For Freddie by Rachael Bland

Author:Rachael Bland [Bland, Rachael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781789291353
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books

Chapter 11

THE HODGES

I do so hope that you still have my mum, your grandma, around whenever you’re reading this, Freddie. She adores you and you’re always giving her the biggest cuddles whenever you see her. Or ‘cwtches’ as we call them in Wales – a word she gets you using every time she comes up to visit us from Cardiff!

Gran and Grumpy were always amazing with how much time they gave up to look after you when I went back to work part-time when you were eleven months old. It meant we didn’t have to waste money we didn’t really have on expensive nursery fees. And they get to keep very busy with you and your cousin Barney trying to wreck the joint, before his older sisters, Imogen and Matilda, get home from school to help!

So every few weeks Grandma will come up for a week or so at a time and take over some of the Freddie Day Care! She has always wanted to help as much as possible in your upbringing and care, though has to make the 182-mile drive up from Cardiff with Tilly, her golden retriever, to lend a hand. At any age the drive up the M5/M6 can be a daunting one, but when you’re seventy-three and of a slightly nervous disposition then it can be terrifying. But Grandma has got it all down to a fine art now and while you’d never say her driving skills challenged those of Lewis Hamilton, you’d bet on them rivalling those of his gran! Whenever she arrives at the door, with an excited and barking Tilly leading the way, your eyes light up, you throw your arms around her and give her the ‘heart-melter’, ‘Grandma, I missed you’, and I know you have.

Grandma’s real name is Gayna Hodges, née Evans. She was born and brought up in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales in a town called Pentre. The Rhondda was synonymous with coal mining back then and her grandfather Herbert Russ and his brothers had moved there from Somerset some time during the 1890s to work down the mines. Daddy always teases me that I’m not really Welsh, as Grandad Hodges was English (though actually more Welsh than most, but we’ll get onto that) and Grandma’s family are English one generation back. I of course tell him he’s wrong! Interesting piece of family-tree trivia for you, Freddie: Herbert’s brother was a Frederick and his first son – Grandma’s uncle – was a Fred, born in 1893, so just a couple of your ancestors that your name was a nod to.

Grandma grew up on Volunteer Street in Pentre in one of the identical three-bedroom stone terrace houses that snaked their way up and down the rugged mountains of the valleys. She was the only child of Annis and Jack Evans, my Mama and Bampy. They were married for sixteen years before your grandma was born and had thought they couldn’t have children. Then World War Two broke out.

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