EVERY INCHIE MONDAY MAY 7, 2012

A couple of weeks ago, our Inchie theme was 'make-up'.

This week, our theme is 'grandfather' and, for me, the two themes are related.

No, my grandfather didn't wear make-up!  I'll explain in a minute.

Here is my Inchie for this week:

Grandfather

This is my rendition of a beautiful gold locket that belonged to my paternal grandfather. It is 14K gold with a tiny diamond in the middle. I believe my grandmother gave it to him when he went to war, and he wore it throughout his time on the battlefield, and I am assuming it had photos of them both in it. The story goes that one day he lost the locket in the midst of a battle. Heartbroken, he later returned to look for it and he found it!

Ultimately, the locket was bequeathed to me.

The photo I used for our "make-up" Inchie not only showed me experimenting with my mother's powder compact, but I was also wearing my grandad's locket. I still have it to this day, although it is kept locked away, for safekeeping. There is a little dint in the back which apparently happened while it was lost.

This is a larger version of that photo, hand-colored by my mother.

She managed to give me stunning brown eyes and luscious lips!

(More interesting info on the old-fashioned method of hand colouring photos, which is now apparently coming back into fashion, can be found here and here)

I probably remember more about our paternal grandfather than my sister, ChrisJ, as I am somewhat younger than she is and used to spend many of my summer vacation days with my grandma and grandad. He was a lot of fun. He was always joking around, and especially liked to dress up.

Here he is dressed, according to the notation on the back of the photo, as "The Muffin Man."  I remember seeing him dressed up like this, but I was very tiny when this photo was taken and I think I was a little scared!

I think he was probably singing the children's song:

Oh, do you know the muffin man,

The muffin man, the muffin man,

Oh, do you know the muffin man,

Who lives in Drury Lane?

(click here to find all the verses - I thought there were only two!)

The photo was taken in front of Powis Court, Bushey Heath, Herts - the home of Sir David Rutherford. My grandad was his chauffeur for many years.

I have lots of lovely memories of my grandad!