Children are very lucky to have grandparents (Photo: Alamy)
‘Tell the children about chucking a stone at the Germans, Daddy,” I pleaded over lunch. My father didn’t need to be asked twice. Seventy years ago, as the son of a famous partisan leader (awarded a DSO by the British and hunted by the fascists), he was in hiding from the Germans, living with his aunt in north-west Italy. But when German tanks crunched down the village street, the temptation was irresistible. The convoy stopped. A Nazi officer jumped down from his tank.
Who’d cast the stone? The officer scoured the villagers who lined the street. My father, aged 8 (“Just like you, Isabella” he tells my daughter), defiantly stepped forward. The soldier made a gesture to show he would cut off his hand as punishment. The boy’s age moved the German to pity. He shouted a few more threats, but mounted his tank again.
I watched my daughter relishing this spontaneous history lesson: just one of many blessings her grandparents have bestowed on her (and her parents). The list includes babysitting, baking and piano lessons, cherry picking, and dresses with frills, flounces and obscene prices. All services are given free, and in an environment so safe that CRB checks are not required.
Grandparents are so crucial to our quality of life, I was not surprised to learn that an archaeologist credits them with promoting the dawn of culture. Professor Rachel Caspari of the University of Michigan has discovered that when homo sapiens began enjoying some degree of longevity, civilisation flowered. Leaving granny and grandpa in charge of the little ones, mummy and daddy could indulge in cave painting, trying new recipes (why not crush this wheat?) and fashioning flashy spears.
Grandparents continue to be indispensable. Today, they house their progeny, lend money, offer counselling, pay tuition fees and provide a haven to the distraught children of divorce. Having transformed us from hunter-gatherer to luvvy, they are now nothing short of life-savers.
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Bell Pottinger, the PR company founded by Tim Bell, coached Rebekah Brooks for her appearance before the House of Commons Committee for Culture, Media and Sport last week. But Brooks’s unconvincing performance was not in the same league as Lord Bell’s first PR triumph – Margaret Thatcher. With the late Sir Gordon Reece, he moulded Baroness Thatcher’s public persona – down to the bouffant hairdo and pearls.
This is why the producers of The Iron Lady, scheduled for release next January, signed up Stephen Sherbourne, until recently Lord Bell’s right-hand man, to help Meryl Streep with her portrayal of Lady T. Sherbourne said there was little to add to the actress’s extraordinary insight into her subject: Miss Streep had read a great deal about the former PM, knew about the workings of Parliament and was in superb command of her brief. If only the same could be said of Rebekah Brooks.
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Do you fume when someone asks you to meet them at the “train station” and then complains about the appalling “transportation”? These Americanisms get the good people at the BBC very worked up, according to its magazine.
The snooty corporation even flinched at words like “tremendous” and “lengthy”, whose origins lie across the Atlantic.
They invited readers to pitch in with their own pet peeves and gained fuming responses, offering “oftentimes” and “gotten” as examples. But someone hadn’t been checking their lexicon. It turns out that “oftentimes” comes from the King James Bible, and “gotten” from old English. I’m all for language policing, but let’s not be peevish about words simply because they come from America; far more offensive are leaden terms such as “appropriate”—which broadcasters and officials bandy about with, er, gay abandon.
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