had moved into the family home after their marriage. I have often thought that this must have been a difficult adjustment for mum, to live with her in-laws, but she seemed to take it in her stride, though she may not have revealed publicly how she felt with this arrangement at times. Granny was a slight woman with a strong independence though I was too young to notice and she was too old to show it. In my time she rarely left the house and in her last years was prone to broken bones and frailty, though her heart was strong. We got on famously together, except for Thursday nights, when Top of the Pops came on the TV. In my insatiable desire to keep up with the music scene and a complete absence of computers, mp3 players, ipods, even cassettes, I took to recording the programme on a reel to reel tape recorder. There were no DIN sockets, phono plugs or headphone connectors on either TV or recorder, so the best and indeed only recording was made using the microphone that had come with the tape device. And that's the way I built up my early music collection, along with some other recordings obtained from an intermittent signal belonging to Radio Caroline and Luxembourg. The quality wouldn't have satisfied today's musos but I only heard the tunes amongst the hiss, crackles and dropouts. And that was where granny came in, for, apart from the obvious technical inefficiencies of the system, the microphone recorded everything it heard and that often included loud questions or statements from a half-deaf grandmother right in the middle of the one track I wanted to record. I have it somewhere, for posterity.




Mum's mum was one of the warmest people you could meet. She had nine children, reared them all on a shoestring and for much of the time, when her husband was in America, did it alone, first in their house in Armagh and then in Belfast. In the orchard city, she also ran a cafe and all her earnings went towards supporting her children and giving them the best chance in life. In later years when the grandchildren came along, she showed equal enthusiasm and care for them and all of us loved going to visit her, simply because she always had time for us and would shower us with kindness. She loved nothing better than having all her children and their families around her on Boxing Day and then she would spend the whole day, and probably most of Christmas Day too, preparing and cooking for kindness was the only language she knew. When she died, I was in Scotland and couldn't get home for her burial but I didn't need to be there to remember the wonderful person she was. She had a great faith, was a committed Christian, but strangely, I don't remember her going to church very often when the family moved to Belfast. I guess she never really fitted in to the life of the city but she spent daily time with God and loved to gather us all around the piano to sing. Her lasting wish was that the old grand piano that her husband had bought in a market for pittance, would be mine when she died and it now stands ornately in our good room and countless young children take their first steps at piano on its sepia coloured keys under the direction of her great grandson. Hasn't God a great way of enlarging our vision?



Mum became a granny twenty one years ago. Like myself with my own grannies, the boys only got to know her in her later life but I'm glad they did. She had so many of the traits of her own mother, was self-sacrificial, caring, kind and had a deep faith in her spiritual Father. She often cared for the boys' physical needs when we were at work but she also saw to their spiritual hunger on a regular basis, both at home and in her role as leader of the church Christian Endeavour. Every Friday she lifted them and got them involved in helping her to get organised for the night and there was always the lure of the sweetie bag on the way home. She was wise yet prudent with her advice as we raised them and she prayed for them every day. She was proud of their achievements and I have no doubt that being a granny added a new dimension to her life that she had never thought about before. In her last days, as her life came to a close, they spent much time with her and before her final breath, she wrote to both of them, expressing the joy that they had brought to her life and the hope that their faith would grow even deeper. I don't know what she prayed for concerning them in those last days but I know that her influence and her prayers have made an impact as both her grandsons continue to seek God's will in their lives on a daily basis. She would be a very proud grandmother now.




I was reminded of all this while reading about Paul and his young protege and 'true son in the faith' , Timothy, whom he trusted enough to send to the church at Thessalonica to report of its growth and to encourage them. Their paths had first crossed at Lystra on one of Paul's missionary journeys but he had never forgotten the young man whom he would later describe as 'my fellow worker' and 'faithful to the Lord'. But I am drawn to another verse in Paul's second letter to Timothy, chapter one and verse five where he write, 'I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.' As I read this verse and think of not only my granny but also my mother and my wife and now see that same faith developed in the two lads, I realise that nothing happens by accident, when God is in control. May we today remember those grannies, many long gone to glory, who bore the message faithfully so that we might know His goodness in our lives.And may all you grannies realise that you're never too old to make an impression.