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”

Building falling down

I am you 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 am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

Did you see on the tv today that big building that fell down in London? There was a man trapped, so I hope they will get him out ok. Nana Ann works very near where this building is, and I've walked past it many times, so we are very lucky not to have been there. One man got out of his van just seconds before a big lump of concrete fell onto the van and crushed it. That was one of his nine lives gone!

Nana Ann came out of work to find that her usual bus just didn't come. That's because it had to go a different way because of this building collapsing and forcing the police to block off all the roads around. Anyway, there are plenty of other buses for her to go on. But she did see the big crane on its way to the scene to help clear the rubble away from this man who was trapped.

Today I went to the printers to see the cover of one of my books that's just being printed. It does look good, (and not just because it's got my name on it). I chose the picture on the front cover and it looks very nice. I'll get the whole book in a few days' time, just to add to my collection. You'd better learn to read pretty soon, because you've got a lot of catching up to do with my books!

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”

Racing disaster

I am you 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 am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

You know Grandad runs races against other old men the same age as me. Well, if you remeber I was very close to two men who beat me last time. After doing some good training, tonight was to be the night I took my revenge and beat these guys! But it was not to be. Just as the gun went for my first race (a 100 metres sprint, not really my cup of tea) I felt a muscle go in my leg and I had to hobble down the track, very slowly of course, to finish well behind everybody else.

It was the same in my other two races, I had to hobble round them as well, but it was important I did them because we get points for every race we run in, three races at each meeting. I'm annoyed, nit just beacuse I finishes last (again) but because I'll now have to rest my leg for a few days and hope it gets better quickly. The fact is, the older you get, the more stiff you get and so you can easily get a starin despite warming up whcih I always do.

The good news is that there are three television channels intetested in filmming my new book (the one I haven't written yet!) but we've been this way before. You can discuss getting on a programme with the people from the television companies for weeks and weeks and still find that none of them do anything at the ned of the day. The fact is, there are far more people (like me) who want to get on the telly than there is room for us! So we'll just have to keep trying.

I would love to be on the telly and have your Mum and Dad see me and say - look who that is! Then you would at least know what I look like! I know what you look like!

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”

Planning a trip

I am you 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 am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

Grandad does enjoy travelling, and planning a trip is almost as enjoyable as going on it. This week I'm going to lots of different places, and that means booking into an hotel or bed and breakfast place for two nights. Of course I want to stay in the cheapest place possible, so that means a lot of searching on the web. Anyway, I've found two cheap places to stay.

Next thing to do is to get my video camera working. I'm going to make a video diary of my travels! But I'm not very good with technical things, and Nana Ann isn't here to show me how to work it. I did work it a long time ago, but now I've forgotten a lot of it. So I've arranged to go and seea friend of mine, and he will tell me what to do.

I usually send postcards to various relatives from all the places I go to. I think this week I'll send you one or two postcards, just in the hope that you'll get to see them. I can promise you there will be some interesting ones.

So there's lots of work for Grandad to do to get everything ready before I go, so I'll sign off now.

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”

Nana Ann and the wonky piano

I am you 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 am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

Remember yesterday I told you about Nana Ann going to the Royal Festival Hall on the south bank of the River Thames in London and getting a free ticket to go in and see the show - well, today she did the same again. This time the show was a very famous pianist. Nana Ann and everybody else had to wait a long time to go in and see this lady, so the show started very late.

This lady pianist, who is one of the best in the world, did not seem to be playing very well. Nana Ann couldn't understand what was wrong. The lasy finished palying that particular piece of music, and there was only a little bit of applause instead of lots of clapping like there usually is. Then there was an interval, and the lady came back in the play her second piece - she was going to play three oieces altogether. Then, all of a sudden, this lady stopped playing the piano. She said that some of the keys on the piano were sticking the first time she played them. So when she tried to play them a second time, they would not play the note!

The pianist said she was very sorry, but she could not carry on playing. In fact, although she didn't say so, this piano was a wonky piano. Everybody understood what was wrong, and they knew it wasn't this lady's fault. So they gave her a big clap this time. Probably what has happened is that, when they were doing up the theatre, there would be a lot of painting and plastering going on and that would mean the piano would get a bit damp, even if it was covered up. There's a lot of wood inb a piano, and when wood gets damp it swells up - just like the door in your house could swell and start to stick in the winter when there's been a lot of rain. And probably the concert started late beacuse they were trying to fix the wonky piano!

Nana Ann went on the roof of the Festival Hall, or near the top anyway, and she was able to see all over the River Thames - not as high at the LOndon Eye (which I'm absolutely sure you've been on) but still high up enough to get a good view.

As for Grandad, well I went to a meeting I'm afraid. I don't go to so many meetings as I use to, but I can't give them up entirely. As well as the meeting I ran a little bookstall and sold a few of my books, so that helped pay for the petrol (or rather diesel in my case).

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”

Nana Ann at the Festival Hall

I am you 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 am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

It's about time I told you what Nana Ann is doing, that's when she's not working of course. The one thing that Nana Ann really likes is anything that's free. Well, today she found out that they were giving away free tickets to go to the Royal Festival Hall on the south bank of the River Thames. Grandad Kit went there many, many years agi when I was a boy and the Festival Hall had just been built. Now it has been made new with new shops and restaurants, and more room inside.

So today they had a special show so that peope could go and enjoy the show and also see what the Festival Hall is like now is has been "done up" as they say. Also, this is not far from where you live and I would guess your Mam and Dad have alreday taje you there. During the summer, there are always shows on, inside and out. There are bands and performers of all sorts.

The best thing this time was, when Nana Ann came out of the Festival Hall, there was a choir singing on a boat going down the Thames. Ace!

Grandad has been out and about today, seeing men about dogs (now you know what that means!

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”

Grandad might be on the telly!

I am you 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 am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

Yes, today Grandad had some great news about possibly being on television. It's only a possibility at the moment, but it could be very good indeed with a complete programme or maybe even a series. But let's not get too carried away, but I wanted you to be the first to know. I have't even told Nana Ann yet. I know ehat she'll say "I'll believe it when I see it!" but secretly she'll be pleased.

What happened was, well, you remember the new book I'm going to write that I heard about this week, the onte with lots of pictures in it? Well, one of the television stations has said they might, might mind you, might be interested in making a film of it. It's nice and its horrible at gthe same time, hooing that it will come off but at the same time realising that the odds are against it. But we can dream!

Tomorrow I'll have to be up early in the mroning to go up to Newcastle before the rush hour. The roads get so jammed up with traffic, you have to go early or late - nothing inbetween. I'll be going through the Tyne Tunnel under the River Tyne - that's an experience you should have one day - and at times you have to wait anything up to half an hour to get through!

One of the reasons I like living here in the North is because there is not anything like as much traffic as there is in the South, but at times!!!

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”

About Grandad in the paper

I am you 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 am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

Today a man came all the way from Glasgow to talk to me. He is from a newspaper who want to write about me and my latest book. I hope there will be a good, big article in the newspaper, so that lots of people will go out and buy my book and Grandada will get some money and not rely on Nana Ann all the time.

This man was aksing me about when I was a little boy, just like you. This is what I told him. The very first day I went to school I was only three and a half - younger than you are now. In those days you had to pay to have your little bottles of milk at school. I don't think they do that now, perhaps some schools give their children milk. Anyhow, I went with my mother to see the headmistress who asked if I would have one or two of these little bottles of milk each day. They cost one penny for each bottle of milk.

If you had one bottle every day, that was five days a week, and so it would cost five pence each week. If you had two bottles of milk each day, for five days a week, that would be ten bottles altogether, so the cost would be ten pence a week. My mother said she wanted me to have two bottles of milk each day, and the headmistress said that would be ten pence for the week. So my mother paid the ten pence and said goodbye to me. I wasn't upset atall. I was lloking forward to going to school, and I wondered what it would be like.

Everything went well with my first lesson in class. My new class teacher was very nice and I was able to answer the questions she asked me (I don't think theye were very difficult questions!). Then came the mid-morning break, and into the classroom came a big boy with a crate of milk, lots of little bottle of milk. The big boy was the monitor and his job was to hand out the bottles of milk to the boys and girls. So we lined up and went forward to collect our bottls of milk before going back to our desks and drinking it - through a straw which went into a little round hole in the top of the milk bottle.

When I got to the front, the milk monitor, this big lad, gave me a bottle of milk. Now I knew that my Mam had paid for me to have two bottles of milk each day, so I held the bottle he gave me in one hand and took another bottle of milk in my other hand, so I had two bottles of milk, one in each hand. Then the milk monitor, this big boy, tried to get one of the bottles of milk from me, but I wouldn't let him and I hung on really tight.

"Give me that bottle back!" said the boy, as we wrestled away in front of the whole class, who were looking on in amazement. Although this boy was a lot bigger than me, I would not let go of my precious two bottles of milk. "My Mam's paid for me to have two bottles!" I shouted. Then the teacher came over to see waht all the commotion was. "He's taken two bottles of milk!" said the milk monitor. "My Mam's paid for them!" I shouted back.

Then the teacher explained to me. "You'll get your second bottle of milk in the afternoon break," she explained. I didn't even know there was an afternoon break! So I handed back one of the bottles of milk, and went back to my desk to drink the other one. But I made sure I got my second bottle of milk in the afternon!

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann