We light a memorial candle for departed parents and I have lit one for my grandpa on behalf of my mother.

Grandpa was a gentle, kind and undemanding man. His parents had been born in Vilna, Lithuania and bore and raised their family of three children in England. Grandpa’s father was a barber who had a shop in Cable Street where the rough and sea weary sailors disembarked from long voyages and needed shaving. It was a rough place and the sailors were difficult customers. He made a living and managed to avoid the fights that often broke out between the customers

When Charles met Anne her parents (penniless immigrants when they arrived in England) had become successful business people. They gave the young couple a dowry and a fine wedding

Grandpa was too kind and gentle to be a business man and everything he tried failed. He was happiest working for someone else and running their business. He and grandma worked together for many, many years running a cousin’s wholesale hairdressing supplies business in Dean Street in Soho. Grandma and grandpa lived in a one bedroom flat in the block of flats opposite where I lived. I saw them nearly every day. My mother was an only child and both grandparents delighted in my brother and in me. Charles had a car – a Ford Anglia – which was always spotlessly clean and polished. He never took a driving test. He and grandma would take us out to Regents Park in their car where grandma (crippled with arthritis) would sit in a deckchair whilst grandpa supervised us as we ran around in Queen Mary’s Rose Gardens and took cine films of us with his camera. They also took us to the seaside as well as shows and pantomimes.

Charles and Anne lived a quiet life. They worked hard, they saved and never borrowed, they spent time with their sisters and brothers in law, they played cards, they listened to Judy Garland records and read and watched television. Above all they were devoted to each other. Charles was an old fashioned gentleman. If he saw a woman acquaintance in the street he would doff his hat. If he was walking with me or my mother or my grandma he would insist on walking on the kerb side of the pavement. He relished reading history books which he borrowed from the library. (His interest in kings and queens has resurfaced in his great, great grandson – and I am delighted.).

When Grandpa died, overnight of a burst aneurysm, it was a terrible shock for our tiny family but no one said that dying at the age of “73” was young. Grandma continued without him for five more years but she never got over his passing. I think of him very often and thank him for such a secure and blessed childhood.