little purls of my grandmother's wisdom

This beautiful woman, frolicking in the countryside in a tea dress and pincurls is my very own grandmother. This week it will be her 90th birthday and we will be celebrating by throwing her a tea party for her and her friends.
When I was a child, my grandmother lived in our family home and would look after me whilst my mum was at work and this led to a rather complicated bittersweet relationship, both of us having fairly headstrong personalities that did not always meet eye to eye. As I grew into a young adult, I am sorry to say that I lost a lot of respect for her, mainly due to what I perceived as her very traditional imperialist attitudes, casual racism and snobbery. I distinctly remember sitting with my gran watching the run up to the 1987 General Election and her explaining to me that the Labour Party would take my parents' hard earned cash, to give to lazy men to spend in the pub. This concept was hard to grasp at 7 years old, but I am ashamed to say that I accepted this belief as the general truth for some years... until I discovered The Levellers at the age of 13 and went through a phase of fantasising about running away with Swampy to live in a tree. As I grew up, Grandma became very frail and confused, and along with this her stubborn sharpness became more pronounced and I began to visit her less and less. When I did, she began to forget who I was and this was upsetting a frustrating for both of us.In my late 20s I rediscovered the joys of knitting (it had been her that had patiently taught me this skill) and developed a fascination with the strong, independent women of the 1940s. I found a new warmth and admiration for my grandmother and a deep respect for the courage, strength and determination of her character. My gran has been handed one hell of a mixed bag of life experiences and by exploring the ups and downs of her lengthy life, it has become easier for me to be sympathetic to her sometimes rather cold exterior.
If you look closely at the picture of this youthful, rather coquettish looking young woman above, in a terribly daring bathing costume enjoying her honeymoon, you will notice some severe scarring below her left knee. In her early 20s my gran's home was bombed in the Hull Blitz, tragically killing many of her nine siblings and blowing off her leg. The leg was recovered and rather crudely reattached, but one would imagine the mental scarring of this terrifying incident must run much deeper.In her 30s, Grandma was very fortunate to have the exciting opportunity to relocate to Egypt, as my grandfather had learned how to build aeroplanes during the war and was now a flight engineer for BOAC. She surrounded herself in 50s glamour, leading a very privileged and luxurious ex-pat lifestyle with servants and wild all-night parties, while her Egyptian nanny looked after my mother and uncle. The glitz ended abruptly with the outbreak of the Suez Crisis in 1956- my grandfather was taken hostage and my grandmother had to flee the country with her children, leaving most of her possessions and her husband behind. It was many months before they were eventually reunited in England.
My grandmother was widowed in her 40s, having nursed my grandfather through a devastating battle with terminal cancer. With two dependent children and bills to pay, she took a job in a local toyshop and carried on proudly keeping her family home afloat.
The frail, confused and rather dishevelled old lady that my gran has now become seems to bear no resemblance at all to the glamorous and forthright woman in the photos, or who I remember as a child. I remember being fascinated with a large basket of costume jewelery that sat on her dressing table- she never left the house without a long string of beads around her neck, stylishly tied in a knot.
It is this woman, in all these stages of her colourful life ,that I have developed a deep love and affection for and now, as a more worldly-wise and weathered woman myself, I am profoundly proud to call her my Grandma. After all she has survived so far, I have every confidence that in 10 years' time, I will again be reflecting on our relationship, whilst planning the celebrations for her 100th birthday party!