grandad kit

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met 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.

Have you ever skated on the ice? No matter how young you are, you can start skating as soon as you can walk. Skating is great fun. Nowadays there are lots of open-air skating rinks where you can skate, with lots of coloured lights and music to make it more enjoyable. I’ve taken your cousin Elaine ice-skating, and she has enjoyed it very much.

The reason I mention ice-skating is that Nana Ann and I had a little trip to Bruges today, just for a couple of hours. In the market square there was a big ice rink with people skating on it. All around were market stalls, many of then selling hot drinks and hot food – all kinds of food, especially. Just what you need on a cold day! I had some hot soup, and it was delicious.

When Grandad was a boy, we used to go skating on the local reservoir when it was frozen over. Nowadays that hardly ever happens, as the weather is too warm to make the really thick ice for people to skate on. How can it be too warm in winter? Well it is cold still in winter, but not the deep, deep cold for weeks on end needed to freeze the ice in a thick, strong layer.

A thin layer of ice is of course very dangerous indeed, because when the ice is thin you can easily fall through it. So you should never go on a lake or a pond that is frozen over, because almost certainly the ice will be too thin to carry your weight.

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met 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.

Grandad is in Brussels today, as I've told you. Now there are some nice buildings in Brussels, but nothing like as many as London or Paris. One thing you would like are the fountains in the square near wher I go. Mostly fountains are there to be looked at, because they are pretty. You're not supposed to get into the fountains and splash around, although some people do, especially when they are celebrating or they've drunk too much.

But here in Brussels there is a fountain that you can play in. It doesn't have a big bowl of water, like most fountains. Mostly it's just flat stones that you can walk on. But there are lots of small holes in the stones, and every so often the water comes out with a burst into the air. If you're standing too close, you get soaked. Then the water stops coming out of that hole, and all is still; no water springing up. Then, all of a sudden, water starts spurting from another hole. Then that stops, and another one starts, and so on. Sometimes only one hole is spurting water, sometimes two or three or more, and sometimes none atall. You just can't tell.

So the game is to guess which hole is going to spurt water next and which isn't; the loser is the one who gets soaking wet first. But you don't have to come to Brussels to have a game with a fountain. There's one just like it in London, close by the City Hall where Grandad was yesterday.

Soon I'll be going to the station to meet Nana Ann who is on the Eurostar train frrom London to Brussels right now.

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Dear Tom

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met 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.

Grandad was in London again today, for a meeting in the London City Hall – that’s where the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has his headquarters. At the bottom of the building is a big open space, and the whole floor is covered by a carpet. Not just an ordinary carpet, but a carpet that has a map printed on it, a great big map of the whole of London!

Now if you come to London City Hall with your Mam and Dad, you’ll be able to see this map. In fact, you can walk all over it. Even better, you can see exactly where you live, where your street is and where your house is. It’s just as if you were up in an aeroplane and looking down on the ground.

Grandad will be up in an aeroplane tomorrow, very early in the morning. I’m flying to Brussels (yes, more meetings I’m afraid) but this time Nana Ann is going to go to Brussels as well. She won’t be flying in an aeroplane, she’ll be travelling in that very fast train that goes under the sea through the Channel Tunnel. Do you remember the name of this lovely train? It’s called the Eurostar train, and it’s very fast indeed but also very smooth. I did say that Nana Ann couldn’t get to see me in Brussels this time, but I was wrong. I’ve been so busy with my new book, I’ve completely forgotten that she said she would come! Silly Grandad!

I’ll be seeing Nana Ann in Brussels after my meeting, and then I’m sure we’ll go for a nice meal together. That’s what happened today. After I had finished my meeting and Nana Ann had finished her work, we went to our favourite café and had some tea. I showed Nana Ann my new book, which is nearly finished, and she said it was very good. You’ll read it one day, I’m sure.

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Dear Tom

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met 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.

I wonder if you’ve ever been in a graveyard? Usually graveyards are next to churches, but not always. Maybe you think graveyards are spooky, because a whole lot of dead people are buried there. But to me and Nana Ann, graveyards are not spooky atall. They can be very interesting.

The reason why graveyards can be interesting are the gravestones. These are the big flat stones, either standing straight up or lying flat on the ground. What makes them interesting is what is written on the gravestones, written in stone in fact. A clever man or woman with a chisel can chip out the words on the stone. These people are called stonemasons. And what they write on each gravestone is all about the people who are buried there.

And it’s not just the names of the dead people. Usually gravestones tell you when they were born and when they died. And if it doesn’t say how old they were, you can work it out. But there’s often a lot more. You can sometimes find out where the people were born, who they were married to, how many children they had, the names of their children and so on. So people like Grandad and Nana Ann who are interested in finding out who are our great-grandparents, great-great grandparents, great-great-great grandparents and so on. It’s very interesting indeed, and lots of people do it.

This time Grandad wasn’t looking for graves of our family – we’ve done that already – but I was looking for graves of a different family that I want to write about. Every family has lots of interesting stories to tell, especially about what happened long ago. Grandad likes to collect these stories to put in a book that you’ll be able to read some day.

Later this week Grandad is going to fly to the city of Brussels in Belgium to go to some more meetings. Nana Ann will stay in London, working. But she’ll still ring me every night, as she always does when we are apart. Perhaps one day I’ll get a phone call from you!

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Dear Tom

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met 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 Grandad went to a party for two friends who have been married for forty years. Lots of friends and relations were there, there was music and of course lots to eat and drink – sandwiches, cakes, crisps and lots of other nice things. There were so many people there that we couldn’t all fit into the one room, so some of us had to go into the kitchen!

These friends who have been married for forty years have a grown-up daughter who was there with her husband and their own baby daughter who is two years old – quite a bit younger than you. This two-year old baby daughter was playing in the kitchen, and I played with her for a little while. It made me so happy, but then I was a little bit sad because I would give anything to be able to play with you. I know lots of games and I know I could make you laugh!

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Dear Tom

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met 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.

I did promise to tell you what happened to Strumple the Farm Cat and Lot-Lot the Farm Dog who didn’t want to have a farm cat, but first I’m going to tell you another story about Wormy Worm. If you remember, Wormy Worm nearly got drowned when his burrow in the earth filled up with water when it rained heavily. Wormy Worm had to move to higher ground to dig a new burrow. There he thought he had bumped into another worm, but in fact it was only his own tail!

This time Wormy Worm was in danger from another source, but first he again found himself in danger of drowning – twice more! Now that Wormy Worm had made himself comfortable in a new burrow in the highest part of the field, it still wasn’t very high. So when it rained and rained and rained and rained for days and days and days, once again Wormy Worm found his burrow in the earth filing up with water. But this time he knew exactly what to do.

“If I don’t get out of this burrow pretty quickly,” he thought, “it will fill right up with water and I’ll drown.” So Wormy Worm quickly wriggled his way to the top of the burrow and peeped out. Worms are pretty good at wriggling. In fact, it’s amazing how far they can travel in juts a short time, considering they don’t have any legs. And when they come to the top of their burrows, worms do peep out. This is to make sure there aren’t any birds about. Because, as sure as sure, if a bird spots a worm it will grab it in its beak and swallow it whole, because to a bird a big juicy worm is a big juicy meal.

But Wormy Worm wasn’t too worried. He knew that, when it’s raining very hard, the birds mostly shelter in the trees and bushes until the rain stops. So when he got to the top of his burrow and looked around, there wasn’t a bird to be seen. They were all sheltering in the trees and bushes. It was safe for Wormy Worm to come out, at least for the present.

As usual, Wormy Worm kept the end of his tail in the top of his burrow, so that if a bird did come along and try to eat him, he could quickly slide back into the hole again. But that’s not what happened. Now I told you it was raining very heavily. As well as raining, the wind was blowing, very very strongly. And a particularly fierce blast of wind blew Wormy Worm into a little rut in the ground where the farmer’s tractor had gone and its tyres had pressed the ground down a little.

Wormy Worm laughed, even though the wind had turned him over and over as he rolled into this rut in the ground that the tyres had made. “I’ll just wriggle out of this rut and back to my burrow,” he thought. But before he could do that, Wormy Worm found himself being pushed along by a little trickle of water. You see, the rain had started to fill up this rut in the ground, and the water was running down the rut, ever so slowly.

But just as Wormy Worm tried to wriggle himself out of this little bit of water, he found that it go a bit deeper. And the water was running stronger and faster. An although he wriggled with all his might, Wormy Worm couldn’t wriggle faster than the water was running. But he still wasn’t worried. “As soon as this water stops running, I’ll be able to get out,” he thought.

But the water didn’t stop running. As Wormy Worm was swept along, the tiny little flow of water met another tiny flow of water, where two lots of tractor tyres had crossed, and together they made what is known as a rivulet. A rivulet is a tiny, tiny river, just a few inches wide and maybe an inch deep, but it was too much for Wormy Worm. He was swept along, faster and faster.

And soon the rivulet joined another rivulet, and together they became a small stream. Then the small stream joined another small stream, and together they became a big stream. And finally the big stream came into a river, taking Wormy Worm with it. Now he really was in trouble. Worms can swim, but only a little bit.

Wormy Worm wriggled and wriggled and wriggled, but he got swept along more and more. Soon Wormy Worm got very tired indeed, but fortunately, just as he was about to give up the struggle and stop wriggling, the river went round a bend and Wormy Worm was swept up onto a bit of sand at the side of the river. With his very last bit of strength, Wormy Worm pulled himself up the little sandbank and into some grass and leaves at the side of the river. Then he got under some dead leaves and immediately fell fast asleep, he was so tired.

In the morning Wormy Worm woke up. For a moment he wondered where he was. “Why aren’t I in my nice burrow in the field?” He asked himself. And then he remembered everything that had happened to him the previous day, when his burrow filled up with water and he had to get out, only to be swept away, into a steam and into a river. Wormy Worm had been very cold when he first settled down to sleep, but now he felt warm. The sun was shining on the leaves Wormy Worm was sheltering under. “I wonder where I am?” thought Wormy Worm, as he crawled out from under the leaves. But he did that without thinking.

In a flash, Wormy Worm found himself picked up and swung through the air. A bird had been looking through the leaves for things to eat, bugs and worms, and when Wormy Worm came out – snap! And the bird had caught Wormy Worm in his beak. “This is the end for me,” thought Wormy Worm, in a moment this bird will gobble me up.” But that didn’t happen. The reason was, the bird was taking Wormy Worm back to its nest to feed its chicks! The bird took off from the ground and soon it was flying high in the air, with Wormy Worm hanging from its beak!

Now it’s perhaps a good thing that worms can’t see very well. After all, they spend most of their time under ground where it’s dark. They find things by feeling and by smell, rather than seeing them. I Wormy Worm had been able to see, he would have seen the ground far below him, an it would probably have made him dizzy or even feel sick.

“What’s going to happen next?” thought Wormy Worm. He didn’t have to wait long. Along came another bird who wanted Wormy Worm for himself. “Give me that worm!” he called. “No, this worm is mine,” the first bird called back, and guess what? As soon as that happened, when the bird carrying Wormy Worm opened its beak to call back at the other bird, Wormy Worm fell out! Down and down and down through the air, and over and over and over, and round and round and round, fell Wormy Worm, making him quite dizzy. Then it was bump! As he landed in the wet grass. Fortunately, the wet grass made it nice and soft for Wormy Worm to fall on, and so he wasn’t hurt.

Wormy Worm could hear the two birds calling to each other. “That worm is mine, I saw him first!” called the first bird. “And I want that worm for myself!” called the other bird. It was just as well for Wormy Worm that the two birds were arguing. That gave him just enough time to get away. By a great stroke of luck, there was a hole in the ground very close by. Wormy Worm dived into it, and wriggled his way down to safety. And guess what? Wormy Worm was back in his own burrow!

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Dear Tom

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met 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.

A little while ago I told you about a marvellous film about penguins called “The March of the Penguins.” Nana Ann and I saw this film in London, and we both liked it very much, even though there were sad parts like when a penguin egg fell onto the ice. The ice is so cold, the penguin mummy and penguin daddy take it in turns to keep the egg warm by outing it on top of their feet and then covering the egg with the feathers on their tummy.

If they don’t keep the egg warm all the time, and especially if the egg falls onto the ice and gets frozen or cracked, the baby penguin inside will never be born. It’s when the mummy penguin and the daddy penguin are passing the egg from one to the other – and remember penguins don’t have any hands – that there is danger that the egg might slip off their feet and onto the ice.

Well, there’s another penguin film coming along very soon – next weekend in fact. Not this weekend that’s coming up now, the next weekend in a week’s time. This new film is called “Happy Feet”, and again it’s a film I’m sure you, your Mam and your Dad, will all enjoy. What a pity we can’t all go and see this film together! This new film, “Happy Feet”, is different from “March of the Penguins.” “March of the Penguins” is a real-life film: that is, actual penguins were filmed in the Antarctic – that’s the coldest place on earth – to make the film.

This new film “Happy Feet” is a cartoon film: that is, instead of photographing actual penguins in Antarctica where they live, a whole lot of clever men and women have drawn them and made their drawings into a film. Another difference is this. In a real-life film, of course the penguins can’t talk, but in a cartoon film, the penguins do talk and that’s one of the things that makes them very funny.

My Mam and Dad used to take me and my sisters to the cinema to watch films every week, often twice a week. Even when I was a little baby, my Mam used to take me to the cinema. She liked going to the cinema to watch films, and because there was no-one else to look after me at that time, she had to take me. I didn’t mind. And when we children were old enough to go to the cinema by ourselves, we used to go on a Saturday morning – that made it three times in a week.

In those days there were no televisions and no videos, so the only way we could watch films was to go to the cinema. But even today it’s still nice to go to the cinema to watch a film, especially if it’s a very special film. Nana Ann and I like to go to see films in London where you live, because very often that’s the only place we can see unusual films. We dearly hope to take you to the cinema one day.

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Dear Tom

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met 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.

Do you remember me telling you about the colours of the rainbow? Of course I can’t have done, because I’ve never yet seen you, yet alone spoken to you. But these letters are what I would like to say to you If I could see you every day, which I would love to do. A rainbow always the same seven colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

Grandad was on his travels again early this morning. The air was cool and clear, the sun was shining quite fiercely just after it had risen, and there was a little bit of rain about. In other words, ideal conditions for a rainbow to form. The one I saw was quite bright, but only part of a rainbow, only one side of the arch could be seen. But the way I saw it, the rainbow came down right to the ground, not far ahead of me. I could see exactly where the end of the rainbow touched the ground. So that’s where the fairy pot of gold is buried!

But, of course, the nearer I got to the rainbow’s end, the more it moved further and further away. In the end it had disappeared altogether, but not before I had seen a much fainter rainbow, a shadow of the other with the same colours, but this time in the opposite order. That’s because it’s a reflection and not the original rainbow.

When I came back the opposite way, the sun was in front of me. But this time there were black clouds coming over, so it was quite dark. But a few miles away, I could se that the sun was still shining there and there it was still very bright.

Nana Ann has read the story about Strumple the farm cat and she likes it very much. But she wants to know what happened to her with Lancelot the farm dog that didn’t like her. So I’ll have to tell you both before too long, perhaps at the weekend.

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Dear Tom

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met 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.

A couple of days ago I told you about Grandad going through a tunnel under a river. Of course, there are lots of tunnels going under the River Thames near where you live. There are tunnels for trains, tunnels for cars and lorries, tunnels for people waking and tunnels for people riding bicycles. But none of those tunnels are very long. But think about a tunnel that goes all the way under the sea! There is one, not many miles from where you live, and it’s called the Channel Tunnel because it goes under the English Channel.

The English Channel is really part of the sea, but quite a narrow part. It’s about twenty miles across this bit of sea from England to France, and quite a few people have swum across it. Until they built the tunnel under the sea, the only way you could get across the English Channel was in a boat or in an aeroplane. Now there is a tunnel, you can go across in a car or in a train.

Next week Nana Ann and I are going to Brussels, which is the capital of Belgium. We’ve both been there lots of times, especially Grandad, and we both like going there. Grandad is going to a meeting, as usual, but after that Nana Ann and I are going on a short train journey to another town in Belgium. I don’t know which town we are going to, because Nana Ann decides these things, and she likes to keep it a secret so it’s a surprise for me!

Now I am going to fly to Brussels, while nana Ann is going on a train. Not an ordinary train, but a very special train. Not only is this train going to go through the Channel Tunnel, it’s going to travel very fast indeed. And although this train travels very fast, it gives the people on it a very smooth ride. Not banging and bumping, like some trains do. This train is called the “Eurostar” train. I hope you go on it one day, if you haven’t done so already.

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Dear Tom

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met 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.

We have a very famous statue her in the North of England. It’s called “The Angel of the North.” You may have seen pictures of it, or you may even have seen it yourself when your Mam and Dad brought you up here to see your nana Harriet and Grandad Paul. It’s a great big statute, the figure of a man standing on top of a hill with two huge wings like aeroplane wings stretched out on either side.

But it’s only when you go up close that you realise just how big the Angel of the North is. I’ve taken you cousin Elaine there several times when she was a little girl, and she loved to climb up onto the Angel’s feet – and that’s quite difficult for a small person to do. I often see the Angel of the North on my travels, and I saw it again today.

Grandad was going to a library. No, not to borrow a book – I can do that in the library near where I live, or in the British Library in London which has millions and millions of books it it. I was going to this particular library because the librarian – that’s the lady in charge of the library – wants me to give a talk to some of the people who go there about my books. I’ve done this a few times in different libraries.

Libraries are great places to go to. They don’t just have books, they have videos and cds, toys for children to play and free computers for anyone to use, especially if they don’t have a computer at home. When I was a small boy, I used to go to the library a lot. As soon as I could read, I would go to the library and borrow a book every day, sometimes two or three books! I hope you’ll be doing the same one day. And when I used to stay with my Nana and Grandad – which was a lot – my Nana used to send me to the library in her town to borrow books for her. And take them back, of course. Because if you keep a book too long, you can be fined a small amount of money.

Oh yes, and another thing that happens in libraries is that children go there to listen to stories. Ask your Mam and Dad if this happens in the library where you live. I bet it does!

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann