Tonight marks the yahrzeit of my lovely Grandpa Charles, my mother’s father. His parents came to these shores from Vilna, Lithuania and he was born in Cable Street in 1900
It was a rough area by the docks and Grandpa’s father ran a barber shop where sailors, disembarking from long sea voyages would come to be shaved and shorn.
When grandpa was 17 he joined up but, fortunately, unlike my other grandpa who was older and was sent to fight in France, Grandpa Charles did not see battle
This is his discharge paper from 1919
My grandfather was introduced to my grandma Anne and they married with a very fancy wedding. Grandma’s parents (also immigrants but from Poland) had worked very hard and built up a successful tailor’s trimmings business.
They were given a dowry and grandpa and grandma ran a little shop (above which my mother, their only child, was born in 1927 – the doctor in attendance was drunk and maybe that and poverty persuaded them that one child was enough).
Grandpa was too nice to be a businessman. He was a gentle man through and through. The business failed and he became a travelling salesman and grandma worked in her cousins’s wholesale hairdressing suppliers. After the Second World War grandpa joined the business as a salesman getting orders for their products. They worked together until they retired. Grandpa always dressed well and usually wore a hat that he would doff when he said hello to a woman. He would always walk on the kerbside when walking with grandma, mum or me. An old fashioned gentleman
Grandpa never passed a driving test (he was old enough not to have needed one) but he owned and drove a maroon Ford anglia which he kept immaculately polished. He took grandma, my brother and me to Queen Mary‘s Rose gardens nearly every Sunday. While grandma (who was crippled with arthritis) sat in a deckchair he would play with my brother and me, sometimes using his cine camera to film our exploits.
Grandpa and grandma lived a quiet life. They were close with their sisters and brothers in law and these were the people they saw for friendship, card games and family get togethers. They never owned a property and they never owed anyone a penny. They lived in a one bedroom council flat opposite my parents block of flats and I saw them nearly every day. Grandpa played us Judy Garland records, he watched wrestling with us and he played cards with us. Above all grandpa always adored, respected and cared for grandma even cooking when her arthritis made it too painful for her to stand in the kitchen. He was a wonderful husband, father and grandfather and I don’t think he ever raised his voice in anger. I was surprised to find that he had written to a variety hall performer complaining about a joke he had made about Jews. Below is the reply he received
I like to think that grandpa’s love of history has somehow passed through to my grandsons who both love to hear about the history of kings and queens.
When grandpa died in 1973, very suddenly overnight, grandma was bereft. She lived on, bravely, for a few years but without the love of her life. Over the years I have regularly visited their double gravestone and placed two stones on their graves. Grandpa was a sweet, kind, gentleman and I was lucky to be his granddaughter.
