She Did it Her Way...

Sadly, on Monday evening this week (the 23rd June), my Nanny Brown passed away (my paternal Grandmother). A not entirely unexpected event I guess, but a bit of a shock all the same. She had been suffering with the effects of many years smoking for quite some time (she had been permanently hooked up to a portable oxygen machine for the last couple of years, due to emphysema bought on my several years of smoking 40+ Benson and Hedges a day), in addition to quite bad arthritis which had affected her walking to the extent that she had an electric buggy, thyroid problems which caused her to pile on lots of weight, and some sort of blood problems which meant that she had to live on steroids and had no spleen to fight off infections etc... In fact, she did amazingly well to reach her 79th birthday - a real trooper. The thing that saw her off in the end was pneumonia, made worse by the emphysema... a neighbour and hairdresser found her unconscious and called paramedics, who stabilised her at first. However, by the time my Mum arrived and the paramedics had left (promising to return and deliver her to a hospice for some respite care), she had had a second relapse, which she didn't recover from. She died in hospital later in the evening, with my Dad, Mum, Sister and my cousin Robert at her side.

I feel really sad, of course... mostly for my Dad - who has lost all of his immediate family (both of his Parents and his Brother and Sister). I loved her, but perhaps we didn't have quite the standard Grandmother-Grandaughter relationship... in fact Nanny didn't really "do" standard relationships. She was an entirely unique, very 'colourful' character - not least in her use of language, which often came in many shades of blue ;-) I always associated that Les Dawson character with her - the housewife with the curlers and the large breasts, always ready with the snide comments and the sharp wit. She could be fantastically funny, in a 1970s stand-up comedienne kind of way... and could strike down even the most acerbic tongue with a few well placed quips which seemed to come from nowhere - leaving their victim in shocked silence, and her audience in fits. She could also be very loving, when in the mood. She always called me her bonny lass - and if you chose to believe her, you would imagine that all her children and grandchildren were at the top of the ladder in terms of their looks and career. Mark was an aircraft pilot of course, I was a best-selling author on some days, or a computer genius who could rival Bill Gates on others, Tracy owned department stores across all of East Anglia and Robert was a footballer on a par with David Beckham.

Her life reads like a tragic novel... I honestly couldn't describe it here (I wouldn't have the words), and anyway you wouldn't believe it if I did. Melodrama doesn't come close to describing it. From that point of view she did amazingly well to form any sort of relationships or friendships with anybody - which she did. Although of course, at any one point there were several people on her black list, and several people that were 'flavour of the month' or year. Thankfully, distance meant that I generally fell into the latter category. The closer you were to her, the more likely you were to feel her wrath.

Anyway... all of that aside. Its odd that I wont be seeing her again. I will miss her. There are so many stories about her... many of which make me smile. She had a totally unembarrassed approach to life - and would chance anything to get what she wanted. She often played the clown, but was also a bit of a sad figure... wracked with grief over the untimely deaths of two of her three children. I raise a glass to her (she actively encouraged me to drink pints to "save time at the bar"), and in the words of dear old Frank, I can honestly say "The record shows, she took the blows... and did it her way!".

Sleep well Nanny. Don't let the buggers get you down

xxxx