Ticketty-boo

My Gran was born in 1904 and I think she might have been what you used to call a flapper in the 1920's. She taught me how to do a "real" shuffle when I was 8 years old, and made me into a real card sharp. Every time she came to stay, which was often, we would spend our days playing Gin Rummy.

She was born and grew up in India, and moved to England when she was in her late 50's. I think she had spent most of the time in India playing Mah Jong and Gin Rummy, but her husband, my grandfather, died just after I was born and she had to come to England with very little money.

Not to be put out, my ever-inspired and resourceful Gran got herself a job as a saleslady at Bentall's department store in Kingston, and a room in a house in New Malden with a chap who lived with his son. I often used to go and visit, and it was always very nice at Gran's, she lived as part of the family.

I don't think she'd ever worked in her life before she got the job at Bentall's. It must have been very hard for her.

The best thing about Gran was that she liked presents as much as I do. So every birthday and Christmas, she would appear with a box of presents that she had either made or bought herself, and each of them was wrapped. They were usually quite inexpensive. The point was that she had taken the trouble to find them or make them and wrap them, so there was always a lot of them.

That was the exciting part, the unwrapping. It was wonderful, because my Mum didn't like presents, either the giving or the receiving of them. My Dad did, but he was unfortunately a bit dictated to by my Mum on that point. So we were very reliant on Gran for presents.

Gran also sounded like the female version of a Billy Bunter book. Some of her favorite expressions were Jolly D, What-ho and the one I love most, Everything's ticketty-boo!