Tuesday 17 August 2010

THE GENERATION GAME: A Tale of Two Grandfathers


No wonder the Right and Left sides of my brain are constantly at war. I like to think they are personified by my two grandfathers.  My mother's father  Frank Gillam (above) was a dandy, gambler, a raffish character by all accounts.  He was a good artist too and I have some marvellous characatures he did of army officers in World War I.  Born in India, he spent most of his life in South Africa, doing what I have know idea, but he owned a Bugatti and was, my mama hastened to tell me, a 'gentleman' jockey.  He's reading 'Sporting Sketches' in this picture.  He survived the war but died young and I would love to have met him.  







By contrast, this is Philip Childs JP channelling Van Gogh.  He wasn't an artist, he was a provincial solicitor, magistrate and HM Coroner for Portsmouth and he was probably on holiday here. (I hope so!) His father was a pharmacist and his grandfather a 'tide-watcher' (port customs officer).  My grandmother, Mabel (not in the picture) would take her four sons and one daughter to the Isle of Wight and set up camp for the summer, hiring Pickfords removals to take all the canvas and kit by water and then horse and cart to Compton Bay.   Coming from a non-Conformist religious tradition, Grandfather was a teetotaller, but full of fun and occasional mischief. He was judicious and kind and never took himself too seriously.  The story goes that he was late back from the office for lunch one day.  Granny went out into the road and saw the coalman's cart approaching with her husband sitting up alongside the driver, a client of his.

I suppose another way I always sum up the difference between these two men is that in The English Civil War, Philip Childs would have been a Roundhead and Frank Gillam a Cavalier. Definitely. Meanwhile I permanently feel conflicted between these two opposing inherited strands of my character.  Creative tension, I guess.







11 comments:

  1. I LOVE this post - I have never seen the second image although the combination of both of them looks just like grandad - who is the lady in front?

    ReplyDelete
  2. What wonderful pictures. I like the slight smirk on Frank's face!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Poll, that's grandfather's mother with her string bag and Benjamin Bunny tam o'shanter. Funny eh.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hannah, thank you. He was clearly contented there.

    ReplyDelete
  5. always love to hear where people come from :-) great pictures!! Grandparents, I think, are even more important to your developement (at least if they're around) than even parents I think.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great post. I love genealogy and am rather addicted to Who Do You Think You Are. The Actor and I had our biggest row over which one to watch first Boris Johnson or Patsy Kensit, we had BOTH on the Sky plus... crackers xx

    ReplyDelete
  7. AD Looking back at that generation, I am surprised how much grandparents 'come through' in their grandchildren.

    Christina - that programme on Boris Johnson was riveting,eh.

    ReplyDelete
  8. HOME BEFORE DARK: my apologies, I deleted your comment by mistake and now can't publish it. You wrote:

    "Love the pictures and the dip into your gene pool. My image of the moment of conception is like a giant roulette wheel. Always fun to see how the parts and pieces of our relatives have shaped us. "

    The giant roulette wheel analogy is spot on. Brilliant.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I loved the pictures and your comments. My own "grand" generation is nearly non existent so being able to share yours is warmly rewarding.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Linenqueen, thank you. Sorry it so long to publish - I was away on holiday.

    ReplyDelete

 
Related Posts with Thumbnails