The first time I met grandma Fred was in 1999. I was only nineteen years old, Ben and I had been together for ten months and he had taken me to Devon, to meet his family in his mum's chocolate box cottage. I had been amazed upon arrival - after a very long bus ride from London - at how picturesque it was.
I remember grandma Fred so well, looking so very much like a grandmother, sitting at the dining room table under the beams. I remember timidly asking her what I should call her. She looked me right in the eye and said, in her lovely old-lady tone:
"You might as well call me Fred. Everyone else does."
Fred. That wasn't on her birth certificate, of course. Her name was Jean, but apparently she always used to say "Right!" in the seventies, back when Right said Fred by Bernard Cribbins was in the charts. Ben's mum christened her Fred and the name, clearly, stuck. After that, at school, Ben would write stuff about his grandma Fred and the teacher would cross out the "m" and put a "p". (No, Mrs. Greene, his spelling is not *that* bad.)
When Ben went on his world tour in 1994 Fred insisted on ironing his underwear before it went in his backpack.
"Grandma, you know where this is going, right?" he told her, but to no avail. Ironed the undergarments were, before getting rudely scrunched into the pack and winging their way over to Canada.
Fred was sweet and gentle, and I will never forget how she came to my bachelor exam with Ben's dad, back in 2005.
She lived through the war, when she was evacuated out of London. She had three children, many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She lived to be ninety-six years old. A life lived fully.
Dear Fred, we're going to miss you loads. I am happy for you that you're free now though, no longer constrained by an ever-frailer body.
I hope you soar.
We love you.
