Douglas Verdun Rivett - A Tribute

At around 4.30pm yesterday, my paternal Grandfather passed away.

He was 92 years old, was failing slowly in all manner of ways, and much to his disgust was reduced to reliance on others for his most basic needs in a nursing home.

This isn't therefore a treatise on how sad his passing, but a reflection on the happiness that he brought to myself and my siblings.

Doug's rather unusual middle name was due to the nature of his own conception, or at least the ability of his own Father to be there to conceive. The story as I understand it is that Doug's father had been at the Battle of Verdun in the Great War, and had his life saved by a Captain Douglas.

For as long as I can remember Douglas and my Grandmother Pamela lived in a cottage facing Hainault Common in Chigwell Row. Doug worked for Tate and Lyle in their factory on the Royal Docks, and supported West Ham. He loved Motorcycles, and small yappy Pekingese dogs, of which they owned several. The house was small, had a door at the foot of the stairs, decorative plates on a small shelf around the top of the walls and a downstairs bathroom that held a large tub of brylcreme.

When we visited, we would walk the dogs on the common, sit in their beautifully and carefully kept Garden, and hunted the shed at the bottom for the model aeroplanes that where kept within. Ploughman's was often the lunch of choice with fiercely mature Cheddar Cheese and mouth drying home made pickled onions.

He retired the year that my Brother and Sister where born, and I really don't remember him as anything but a slightly gruff man of strong beliefs and convictions, who had married young and had remained devoted to my Grandmother until her sudden and unexpected death. Since then, he has struck me as a desperately lonely man whom had lost his raison d'etre.

The Cottage went, and he moved to Gerrards Cross where his bond with my younger sister Vanessa grew and grew. They would do the crosswords and the lottery together, and she chivvied him about his drinking and his health. she visited him every day, and was tearfull when I spoke to her about him being in the nursing home last weekend, she hated that he was so unhappy.

Now he is no longer unhappy, who knows maybe his spirit is back with his beloved Pam and their friends who have passed over the years.

I loved him very much, and I know that there are many other people out there whose lives where touched by the cheery old gent with the ridiculous dogs. I will miss him of course, but am glad that he's been released from the things that made his life sad.

Self Indulgent as this might seem, I wanted to write it for myself, so that I could remember the good times. I have no care for your opinion.