I didn’t ever know my granddad Reuben, he died the November before I was born in January. However, my dad Donald spoke of him so often and told me so many stories about him, as did his brother and sister, Sidney and Joan, that I feel as if I did know him.
He was born in 1888, the third in a line of Reuben Elsdens; Donald and Joan both took up golf as he had but only when they had left home. Reuben used to try to encourage Don to play, but his sports-mad son dismissed it as ‘an old man’s game’! It became his passion later in life, and he often wondered how good he would have been if he had taken Reuben’s advice!
Reuben died before television became common; how he would have loved the Ryder Cup!
Lois Elsden 