grandad kit

Dear Tom,

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. Although you are three years old, I have never seen you. I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Yesterday I told you I would tell you a story, so here it is. It’s called “Urgat the Littlest Mouse.”

When Urgat the mouse was born he was of course very little, tiny in fact, but then so were all his brothers and sisters. They were all tiny and pink, no bigger than the end of my little finger. And they had no fur, just pink skin all over. But Urgat and his brothers and sisters were kept warm and cosy, snuggled up to their mother in nice, dry nest. Not a nest like a bird’s nest, all twigs and mud, but a nest made up of torn-up bits of paper. Yes, paper, in a little ball no bigger than my two hands, with a small hole to go in and out. Not that the baby mice went in and out, not at first. They stayed tucked up with their mother Angmor who fed all her babies with her own milk, as small as she was, from her tiny, tiny teats in two rows down her belly.

Because Angmor had to stay in the nest to feed her family of baby mice, Urgat’s father Blint had to go out every day and hunt for food. He would feed himself, and bring some back for Angmor to eat. Oh, I forgot to say where the mice lived. They lived behind a wall, or rather inside a wall, in a house where a human family lived, rather like your family, Tom. There was a mother, a father and three girls, so it was different. I know that you live with your mother and father, but you don’t have any brothers or sisters, so there are only three of you instead of five, like the family I’m telling you about.

How could the mice live in a wall? Well, the wall was actually made of two walls close together, two brick walls with a gap in the middle. This gap was just big enough for Blint and Angmor to make their nest. At the bottom of the wall was a small hole, just big enough for Blint to get through. The human family who lived in the house didn’t realise the hole was there, because there was a big cupboard in front of it. Every night Blint would go out of the nest, through the hole in the wall and under the cupboard into the kitchen. Blint only went out at night because he knew that if he went out during the day, the people who lived in the house would see him and catch him. Then they might take him to a field far away, or even kill him. That would leave Angmor and the baby mice with no father and no way of getting any food. So Blint only went out at night.

But there was plenty of food for Blint to find. The family were very careless and very wasteful about food. They would leave bits of food lying about, and it didn’t need much to feed Blint and Angmor. There were biscuit crumbs, nuts, corn flakes, muesli – Blint particularly liked anything with oats in it – and pieces of toast and bread and cheese. Best of all, Blint loved chocolate, so bits of chocolate biscuit were his favourite.

At first the baby mice didn’t need any food, because they were getting milk from their mother Angmor. But after a little while the baby mice started growing up. Baby mice grow up far, far faster than human children like you, Tom. After only a few weeks they are fully grown, and ready to find their place in the world. You are three years old, Tom, and you will have to be at least sixteen years old before you can leave home, if you want to, that is. Most children don’t leave home until they are eighteen years old, and some stay at home even when they are grown up and are twenty years old or more!

Now when baby mice are fully grown, and remember that takes only a few weeks, they have to leave their home, which is the nest of paper, if you remember, and find somewhere else to live. Because, if they all stayed in the same place, there would be far too many of them in one house, and not enough food to go round. So the boy mice and the girl mice who have just grown up go out into the world. They have to be very careful. Not only are there traps in some houses and even poison that people put down, but there are cats and dogs and foxes who would gobble them up if they could.

But what the boy mice and the girl mice are looking for, as well as a house where there isn’t a mouse family already, and where they can find a safe place to build a nest, but also they need to find another mouse from another mouse family so they can get together to have babies of their own. So every boy mouse tries to find a girl mouse, and every girl mouse tries to find a boy mouse, always from another family, you understand. It’s the same with us humans. When a boy grows up, he tries to find a girl to marry, and likewise a girl tries to find a boy she would like to marry, but always from different families.

So when the time came when the baby mice had all grown up, and it didn’t take very long, as I’ve told you, Blint and Angmor had to tell them all to leave the nest and make their own way in the world. All, that is, except Urgat. Now when I said that all the baby mice had grown up and were now all as big as their mother and father, I was wrong. Urgat hadn’t grown up. He was covered in fur, just like his brothers and sisters, and he had all his teeth and claws, just like his brothers and sisters, so he was grown up in a way, but Urgat had grown just a little bit, well, hardly atall, since he was born. So he was still small, very small indeed. If it wasn’t for the fur and the teeth and the claws, you would think that Urgat was still a baby mouse. But he wasn’t a baby mouse, not any more. He was very, very small, that’s all. He was indeed “Urgat the littlest mouse.”

So when Blint told all his grown-up children mice that they had to leave the nest and find their own way in the world, he told Urgat he had to stay behind. Urgat didn’t like that. He wanted to go out into the world like his brothers and sisters, and find a girl mouse to make a nest with and have their own baby mice. But Urgat was a good mouse and always did what his father told him to, even if he didn’t want to, but he still complained. “Why do I have to stay in the nest, when all my brothers and sisters are leaving?” he asked. “Because, son,” said Blint, in a sad but firm voice, “you are too small to go out into the world. Although you have your fur and your teeth and your claws, you are only just a little bit bigger than a baby. Your mother and I are going to have more babies, so if you stay while they grow up, you might grow up as well. But you are the littlest mouse, and the littlest mouse has to stay in the nest.”

So Urgat had to stay while Angmor had another brood of baby mice. But at least Urgat was allowed to go out with his father at night, and bring back food for his mother. But after only a few days, when the new baby mice were still very, very tiny and feeding from their mother, there was a loud banging and knocking in the house. Blint came running back into the nest. “The human family have blocked up the hole in the wall!” he shouted, “I can’t get into the kitchen and find food. We’ll all have to move to another house.”

“But I must stay here with all my new babies,” cried Angmor, “they can’t be moved, and anyway, how can we carry all of them? I’ll have to stay here in the nest, feeding them, until they are strong enough to walk and run by themselves.” “But how am I going to find food for you, Angmor?” replied Blint, “if I don’t bring food, you won’t be able to make any milk, and our new babies will all die. What are we going to do?”

“I know what to do,” said Urgat confidently, “I can find food for you, mother, and for you father. It will only take a few days, and when the new babies are big enough and strong enough, we can all go somewhere else. You can find a place to build a new nest for you and the new babies, and I can…..” Blint interrupted his son. “I know what you are aying, Urgat, “this is just an excuse for you to go out into the world by yourself like your brothers and sisters. As I’ve told you, you are Urgat the littlest mouse and you are just not big enough to find your own way in the world. And anyway, if you went out by yourself, how do we know that you would come back. You might leave us all here to starve!”

But Urgat was not going to be put off. “I’m not going to leave you, Dad, nor you Mum, nor any of my new sisters and brothers. When I’ve been out with you, Dad, I noticed a tiny hole in the wall that leads directly into the cupboard in the kitchen, a hole that's too small for you. I can squeeze through that and get some food for all of us. Not much, but enough to keep us going.” Blint looked at Angmor and then at their son Urgat. “Thank you, son,” said Angmor, “thank you for me and your father, but most of all for your new brothers and sisters.” And Blint said, “my son, you have amazed me. You may be Urgat the littlest mouse, but you have a great, big heart.”

So Urgat ran off with his father Blint just behind him. Urgat squeezed through the tiny hole in the wall and into the cupboard. He found an open packet of biscuits and some flour split on a shelf. Little by little, Urgat carried the food back through the hole and back into the nest. After only a few days, the new baby mice were big enough and strong enough to run by themselves. “Everybody follow me,” said Blint, “we are going out a different way, into the garden. After that, I will go with your mother and the babies to the left, you, Urgat, will go to the right.”

“Does that mean that I am to go and make my own way in the world, although I’m the littlest mouse? asked Urgat. “Yes,” said Blint. Then Urgat thought of a problem. “But how will I find a girl mouse to start a nest with and have babies of our own?” he asked, “surely no girl mouse would even consider joining up with me, because I am so small, all the girl mice will think I’m still a baby mouse, even though I’ve got all my hair and teeth and claws.” Blint thought for a moment. “When we get out into the garden, I want us all to stay together, just for a little while,” he said.

So when Blint and Angmor and Urgat and all the new baby mice got out of the house and into the garden, they all stopped. “Now,” said Blint, “Urgat, start to call out.” “What should I call out?” asked Urgat, very puzzled. “Just call out ‘is there any girl mouse out there looking for a boy mouse to build a nest with and have babies of our own?’” So Urgat, who always obeyed his father, started to call out. Of course, to you and me as humans, it was just squeaks, but to Urgat it was calling out. “Is there any girl mouse out there looking for a boy mouse to build a nest with and have babies of our own?” called Urgat, or rather he squeaked it. Nothing happened. “Call again,” said Blint.

So Urgat called again, “is there any girl mouse out there looking for a boy mouse to build a nest with and have babies of our own?” And this time there was a rustling in the grass, and out came a girl mouse, a girl mouse from another mouse family. All her brothers and sisters had found other mice to pair up with, but she hadn’t. The reason was, she had a very, very short tail. And although her name was Drinz, all the other mice called her “Short Tail.” Now she had left her family’s nest and was looking for a boy mouse. But every when she met a boy mouse, they would say, “Short Tail, Short Tail! I’m not going to make a nest with you. Go away!”

But when Drinz looked at Urgat and saw just how small she was, she turned around to go away. “Why are you going away?” asked Blint, because Urgat was too upset to speak. “But he’s so small, he must the littlest mouse,” said Drinz. “Yes,” replied Blint, “ he is Urgat the littlest mouse. But let me tell you that not only has my son Urgat got all his hair, his teeth and his claws, he’s also the cleverest and bravest mouse I’ve ever known. We are so proud of him! Now it seems to me that you have a very short tail, but I’m sure that won’t stop you from being a very good mouse mother and bringing up lots of baby mice.”

With that, Drinz laughed with joy. She could see that Urgat was strong and brave, and Urgat could see that Drinz was just as determined as he was to make her way in the world. “Yes, I’ll go with you Urgat, even though you’re the littlest mouse,” she said. “And I’ll go with you, Drinze, even though you have a very short tail,” said Urgat. So Urgat said goodbye to his mother and father. Angmor and Blint went to the left, with all their half-grown babies, to look for a new home, and Urgat and Drinz went to the right to look for a new home also.

And how do we know they found new homes? Well, let me tell you, Tom, for all the traps and the poison and the cats and dogs and foxes, there are many, many mice living in houses all around – maybe not in your house – but as long as we humans live in houses, there will be mice living near us somewhere. And if you ever see a mouse running about in your house or in a field, remeber that mouse has a mother and a father, and my have babies of its own. And even if it's very, very small, it can still have all its hair, its claws and its teeth and still be able to find food for itself and its family.

Well, Tom, you’ve been very, very good to listen to this long, long story. It’s much longer than I though it would be when I first started to write it!

Love from Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Dear Tom

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. Although you are three years old, I have never seen you. I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Yesterday I said I would tell you what physiotherapy is. When people get hurt, and maybe have difficulty walking or doing things, they can be helped to get better by doing exercises. That’s what has happened to me. A few weeks ago. I had an accident. I was riding my bicycle in a race when a great big lorry made me fall off. I tipped right over the handlebars of my bike and fell on the road with a great big crash. I was going quite fast – this was a race, after all – and I landed on the road which as you know is very hard indeed.

I hit the ground so hard I was knocked unconscious. That’s a bit like being fast asleep and not knowing what is happening. After a few minutes I woke up. I was lying on my back, looking at the sky! I wondered where I was and what I was doing there. For a little while, I couldn’t even remember my own name! Fortunately, some people were there and saw me fall off my bike. Two cars stopped, the drivers making sure their cars were on either side of me, so that I wasn’t run over by another car or even a lorry coming along the road.

They called the ambulance, and when I woke up the ambulance man was there. He asked me my name, but I couldn’t remember what my name was. Then he asked me my name again, and I said, “I’ll tell you in a minute!” It was a funny feeling, not knowing who I was. Supposing you couldn’t remember your own name? Nobody would know who you were, except of course your Mam and Dad. Anyway, I was put on a stretcher – that’s like a bed with wheels – and I was carried into the ambulance and taken to hospital where I was looked after by a very kind nurse.

Then a doctor came and looked at me. Fortunately, I hadn’t broken any bones, but I was hurt and bruised all the way down the left side of my body, particularly my left shoulder. So I was bandaged up. I had bandages on my left arm, my left leg and big plasters on my knees and on my hands. I also had three stitches in my face where it had been cut. There was a lot of blood on my face, but the bandages, the stitches and the plasters soon stopped the bleeding.

I need to tell you about the helmet I wear on my head every time I go out riding on my bicycle, and not just when I am racing. My helmet now has a big “dunch” in it where it hit the kerb when I fell off. A “dunch” means a big dent. If I hadn’t been wearing my helmet, I would have had a big “dunch” in my head instead of in my helmet. I could even have been killed! So, Tom, whenever you go riding on your bicycle, you must wear a helmet, just in case you fall off. I guess you’ll be riding a tricycle at the moment, or a little bike with training wheels. In a few years, you’ll be able to ride a big bike. I was seven years old before my Mam and Dad could afford to buy me a proper bike, but I imagine you should get one when you’re five or six years old.

By the time I got to the hospital I did remember who I was, so after a few hours I was allowed to go home. The people organising the race had kept my bike for me. It was scratched and the handlebars were bent, but otherwise it wasn’t too badly damaged. I was pleased, because this particular bike – I have three bikes – is my special racing bike. It was built specially for me and cost a lot of money. It was made to go as fast as possible. One thing about it that is different from a normal bike is that it has very thin wheels. It’s an amazing thing, but a bicycle with thin wheels will go faster than a bicycle with thick wheels. I’ll explain it to you one day.

Although I hadn’t broken any bones, I was very, very sore all down my left side. It hurts me to walk, or even to sit still for more than a few minutes. So to help me get better, I go to the hospital for physiotherapy and I do the exercises at home. I am getting better, but only by a little bit each day. The pain is not as bad as it used to be, so I hope in two or three weeks’ time it will have gone away altogether. I have another race coming up, and I want to be as fast as I can.

One of the things I do is to write stories. One day you might hear me reading them on the radio. When your Mam was a little girl, I used to tell her stories, and I used to read stories to her sister, your Auntie Rosie, and her brother, your Uncle Norman. They all liked me telling them stories and reading to them, usually when they were in bed and just before they went to sleep. You Mam would always ask for more! I am sure your Mam and Dad read you stories. I would like to do that one day, tell you stories. So when you grow up and you have children of your own, you will be able to read stories to them as well!

Every week I try to write a new story. I’m going to do another one this weekend, so I’ll write it down in one of my letters as soon as it’s finished. Have a nice weekend.

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Dear Tom

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. Although you are three years old, I have never seen you. I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Today I went to the big city about 30 miles away from where I live. I drove in the car, and when I got to the big city the main road was blocked with lots and lots of traffic. This is just like where you live in London, but not all the time. In London, there are traffic jams every day and nearly all the time. I live in a small town where there are no traffic jams because there isn’t enough traffic. Even in the big city I go to, as I did today, the roads are full only at certain times. And I know all the little roads, so when the main road is blocked, I can always find another way through.

When I go to the city, I always like to stop the car near the river. I love the river – it is different every hour of every day. Sometimes the river is very, very calm, looking so flat you might think it was a sheet of glass! (But don’t try and walk on it!). At other times, the river has big waves on it, especially when the tide is coming in. You will have seen the River Thames, the big river that flows through London, many times, so you will know about the tide going in and out. When the tide is coming in, it pushes the water coming down the river back up again. And when the tide is going out, the water flows twice as fast the other way to make up for it!

I hope you’ve seen the Barrage across the Thames. Grandad has actually been inside it! The Barrage is a big barrier with several towers in line, like the wall of a castle only in steel and with rounded tops. Inbetween each tower is a dam, a moving dam, that can be opened or closed. When these dams are lifted up, the water flows underneath, going in when the tide is coming in, and going out when the tide is going out. But when the dams are closed, that stops the water altogether. It stops the water coming down the river from reaching the sea, and at the same time it stops the tide water from going up the river.

Why do they do this? I’ll tell you why, although it doesn’t happen very often. Once in a while, maybe once a year, a very, very big tide tries to come up the river, a really big tide. It’s like a huge wall of water coming in from the sea. Now if there was nothing to stop this very big tide from going up the river, it would make the river rise so high it would reach the top of the walls on either side of the river. Then it would rise higher still, and millions and millions of tons of water would pour over the walls, across the roads and into the houses. Yes, people would have to move upstairs because all the rooms at the bottom of the house, what we call the ground floor, would be full of water. All their carpets and furniture, televisions and videos would be ruined by the water and have to be thrown away. Some people might even be drowned, and anyone who was ill would have to be taken to hospital by boat or by helicopter, because the roads would be flooded and the ambulances would be stuck in the water.

Have you seen those yellow “DUCK” buses that can drive along the roads in London and also go into the river Thames and float along like ships and boats? Nana Ann and I have seen them. The “Ducks” would be good if all the roads in London were flooded. They could take food to people trapped in their houses, in the upstairs rooms, and take people who were ill to hospital.

The river in my city is not as big as the Thames, and it doesn’t have a barrier across it. But it does have a lot of bridges, just like London. I’d love to take you to my city and show you all the bridges. We could cross the river over one bridge, walk along to the next bridge and cross back over, then walk to the next bridge and cross back again, and so on. Eventually we’d get to the sea, just as you do if you go all the way down the Thames.

Tomorrow I’m going to the hospital for something called physiotherapy. I’ll explain what that is in tomorrow night’s blog.

Love from Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Dear Tom

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. Although you are three years old, I have never seen you. I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Today I went to se a man. A very rich man. This very rich man is building a house. Not just any sort of house, but a great big one, and a really unusual one. Underneath, it’s going to have a swimming pool. Imagine, going for a swim underground! And at the front of the house there’ll be a big balcony where you can have picnics and barbeques and look out over the countryside. Perhaps I’ll take you there, one day. The rich man won’t mind. You see, I’m writing a book about him building his big house.

Of course, the rich man isn’t building it all by himself. He has lots of people who are helping him, joiners, plumbers, bricklayers, plasterers, painters. And there are the men who dig the foundations and who drive the big crane and who operate the machine that digs the trenches – that’s called a JCB. It’s a tractor, really, with a digger at both ends, a little one at the front and a big one at the back. Maybe you’ve got a model JCB. I hope it’s a working model. If you have a working model, you can load sand into a dumper truck and drive it away. But be careful where you dump the sand – don’t make a mess and upset your Mam.

All these men need to be paid for their work, and of course all the materials, the bricks, the sand, cement and steel, they all have to be paid for. And the bathroom fittings, the bath, the wash basins, the toilets, they all have to be paid for as well as the men who put them in place and who join up all the pipes. They’re the plumbers. Oh, and there’s the men who draw all the plans of the house on big sheets of paper so all the building men know what goes where. They’re called architects, and have to be paid, even more than the building men. If there were no plans, how would the building men know what goes where? Everything would be in all higgledy-piggledy, in a right old mess. You might go into the bathroom for a wee, and find the kitchen stove there! Or go upstairs to go to bed and find that all the bedrooms are in the cellar! So plans are very important.

Do you know how much building this big house is going to cost the rich man who is going to live in it when it’s finished? A million pounds, that’s what. Now your Mam and Dad might buy an ice cream for you, and it could cost a pound, one pound. Imagine, buying a million ice creams! That’s one for every little boy and every little girl your age in the whole of the country. But of course, most of the ice creams would have melted by the time they got to all the little boys and all the little girls. And you’d have to find thousands and thousands of ice cream vans to dish them out!

Grandad knows this man because Grandad is writing a book about this big house being built near where I live. When the house is finished, we’ll have a photograph taken of the house and all the people who helped build it. I reckon that’s about two hundred people altogether. The photograph of the house will go into the book of course, as well of lots of other photographs of men digging and building and so on. It’ll be a really interesting story, how this house was built from digging the foundations to putting the roof on top. That’s what the big crane is for, of course.

That’s what Grandad does, write books. You’ll be able to read them all some day.

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Dear Tom

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. Although I have never seen you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure. You’re three years old, and just now, you’ll be starting to exercise a little bit of independence. This is good. All our family have made their own way in the world – it’s part of what you’re made of. But don’t stray too far from your Mam and Dad, not just yet.

Me and Nana Ann have been watching a little gosling grow up. A gosling is a baby goose. There’s a pond near our house, and a big flock of black and white geese visit every year for a few months. They fly away in the autumn and return each spring. This year, two geese decided to make their nest on an island in the middle of the pond. This is the very first time this has happened. They nested on the island so that the foxes could not get to the nest – foxes won’t try to swim across the pond – and that would keep the eggs safe.

The mother goose laid five eggs. She sat on the nest for five whole weeks, moving just a little bit, but never leaving the nest. The daddy goose swam up and down on the pond, protecting her. Eventually, the eggs hatched and five little goslings appeared. Very soon they were swimming on the pond with their proud parents, mummy goose and daddy goose. These tiny little goslings were like balls of fluff and could easily float on top of the water. Then a terrible thing happened.

A flock of big, black crows attacked the little family. The parent geese tried to protect all their five little goslings, but the crows chased and chased them all over the pond. They were scattered here and there, and as quickly as mother and father goose went to help one gosling, another one would be attacked by the crows. One by one the little goslings were pecked to death, until there was only one left. But then mummy goose got on one side of the gosling, and daddy goose on the other. No matter what the crows did, they couldn’t reach the little gosling. Eventually the crows flew away, and the little gosling was left in peace.

Helped by its mummy and daddy, the little gosling grew a little bit each day. It started eating weed in the pond and grass on the banks. Mummy and Daddy goose never left its side. At night the baby gosling went to sleep with its mummy in the nest on the island, as daddy goose again swam up and down on guard. After a few more weeks the gosling had grown till it was almost as big as its mummy and daddy. Each day it flapped its wings a little more and more, until one day it was able to fly for the first time. When all the other geese returned to the pond, they were able to see the new baby goose that had grown up, the first to be born on the island in the middle of the pond. Now it is so big, we can’t tell it from all the other geese. But of course it's mummy and daddy can still tell. We don’t even know if it’s a boy goose or a girl goose. We have pictures of the baby goose, which we will show you one day.

Maybe you’ll be going to nursery school soon. Three and a half is a good age to start. You might already be going to a playgroup – I hope so. As you don’t have any brothers or sisters, it’s nice for you to play with other children. I hope your Mam and Dad take you swimming. I would have liked to take you to the swimming baths or to the seaside, even from when you were a tiny baby. Did you know that little babies can swim under water, and with their eyes open!

I reckon you’ve got three granddads and three nanas. There’s me, I’m your Mum’s Dad. Then there’s your Dad’s Dad, and there’s Grandad Paul who is married to your Nana, that's Nana Harriet who is your Mum’s Mum. Then there’s your other Nana, that's your Dad’s Mum and there's Nana Ann, who is married to me. All six of us love you dearly. Some children have eight grandparents, or even more. That’s because quite a lot of people marry more than one person. I used to be married to your Mum’s Mum. We had three children, your Mam, your Auntie Rosie and your Uncle Norman. Then I married Nana Ann.

I’ll post you another note tomorrow.

Take care, lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann