Grandma was largely senile by the time I was 12, with only bits of her real personality peeking out here and there. I feel somewhat cheated at not having more time with the person my cousin calls his 'favourite auntie'.
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| Grandma & me, c. 1957 |
What I have learned in searching out the records of my Dad's adoption is that the story is much different than I would have guessed. I grew up believing that Grandpa was disappointed I wasn't a boy, as his surname ended with my Dad. I would have guessed that Grandpa would have been keen to have adopted a boy. On the contrary, it was Grandma who filled out all the adoption papers and she asked for a little girl. It just turned out that my Dad was what was immediately on offer at the time and they snatched him up.
I'm not sure Grandma was any better at raising children than my other Grandmother was at owning dogs (see yesterday's post). My dad wasn't exactly neurotic but he was spoiled rotten. Very much the opposite to many of the stories that came from children who were fostered out of the same orphanage as his records show. As it happened, he never actually went to that state school but was adopted from the maternity home where his birth mother left him, aged 11 months. It is an altogether odd and very sad story that none of us ever knew.
Grandma and Grandpa did their best to claim my Dad as their very own and they nearly got away with it, but for a woman who snapped an illicit photo of the orphanage register and sent that photo to me. One of my life's stranger turns.
All that aside, Grandma and Grandpa were excellent grandparents and I count myself lucky to have had them.
1 comment:
It must have been very sad for him to be left at 11 months. It is never good to be spoiled rotten but it is probably better than being abused as so many kids were in those days when the authorities seemed not to care about them as individuals. I'm glad you had the chance of such nice grandparents!
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