JUST SMILE AND NOD

Grandfather Explains How Better Things Were Back in the Day

We love him very much, but sometimes he makes us all uncomfortable

I visited my dear old grandfather recently, preparing myself for a difficult afternoon. He says a lot of questionable stuff, but it’s a generational thing, so it isn’t his fault.

The moment I arrived he told me he was out of bread for toast this morning, and it began.

“You know, back in my day a loaf of bread was a halfpenny and that was a day’s wages. We worked 12 hour days seven days a week and never once grumbled. Good honest work too. Got some good, honest tinnitus, joint pain, and a crap pension that barely covers my rent to show for it. But we made do. Not like the youth of today who bang on about a “better quality of life” and expect things from their government.”

I’d heard it all before. I made him a cuppa in his favourite mug and handed him a pack of digestives for dunking. He snatched the newspaper out of my hand and was immediately off again, slapping at the front page with the back of his hand.

“Honestly, this country is falling apart. You can’t trust this Boris Johnson. Do you know Boris is actually his middle name? And he has another too: “de Pfeffel.” Sounds like a French cake. You can’t trust it. His real first name is Alexander. What kind of sissy name is that? And did you know he was born in America as well? New York apparently. No, you can’t trust him. Not like good ol’ Winston Churchill. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and rough up the working class if they had the gall to ask for a liveable wage and safer working conditions. Back in my day, we were happy with what we got!”

I nodded in silence. I’d learned better to engage my dear old grandfather in these topics.

“But it was no better before Boris. We had bloody Theresa May. Did you see her trying to eat French Fries? Back in my day we’d call them chips, and leave the damn French out of it. And it’d be men eating them too, and eating them right. And did you see her trying to dance? An utter disgrace. Back in my day, our politicians were serious. Take Margaret Thatcher for example. Did you ever see her do a little boogie-woogie in public? Did you hell! She saved that for behind closed doors when the cameras weren’t running. She had class.”

I ventured to make some remark about how she was responsible for closing the mines and putting him out of a job, something he protested over when he was younger.

“What’s that?”

I suspect he’d switched off his hearing aid to prevent interruptions.

“Mind, that Thatcher got us started with this bloody European Union, didn’t she? I thought we beat the Germans in the war, now we have Angela Merkel over here telling us what to do!”

I’d heard it all before and tried not to take offence. After all, his late wife was half German, so that gave me a little German blood.

“And that Macron as well. Is he descended from Napoleon? Seems like it to me. Honestly, those French have their hands in everything.”

I suggested he try reading a different newspaper, one that didn’t get him so riled up, but he chose to not hear me.

“You know, those Germans are worse. No, I’m not talking about Hitler, he was Austrian. I’m talking about the Anglo-Saxons, although they were more Germanic I suppose. Same thing as far as I’m concerned. All foreign. Those bloody Normandy French had to get involved at some point as well, didn’t they? Things were far better before they showed up, let me tell you. Mind you, before them was the Vikings, and they were Danish, so you couldn’t trust them either.”

I asked him if he’d taken his medication this morning because he seemed more erratic than usual, but he was unstoppable, spitting digestive biscuits as he spoke.

“I tell you what, go back further and that was the last time we had it good. Back in the day when the Romans ran the show. The roads in this country were never better! Have you seen them now? But they weren’t all great either. Those Italian gits were robbing us blind with taxes. It was like the EU all over again! Mind, they did build a wall to keep those damn Scots out, so I’ll give them that. Why’d we do away with that anyway? They want their independence now, do they? Well, back in my day we’d be over there showing them who’s boss, not giving them a bloody referendum!”

He was on medication for high blood pressure, and I suspected he’d been washing it down with brandy again. To distract him and calm him down, I turned on the television and flicked to the horse racing. He made a few remarks about only betting on white horses, but he’d already tuckered himself out, so he didn’t have the energy to finish that sentiment.

He was asleep with half-chewed biscuits down his front before the first race finished. The white horse he backed fell at the first hurdle and was shot.

“See you next week,” I whispered, but before I left I found his brandy and took a shot to take the edge off.

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