A eulogy for Grandad

Hello, everyone. I'm Ben, and Frank was my grandad. Some of you knew him as Frank, some as Mitch, and quite a few of you, I'm told, as the man who never gave back a borrowed ladder.

Grandad was born in Portsmouth in 1938 and did his National Service in the Navy, which he talked about as if it had been one long holiday. My gran says it was not. He came home, became a postman, and walked the same round in Southsea for thirty-four years. He used to say he knew every dog on it by name, and most of their owners by the dog.

He married Gran in 1961. They had my mum and Uncle Paul, and later four grandchildren, who he treated as an audience for his magic tricks. He had exactly three tricks. He did them for thirty years. We never worked out the one with the coin.

His allotment was his other home. He grew runner beans that won nothing at the village show, every single year, and he entered them every single year. He said the point was not winning. Gran says the point was the tea tent.

What I will miss most is how he listened. When I failed my driving test the second time, everybody else told me it didn't matter. Grandad asked me what went wrong, sat in the passenger seat of his old car every Saturday for a month, and never raised his voice once, even at the roundabout by the station.

He was a proud man, and the last couple of years, when he needed help with the things he used to do for everyone else, were hard for him. But he never lost his manners. He thanked every carer by name, and tried the coin trick on most of them.

Grandad, thank you for the Saturdays, the beans and the coin I still can't find. I passed on the third go, and I still check my mirrors at that roundabout. Goodbye, Grandad.