Glad I'm not alone in feeling I might be missing something. Surely anyone who can help bring up a child should be welcomed, especially these days? Children need any good influences they can possibly have.
I can't imagine my childhood without my grandfather. I was so lucky it's ridiculous! Dadah was happy to change and wash my nappies, feed me, bathe me, any of the millions of things babies need.
I can still hear him singing me to sleep with old music-hall songs. Reciting Shakespeare, Yeats, A.A. Milne. ('I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!') Responding with infinite kindness and patience to the endless refrain 'Tell me about India ...' His humour, integrity, curiosity, and complete lack of self-importance. His love of theatre, literature, history, and - most of all - of people and of life. His joy in running about, dancing and playing as if he were a child himself - looking back, I can't believe his vitality. He was like someone in his twenties till he was eighty-odd! (Wish I'd inherited that.) His unshakable belief in the value of every individual and refusal to close any part of his mind or heart. What I owe him, as well as my mother and grandmother, could never be expressed. Every day I have the examples of three remarkable people who lived love with every fibre of their beings. I wish I could be more like them - live more fully the goodness that they proved can be. But at least I've got the chance, and it's because of all three of them (and later, in many ways, my step-father).
The quiet times, reading or looking into the fire, just silently enjoying each other's company. The daft times, demonstrating a funny walk he'd seen or launching into his bang-on impressions of Peter Lorre or Sir Thomas Beecham. You can't put a price on the priceless, you can't put limits on love, and I can't for the life of me see that it matters if anyone who truly loves a child is male or female.
Not to mention the fact that a good grandfather can make life infinitely easier for Grans!
And here I'll end my little 'In Praise of Grandfathers' moment. Good grandparents are 
and 
to their grandchildren. Hugs to all who love and care for the young and vulnerable.
