Grandad

 My Grandad was one of six children and raised in a very strict Methodist family. His mother, driven mad by her children (according to my 3rd cousin) but potentially schizophrenic (according to my aunt) was sent to Sunbury Asylum when he was eight years old and was not released for another 35 years. 

Grandad was very creative and spent some of his life as a draughtsman until his male boss took too much of a shine to him and eventually started sexually harassing him to the point where Grandad, heterosexual, had to leave. He had four children with my grandmother and they lived initially in Surrey Hills. A set of fraternal twins, my dad and my aunt Felicity. He loved acreage and dreamt of being a farmer and took to the land with his older brother Harry until they didn't get on about whether the farm houses should have electricity or not. He eventually bought the former home of Lord and Lady Knox in Ferntree Gully. We loved visiting him there. It had a circular drive, two forests of pines that you smelt as soon as the car entered the property. The house was weatherboard and my grandmother had tamed a hoya to grow up the walls and there was a bright scarlet geranium with that unmistakable stench right near the front porch. The rear of the property was actually the grand entrance and to the right of the front door there was the living area with french doors that led to a paved patio. Grandad had a series of horse paddocks which he gladly agisted to some of the locals. There was also a bungalow with funny little man who lived in it. 

I was the first grandchild and according to my aunt, the obvious favourite because apparently I looked like a female version of my dad. Whenever he picked me up in his arms, my younger sister Rebecca would scream blue murder and demand to be picked up also.

He was very gentle almost to the point where my mother on several occasions suggested he was effete. He looked after himself, eating porridge with bran and raisins and sultanas every day, having an afternoon nap, going for a mile long walk and doing yoga. He was really into yoga and then so was dad and so was I.