Freezing

I guess it’s not unusual, especially these days to know  – or at least remember your great-grandparents, but when i was a child, I’m not sure it was so common. Maybe because life expectancy was less, maybe people married later because of the two world wars and had children later, or maybe it was not something we talked to school friends about to know whether they still had great-grandparents. My children only knew two of their grandparents, and only knew them for a very short time so can barely remember them.

I do remember one set of my great-grandparents, but they were very old and I only remember them being in bed when we visited. I wonder now whether it was not only their age which kept them in bed but whether it was because of the cold and they couldn’t heat their home. I’m thinking this because it’s so perishing cold at the moment, and like most people we are being very careful about having the heating on because energy costs are so high. We’re fortunate though, because although we very careful with our energy use, we do have a choice – many people these days have no choice, they literally can’t afford to heat their homes or their water, or sometimes – cook food. I remember my great-grandparents staying in bed to keep warm seventy years ago – it’s shocking that people now are in the same position. Something is very, very wrong.

At about the time I visited Granny Anne and Granddad Tom as we called them, it was so cold that the River Cam froze and people put on their skates and had a great old time. My dad had skates and he took me out onto the ice, holding onto his scarf which he put round his waist, towing me along. I remember that mixture of fear and excitement as I zoomed along behind him. I probably wasn’t zooming, he was probably skating quite slowly and safely, but being over-imaginative even then, I was whizzing along the frozen river!