In the evening, Kate called unexpectedly to give us the news that Gran passed away. Despite her recent stroke it still took me aback. I suppose you think they are going to keep on soldiering on forever. Poor Nick was very cut up when I told him. What made it much worse for him was that as he was going to be in the UK next week he had planned to go and visit her. She was a wonderful woman, not at all inwardly-focused like so many elderly people, and always with an anecdote to tell. I'd heard them all many times but still liked to listen to her tales.
I wanted to note down a few reminders of some of the most-repeated stories, though even as I do so I worry that the details are already blurry and incomplete:
Her sister saying that 'you think everyone is nice; you'd even say Hitler was nice'.
Jack Bilbo, a gangster boyfriend in London, who wrote a book called 'I carried a gun for Al Capone'.
Working for a Jewish tailor who used to have her walk up 30 steps with armsfuls of clothes.
A young German airman who had crashed in London and was crying, was led away by a kind onlooker with an arm round the shoulder and a cup of tea offered.
Being referred to as the 'smasher with the pedigrees' (I think they were daschunds but not sure).
Her bad-tempered husband who would threaten violence to door-to-door callers.
Our 'Liza (her mother) - 'she's a wrong 'un' (not sure who said that).
The Welsh bluebeard of the family - Harris? - who wore his hat at a rakish angle and was an itinerant preacher? Apparently had 6 wives!
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