My grandmother would have been 100 years old today. She isn't, she died just over a decade ago, but she made it 89% of the way. She was born into a very different world, where people rarely travelled far from their home area, where horses outnumbered cars, where an indoor toilet was a novelty, where men still had the upper hand and where mail was still delivered first thing the following morning. My grandmother was one of 13 children, only a couple of whom ever made it above five foot tall, and I thank my mother's genes that I never followed suit.
In honour of the centenary of my grandmother's birth, here's a list of special things that still remind me of her.
• Celery: When I was very little I remember going round to my grandmother's for tea. I think my grandfather was still alive at the time, and he sat at one end of the table and presided over the whole occasion. I sat up straight on my creaky brown leather chair and piled an assortment of salady and savoury items onto my green plate. There was cheese and bread and ham and beetroot and all the things I was used to, but there in the centre of the table stood a glass tankard containing something long, green and curvy that I'd never seen before. It gave off an unfamiliar sharp smell, and all the adults around me crunched into each stalk with gusto. I think I was cajoled into trying some, but it wasn't for me. Vegetables have got considerably more cosmpolitan since the early 70s, but my tastes remain as catholic and unadventurous as they were on that distant afternoon.
• A certain sweet talcumy smell: Every time I walked into my grandmother's house my nose was hit by a familiar reassuring odour. It wasn't quite perfume, it wasn't quite rosewater, it wasn't quite talcum powder, but it was all pervasive and it was unique to her. It's very rare now that I sniff anything similar, but if I ever do it takes me right back to her front door.
• The 1975 Wedgwood calendar plate: This colourful piece of crockery featured twelve twee Victorian children engaged in a variety of seasonal activities. My grandmother liked this semi-collectable porcelain so much that she hung it just to the right of her front door where it stayed for 20 years, despite the fact that 1975 only lasted for 12 months. The plate now lives in its original box in my spare room, and I guess by now it must be quite eBay-able. But I think I'll hang onto it - the calendar will be right again in 2014, after all.
• Rich tea biscuits: My grandmother's biscuit tin evolved as she got older. When I was very little it contained a selection of biscuits including malted milks, morning coffees, digestives and custard creams. Somewhere during my teenage years all of these varieties disappeared and the tin suddenly contained no more than crisp, bland rich teas. I'm still not sure if my grandmother ever bought any more biscuits after that, or whether I spent the next decade gradually finishing off that final pack.
• CoronationStreet: My grandmother used to babysit my brother and I every Monday night. This gave my parents the chance to sneak off to evening classes, while we got to enjoy cross-generational cooking and heavy bedsheets. And ITV. We never normally watched 'the other side' but on Mondays we were treated to Opportunity Knocks and World In Action and, sandwiched inbetween the two, Corrie. I can't say I appreciated it properly at the time, but I'm grateful now to have been exposed to Annie, Hilda and Albert in their prime, even if it was only once a week.
• The Co-op: It became something of a standing joke that my grandmother used to visit the Co-op rather more often than she visited our house located a few hundred yards further up the road. She was always in that row of shops, picking up some material from the drapery, stocking up on 99 teabags or buying yet more celery from the greengrocers. When she died it was only natural that the Co-op would arrange the funeral, although I don't think we got any of her divi back.
• "Beech Glade" by Daniel Sherrin: This old painting/print depicts a deserted footpath running through a beechwood, with yellow leaves scattered on the ground and a river flowing alongside. It's hung in a cheap wooden frame with torn brown paper on the back, and a faded label that reads '1324/11 "Beech Glade" F.R. London'. It's not an object you'd ever take along to the Antiques Roadshow for fear of being laughed at, and yet it had pride of place on the wall in my grandmother's living room. It now stands halfway down my hallway, and every time I pass it I remember my grandmother with a smile.
• A smile: I'm looking at a photograph of my grandmother taken about a year before she died. She's sitting in her garden in a deckchair, her grey plastic walking stick slung over one arm. Her face is heavily wrinkled by the passing years, and on her head is a ridiculous straw hat. The dress she's wearing only just covers her thin and bony frame, and her spindly legs poke out above long white lumpy kneesocks. It's a desperately unflattering photo, and yet the one thing that beams out from the image is a warm and genuine smile. My grandmother took what life threw at her without grumbling, and took pleasure from observing the world around her. I like to think that I've inherited some of her calmness, tolerance and optimism, and were she still here I like to think that she'd agree.
