Grandma's Wisdom

Grandma's Wisdom

All right, I admit it, I'm descended from an ape. There, I've said it now. My paternal grandmother was a chimpanzee. I'd like to tell you I'm proud of my roots, that I owe all I am to my chimpy upbringing, but even the working classes balk at making admissions like that. I'm not saying she was a bad gran, she was a very good gran as chimps go, but I did get teased at school a lot and, to be perfectly frank, at the time I'd have preferred a gorilla. You don't get bullied much when you've got a gorilla in the family. But all that changed when she came up with her sayings, and since then I have never wished for any other kind of gran.

Sayings is perhaps a misnomer since Gran was not well equipped in the speaking department. But she was fluent in sign language, as was Grandpa, and they shared all their fruity hopes and dreams that way. Gran’s sayings were not wise, but they were extremely rude, and schoolboys and rudeness go together like chimps and bananas. Gran would show me the signs for a saying, and I would copy them faithfully and pass them on to my classmates. Silent swearing behind the teachers’ backs, that was schoolboy heaven! Soon they cut out the middleman, so to speak, and Gran would teach them directly in return for cakes, sweets and, of course, bananas. I didn’t mind, I was just relieved that the teasing stopped. In fact, I became what you might call a class hero. If I’d worked harder, John Lennon might have written a song about me.

You may be curious as to why I was christened Skunk and not Chimp. My skunk ancestry was all on my mother's side. I believe there's also a trilobite somewhere in my family tree, and possibly even a bacterium, although the records get a little sketchy when you go that far back. It was before Longshanks, I know that much. It was even before we all came out of Africa, where we'd gone to get evolved and escape the miserable winter weather.

I know all this because I consulted a genealogist. A friend, who was also interested in who he might inherit money from, went first. Martin, the genealogist, assured him it could be proven beyond a doubt that he was descended from Charlemagne, that his ancestors had fought alongside King Arthur, and that one had taken tea with Rapunzel. That was before she, Rapunzel, grew her hair, but an interesting story nonetheless. Knowing somebody before they became famous is always a good drinking tale, so long as you don't overplay it. Don't say that Jason only wanted to hire a pedalo for the afternoon, for instance, and the golden fleece was all your idea. That's taking things too far.

When it came to my turn, I was full of pleasurable anticipation. These days there's no visiting graveyards and museums and such, Martin just typed my name into his computer and off it went to search the internet all on its own. It would take about fifteen minutes, he told me. While we were waiting I showed him a list I'd made of people I hoped I'd be related to. First up was Donald Trump. The red electric would hold no fears for me if Trump was my great aunt, but apparently there are rules and Donny Tee, as I was hoping to call him, isn't allowed. I bet the genealogists keep him all to themselves. I would.

At last the computer made a solemn fanfare. Dah-dah-dah DAH, it went. I asked if it meant I was related to Beethoven the Fifth, but Martin told me it always did that. It gives a sense of occasion and lets his clients know they’re getting their money’s worth, which they wouldn’t if it played Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. I could see the sense in that. Meanwhile the printer was whizzing and zipping away, getting so enthusiastic about my family tree that the little table it was perched on swung from side to side. It seemed to be taking a long time and I could see Martin was concerned by the way he glanced at it every now and again, maybe counting the cost of the paper, which isn’t cheap if you go for the glossy stuff. Then, with one final creak of the table, it stopped and everything went quiet.

Martin picked up the sheaf of printed paper and leafed through it. I could see by the look on his face that something wasn’t right. Then it hit me. He’d found evidence of Grandpa’s penchant for what my family sheepishly called ‘friends of David Attenborough’. To be precise, he’d found Granny Bubbles, who was so familiar to me I hadn’t thought to warn him. I told him not to worry about the chimp, I knew all about her. “The chimp?” he inquired, and I didn’t like the way he put the emphasis on ‘the’. He asked me if I’d heard of Darwin and the Descent of Man. I said I had. “Well, your family appears to be ascending,” he told me. I thanked him very much for the compliment, paid the bill, and went home to study my family tree in detail.

Grandpa’s taste for our less evolved brethren was inherited, this much was evident from the parts of the tree that looked like a primary school wall chart of Animals of the Wild. I’d been half prepared for that. What hadn’t occurred to me was that Granny Bubbles would have a family tree of her own, and that hers would be inextricably tangled with mine. I realised guiltily that I hadn’t visited Gran for quite some time and, since the family tree seemed like the ideal excuse to pop over, I went.

Gran eeked in delight when she opened the door to me. In the sitting room I tried to make myself comfortable on the hanging tyre while Gran squatted on the floor with the family tree in front of her. She began to sign excitedly and I tried to keep up with her, but I’ve never really learned more than a few dozen words. I knew ‘flea’ and ‘scratch’, but she wasn’t speaking of either, and I was left far behind. Gran threw a banana skin at me in disgust.

The truth? I had no idea what those phrases Gran taught me and my school friends meant. I made up the ‘translations’ as I went along. For all I know, my classmates might have been inviting each other to pick nits from their hair. Or, given that sign language was a kind of polari for the Attenborough Club, they could have been saying something far worse than my childish imagination could ever dream of. I just didn’t know.

As I left I asked Gran if she had any words of wisdom for me. There was something about the sun and a place where it doesn’t shine, but beyond that I was at a loss. One day I’ll Google it.