My granny was a wonderful story-teller. She would make hot buttered toast in the oven, steaming and oozing onto my fingers, then I would sit and listen to her fairy tales. She didn’t just tell the stories, she lived them. The characters and setting came alive: maharajas and genies and frog princes. I would be there in the stories, sitting on the magic carpet. I wish she had written them down or recorded the stories, as I would love to hear Granny’s captivating voice again; I only have snatches of the characters which occasionally flit through my mind.
The next best thing to listening to Granny’s stories, was creating my own. My first performance was when I was six: my poem only two short verses, but I received an amazing Easter egg from the vicar. This was it, I thought, I was destined for a life on the stage. I joined the Brownies, eager to take my Jester’s badge. Pushing through the heavy velvet curtains, I stood on the empty stage, but my throat seized up as I saw all those eyes staring at me. I rushed back through the curtains without saying a single word. Not surprisingly, I failed — which was not only embarrassing for me, but for my mum, as in her free time, she was a talented local actress and she also happened to be the examiner!
My mother used to recite funny poems and she was also a prolific letter writer. When I was at St Andrews University, I would receive a wonderful letter from her every single week. I love reading treasures from the past: people’s thoughts and emotions immortalised on paper. My grandfather also wrote hundreds of letters, and through them, I am drawn into his world, seeing him not as a distinguished old man with a beard, but a young man with hopes and dreams.
In the First World War, Ralph served as an officer in the 3rd Gurkha Rifles. He wrote many poems during his years in India, including his famous saying about the Gurkhas, for whom he had immense respect. The end of his poem is inscribed on The Memorial to the Brigade of Gurkhas in Horse Guards Avenue, Whitehall, London. The statue was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth 11 on 3 December 1997.
Gurkha Memorial, Horse Guards Avenue © Copyright David Hawgood Geograph, Creative Commons Licence
“Bravest of the brave,
most generous of the generous,
never had country
more faithful friends than you.”
Professor Sir Ralph Turner MC
Texts are much quicker and easier nowadays, but what a shame if people stopped writing letters. Recently, my cousin found over 2000 letters in an old suitcase, which Ralph and his two brothers and their parents wrote before, during and after the First World War. These include love letters to my granny to whom he became engaged after only two weeks, asking her to share his life in India! This was my storytelling granny, Dorothy, and I’m so glad that they met.
Now I am pursuing my dream of being an author, I owe a debt of gratitude to my grandparents and my mother, for passing onto me their love of the spoken and written word.