An introduction to Great Grandfather - letter 1

 

The first letter to my grandchildren about my life...

The 4th of October 2021 (only ten days until the Battle of Hastings) 

Yesterday, well Sunday the third of October - by the time this card reaches you yesterday will be a different date - was Granny’s (on your Father’s side) father’s birthday. This means that he was your Great Grandfather. How coincidental that he would have celebrated his birthday, one day after your Mother. 

Now your great grandfather worked as an accountant in the City of London, also known as the City. Your father also worked there. Your Great Grandfather was a very good singer with a High Tenor voice. He was often called into St. Paul’s Cathedral which is in the City of London. He was asked to sing permanently, but his choice was either to sing or marry his wife. You can probably imagine the answer. That is why we are all here. Also singing would mean that he would have to sing seven days a week. I don’t know which was easiest?

His name was Charles Victor Best and he was born on the 3rd of October 1898, two years before the twentieth century. He was born in Homerton in Middlesex in England to William Best and Flora Gulliford. 

He was called up at the age of eighteen to go to France to fight in the Great War. This is now known as the First World War. He went to the Somme and Arras. He was gassed with a gas called Mustard Gas at the Somme and was invalided out. 

He taught himself French and helped the billeting officers (they found beds and French houses for the officers to sleep in instead of sleeping in large canvas bell tents). Granny thinks he must have played the bugle as well. She thinks this because he won a competition many years ago by playing a Swiss Alpine horn in Switzerland and he knew how to purse his lips to form a perfect embouchure to get that seal around the mouthpiece. 

He was going to war with the City of London regiment, but he changed his mind  - luckily for him as that regiment didn’t do very well. Instead, he joined his friends in the Middlesex Regiment which was known as the Footballers Battalion. He didn’t like the mud on the farm. He was tall and strong and he had to cross rivers in Belgium on the way to the battlefields. So he would carry shorter men under each arm to get them through the rivers. He would also be wearing his full kit and rucksack. 

When he went to Pisa with Granny in around the 1950s, he and Granny both went up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. However, Granny stopped halfway as the lean was getting too much for her. But your great grandfather got all the way up to the top. Now, do you remember me telling you that he was a great singer? He was being shown the Baptistry when the guide asked if there was anyone who could sing. He sang four separate notes but due to the architecture of this place, the notes came back as one chord (when all the notes come back as one - but you know this because I hear you are doing singing lessons). I wonder what they do in a Baptistry, I bet you know. 

He also spoke to a Swiss waiter who had charged him incorrectly for a meal. So your great grandfather asked to see the head waiter and he spoke to him in German that the bill was added up incorrectly and showed him where it was wrong. Can you imagine this on Tripadvisor?

So as you see, sometimes, when you see an elderly gentleman or woman, remember that they have had a life before you see them. I hope that you have a good rest of the week and we both look forward to seeing you soon.