Grandfather.

Cherry

By rask_balavoine

Wed, 17 Dec 2025
  • 121 reads
4 comments
 

My grandfather’s front parlour always reeked of pipe tobacco and slowly passing time, time that was so reluctant to glide along that only a new war would induce the atmosphere to trouble itself and look lively. 

My grandfather loved a good war. His was the Boer War, although he never did say on whose side he fought. What I do know was that he was said to be 17 during the siege of Ladysmith in 1899 then lied again about his age in order to volunteer in 1914 because his first lie made him too old for certain duties and activities in subsequent wars. 

A difficult, complicated man without whom I would not exist. Pickles, mustard, pipe tobacco, a tall, ticking clock, selective deafness and an underlying, jumentous whiff were his hallmarks.

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Comments

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

Great character sketch - well done!

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

I like this description/explanation very much :

time that was so reluctant to glide along that only a new war would induce the atmosphere to trouble itself and look lively.

My great grandfather from Ireland was in the Boer war, too

 

Submitted by Starfish Girl on

Such a lot crammed into a very short piece. I can almost picture, and hear, your granddad. Well done.

Submitted by Tom Brown on

Just like our stepdad Selby L. mixed his own tobacco recipy - a very pleasant smell, he taught me also I smoked pipe for a decade, now off cigs long ago too. Ironically it was what killed him in the end, lung cancer.

My great granddad Frank B. fits your description too as far as the wars go, lied about his age for the British army to get away from England and that. Mafeking the trenches Delville Wood survived all of it to a good and content age.

Great story! Your ending, very pleasant memories! Tom