Practicing walking

My first memory is of learning to walk at my gramma's house. I was in the living room, with my back to the big window looking out onto the garden, stumbling towards the smiling, cheering faces of my parents, aunt and grandparents.

I could only have been a little over a year old, because my grandad died shortly before my second birthday. But I remember him sat in his chair, a place now taken by my aunt, wearing the thick-rimmed glasses that stand out most in my mind's eye. He must have been so ill, even then. Cancer is a terrible thing.

Still, I feel privileged to have had that one small memory of him. My dad's parents both died a little while before I was born, and Pook and Marv have only ever known Gramma, so I'm lucky to have got the chance to meet our grandad at all.