Grandfather.

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.