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My mother’s mother was the wife of a soldier who served in India, and she had stories of scorpions in the tent and such. She lived with us for some time when I was a boy. I remember sometimes feeling guilty that I might not have always have treated her with proper love and respect in our quite crowded domestic circumstances. I also remember visiting her in hospital, when she was unconcious and near to death. I would have been fourteen or so, and placed a loving kiss on her forehead soon before she did die.
My father’s father was also a soldier who served in the first world war, and who was a craftsman in England, and then a successful building contractor. One of his houses was built for Sir Oliver Lyle (of Tate and Lyle) in Sevenoaks in Kent, and in recent years I found a letter, among a few documents kept by my father from Sir Oliver to my father who was then 23.