My Grandad

Taking a break from the building project for a moment, I'm going to post a little piece about my Grandad. He died seven years ago this week and he was the finest man I've ever known.

He was a Yorkshire miner of humble beginnings who went down the pit at the age of 14 as a "Bevin boy". He worked his way up through self-education and sheer hard work to become a mining engineer with responsibility for several pits in the Worksop area. He married my Nana and raised two girls who he adored.

He was a keen footballer but he didn't like the way modern footballers conducted themselves. He was highly financially astute and had a deep understanding of investments. He voted Conservative.

He could build or fix anything. He loved ballet. He abhorred bad language. He was a very quiet man of absolute integrity. He was an excellent ballroom dancer. He had endless patience. He was utterly devoted to his wife and family.

I never heard him raise his voice in anger.

He was a true gentleman in every sense of the word. He was an enormous fan of this poem by Rudyard Kipling, and this is how he strived to live his life. He succeeded.

IF

If you can keep you head when all about you are losing theirs,
And blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait, and not be tired of waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies;
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, or talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoguhts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster,
and treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on a turn of pitch-and-toss;
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone;
And so hold on when there is nothing in you,
Except the will which says to them: "Hold on.";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute,
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Rudyard Kipling

Norman Hindley 1.3.1926 - 23.11.2003