Hold my hand

Plus: Doorstep nature notes

Scarborough with my Grandad, 1965. Photo by my late mum, Betty Varley

I remember this picture being taken, and how shy I was when my mum asked me to hold my grandad’s (her dad’s) hand. I’d never seen it until I was helping my parents sort through some of their belongings in 2015.

It was taken on a day trip to Scarborough in 1965 when I was four, and what strikes me is the contrast between me, small in my thin summer dress, and my grandad layered up in his Sunday best and sporting the trilby he always wore outdoors.

My dad said that no-one would have dreamed of setting out on a day trip in casual attire (“We didn’t wear shorts and T-shirts back then…”), and my mum pointed out that everyone relied on public transport, and by the time we went home in the evening it would have turned nippy.

Grandad was nearly seventy when I was born. He’d served in the army in World War One, losing his older brother when they both fought in the trenches. He had a shaky left hand after that, and I was told it was a result of shell shock.

He was a quiet, kind and gentle man. He and my Nana lived near Birkenhead, and when I visited he'd take me to Birkenhead Market. On one of our shopping trips he bought me The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, which I loved and which fuelled a childhood interest in fantasy fiction. He also bought me a notepad and a whole packet of biros, which I thought was the most decadent purchase ever. He knew I loved to write and draw.

He grew tomatoes on his allotment and supported Tranmere Rovers. He died when I was thirteen. We visited him in hospital when he was sick and he showed no interest when my Dad told him how Tranmere Rovers had played that day. I knew then he must be really ill, and he died soon afterwards.¹

I thought of that photograph when Andrea Fisher wrote recently on Substack about a painting that reminded her of her grandfather’s elegant hands.

There is an elegance to those slender fingers that reminds me of my grandfather. Though grandpa was a masculine man, his hands were refined, almost silken. Near-delicate fingers led to cleanly manicured fingernails, unlike daddy’s – whose rough, callused, gardening hands I also adored. The contrast was startling! 

Her grandfather, like mine, served during WW1 and she explains that he went on to work for the advertising agency that inspired the TV series Mad Men.

My father’s hands, like Andrea’s father’s, were rough and permanently grimy, despite the tin of Swarfega by the kitchen sink. They were short and square. When not at work as a turner at the local colliery, he was at his bench in the shed, making or fixing something. I learned the language of engineering by osmosis. It was all bushes, thous, nipples and flanges.

I have the handprints of my stillborn son, Otto, taken for me by the maternity staff. They are stocky and remind me of my dad’s.

My son, Milo, has long, tapered fingers, like his three sisters.

My hands are often cold, but my mother’s were permanently warm. Even towards the end, in the nursing home.

She tried to make out my face, her eyes milky and almost-blind. She clasped my hands in hers and recited from memory several stanzas from the epic poem Horatius at the Bridge by Thomas Babbington Macauley. She had learned it at school. I had never heard it before. It’s about a Roman officer, Horatius, who defends a bridge from the invading army.

Then outspake brave Horatius,
     The captain of the gate:
“To every man upon this earth
     Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
     Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
     And the temples of his gods?”

Mum died three days later.

Ian’s mother is now in a nursing home and appreciates me holding her hand while we talk. I told her I’d started writing again, and she asked me, “Can I have a slice?” So I read her some of my Substack posts and she smiled.

---

Doorstep nature notes: snake exits left

We’ve had visitors this week, and not just human ones.

I worry that we’re losing the wild creatures of the earth. So it was encouraging to find that nature is all around me here on the south coast of England.

Saturday

I glanced out of the kitchen window to see a green woodpecker. And then, when I looked more closely, a second one.

What a relief. Last summer, a green woodpecker died crashing into my office window, chased by a crow. I feared we’d lost the entire population.

Sunday

“SNAKE!” yelled my son, as I was dead-heading the Cosmos.

I turned to see it slithering across the patio and right into the living room.

Curse those bifold doors, quite literally bringing the outdoors in.

Five minutes of panic. A noisy family conference to work out where it had gone and what to do about it.

“Shhhh! Shhhh! They’re sensitive to noise!” hissed Ian. I wondered if he was getting snakes mixed up with the movie The Quiet Place.

We found it curled in a corner behind a box.

We identified it as a harmless grass snake, not an adder. When Ian nudged the box away for a better look, it reared its head and flicked its tongue at him.

We brainstormed how to coax it out of the house. Don gardening gauntlets and pick it up? Not likely. “The grass snake can release a pungent aroma from its anal gland when provoked,” I read out from my phone. No-one wants that.

I wished I’d got

Lyndsey Resnick

(who writes Poison Ivy House Substack) with me. She sounds a dab hand at dealing with scary snakes.

We pushed the dining chairs onto their sides to make a sealed avenue of escape. Ian gave it the gentlest of nudges with a feather duster, and it took the hint.

One-second video evidence:

At that moment, my three-year old grandson appeared, wielding my gardening secateurs. “I will cut the snake!” he declared.

Fighting snakes must be hard-wired into us. He was puzzled to learn that it was harmless and that the garden was its home.

After that, we closed all the doors.

Monday

Got in to find my sister spraying Dettox round the living room. She’d been in the garden, and had glanced in through the now-closed bifold doors to see a pigeon eyeing her from the coffee table.

She caught it in a box, released it, then cleared up its poo.

Verdict? Must have flown in through the sky light. We closed the sky light.

Arrive home from choir practice at dusk and bats flit above me as I walk to the house. Pipistrelles.

I thought about the dedicated local Bat Man who used to drive out to us in his Batmobile if one got stuck indoors, or injured. His tool kit included a bat box, a tub of meal worms, and a paint brush for feeding an exhausted bat water droplets.

His response time was faster than the human ambulance service. He died a couple of years ago. I’m not sure whether we have a new Bat Man. Or Bat Woman.

Ian tells me there’s an enormous spider in the toilet. The kind of pasta strainer that usually makes its way indoors in October, not in the middle of summer. When we check, no sign. Uh-oh.

Tuesday

My son-in-law in East London sends a photo of a beautiful moth to the family chat.

We’re all rooting for nature.

What a character. Photo: Ollie Evans

Confession: I’m terrified of moths. And bats. And snakes. And spiders. But thankful for them, too. Do you have memories of holding hands, or of wildlife surprises?

There were lovely and funny comments on my Family Bubble Car piece last week: memories of overcrowding; nail-biting three-wheeler Reliant Robins that threaten to overturn on roundabouts; and dads who’d turn off the engine when going downhill to save petrol.

Clicking ­the heart, commenting and/or sharing this piece will help other people find my writing.

Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t already subscribed, I do hope you will!

Or, if you wish, there is a Wendy’s World tip jar:

Until next time!

© Wendy Varley 2024

1. A version of my photo mini-essay was published on The Guardian website on 16 May 2015.