A very different ceremony for a grandparent

 Yesterday's was the anniversary of the demise of perhaps the world's most secretive grandfather. He was my mother's dad, and although I spent a few years of childhood just a room distant, I only ever saw him once, and that very, very briefly, as I mentioned yesterday.

Grandfathers seem to be such favourites with children, and usually vice versa, it seems

incomprehensible, inexplainable, that mine should have lived so apart from we children, although only a door stood between us.

I asked a younger brother - Chris, just two years my junior - what he recalled of the man.

The Rev Canon Christopher Rodgers replied from his home in Southland, New Zealand, where he lives close to his own grandchildren.

A grandmother's birthday

'TODAY (Wednesday), the day after the anniversary of my grandfather's death, my grandchildren celebrate the birthday of their grandmother.

'We travelled an hour to the Northern Southland small public house in the gold fields. Our four grandchildren, the oldest being 17 years and youngest,10 years, all have, still living, all their four grandparents.

'Yet when I have been challenged to reflect on my grandfather's life, I realise that I only can remember one of my two grandfathers. Strange how we take things in the past for granted especially when I can remember so many things about both grandmothers. ...

Continues on the blogs for my ocean adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, at SailingToPurgatory.com