Happy Birthday Pappy

Today is my Pappy's birthday.  I wished him happy birthday this morning and wondered if he's up there or out there somewhere looking after on me.  He would have been 95 today but he died 1996.  He was a great Pappy - my Dad's dad.  He could turn his hand to most things but in his day he was a carpenter.  He made lots of different things and that's probably where my Dad has inherited his jack of all trades skills.  He stayed in a village called Law which is not far from Wishaw and Carluke.  We used to spend about 2 weeks most summers there and then went to visit him when my Da eventually got a car.  When we were wee it was a great adventure going all the way "through to my Pappy's" but in reality it only took about an hour in his orange Austin Maxi car complete with faux leather seats.  We'd stop in Newmains at the chippy and get a packet of Tudor Gammon flavour crisps and a Texan bar each.  We thought this was great fun.


My Pappy was a great raconteur and before you knew it he'd go from one story to the next to the next with such ease that you didn't realise you'd been sitting transfixed on these stories for hours.  He loved going to the dancing too!  My Gran died when I was very young and she had both her legs amputated from her thighs down due to an illness that i don't really know exactly what it was, so he couldn't really take her dancing.  But every time he came through to our house my mum and dad would take him over to the local welfare club and he'd dance the night away with my mum and various others.  He wasn't a drinker and as far as I know he never smoked either (I'm more like him than i realised!).  He loved to go walking up the Old Road in Law with Sparky the black lab and a few of his friends.  He loved his dancing and he loved his baking.  We'd get a tupperware tub full of pancakes, soda scones and wee coconut balls every time he came through.  As well as a fiver pocket money when he left.  


When Ryan was born a few people remarked how much like my Pappy he was and I like that cos if he grows up to be half the man my Pappy was then he'll do just fine.


I remember the night we were told he'd died.  I'd been to see Seven at the cinema and came back in and my Dad told me.  We cried a little as it was unexpected but by all accounts he just fell asleep in his chair and never woke up.  Afterwards we decided to put on a video (no dvd's in 1996 - not in this house!), it was Dumb and Dumber and we sat there laughing and crying at the same time cos it's what he would have wanted.  His funeral was small but very fitting for he wasn't a showy type of person, instead quiet and kind and funny and steady.  Like a rock.  He was great my Pappy.

This is me with my Pappy at his house in Wildman Road, Law - good times!


Ange xx