george roberts

George was born in 1944, born into a post-WW2 Britain of cobble streets, coal fires, the first television sets and packs of dogs that roamed the streets unsupervised. He grew up in Sunderland in a shared house with another family. It was a cramped house, with multiple people sleeping in each bedroom and an outhouse in the garden used as a toilet.

An early memory of his, from his teenage years: a friend turning up at his door with a motorbike. He jumped on the back for a ride and the motorbike sped down the street. The wheel hit a mound on the road and went flying into the air and then crashing to the ground. His mother stood at the door laughing.

The photos that survive from George’s youth show a handsome man, with a friendly looking face and short, combed-back ginger hair. Tall. Usually suited in photographs. He never moved far from his place of birth, keeping many of the same friends from childhood into old age. In his early twenties George married a local girl called Margaret. Margaret didn’t work and instead stayed home as a housewife, filling her time with puzzles and jigsaws and making weekly trips to line dancing.

In the 1960s George fashioned himself as a mod, of the mods and rockers. He rode round on motorbike, with a leather jacket and chain. Part of a local gang. He never told me much about being a mod – I’m unaware if he got into any of the brawls the mods and rockers are famous for.

The majority of George’s working life was spent as a miner. When I was a child he showed me his lamp: a dark bluish contraption, lighter than you’d expect, creaking after years without oiling. He’d walk to the mine in the early hours of the morning. I can imagine him now, a young man, walking the empty streets of Sunderland, the blanket of the brisk night sky covering his world.

He’d descend to the mine and pick away at rock for hours. A photo exists in a non-fiction book with George and his crew stood lined up outside the mine. He’d tell me stories of going down the mine while a pony galloped through beside the miners – ponies were used to clear out new areas of mine where there may be dangerous gas. One day a leak of gas ignited near to where he was working and the whole area exploded, George’s ears doing nothing but ringing. He’d be deaf in his right ear for the rest of his life.

George had three kids with Margaret: Julie and Wendy (my mum) in the late sixties and Nicola in the early eighties. A photo still sits on George’s mantelpiece of Wendy and Julie as children stood in a field in outer Sunderland. “I remember that like it’s yesterday” he’d tell me. “I had your mum picked up on my shoulder”.

By the early eighties George worked as a watchman in the mine, supervising others. One week a headache came over him and wouldn’t go away. It would disappear when he sat down, but return any time he stood up. He told this to the doctor and the doctor told him to go straight home and lie down and that he’d send someone to the house. The doctor that was sent to the house told George he was having a minor heart attack that had been going on for over a week. He was given some heart medication (that he never bothered to take) and a few months off to recover. “Everyone I worked with was given a promotion but I missed out on it being off. So they all banded together and went to the union and came back and said ‘George we’ve got you that promotion’ and I said no, I don’t want it. So I took my uniform off and went back to my old watchmen post and told the new guy there to take my job”. He was a funnily stubborn man, always set in his own ways.

When the mines began to close under Margret Thatcher’s government George and the other miners were given a pension deal from the government to stop working. He took it and didn’t work again.

One of my earliest memories is of sitting on George’s shoulders while he walked me around a fair in South Shields. He bought me an ice cream and I pressed the ice cream so it was sticking out of his head. This put a big grin on his face.

I’d spend nights at my grandparent’s house when my parents were working. He’d walk me down to the local chippy and share a fish and chips with me. I’d sleep in bed with him at night and he’d make up fairy tales to make me go to sleep. I still remember one he told me: his own version of the story of a young boy trying to cross a bridge with ogres living under it. Or he’d explain the stories of films to me, films like Die Hard that I wasn’t old enough to watch myself.

I associate my grandparents with some of the most fun memories of my childhood. They’d take me on days out – while staying over I’d beg them to take me to Penshaw Monument, a big stone pillared building on the fields of Sunderland. In Disneyland George went on most rides with me – one of my brightest memories is going on the rotating rocket ships, a ride where the front rider, me, could control the ride, making it go up and down or faster and slower. George was sat behind me. I put the ride to full speed and mashed the buttons up and down at random.

Margaret’s health began to deteriorate a few years ago. She began to become forgetful and not understand what others were talking about. The doctor prescribed her pills for a rare type of dementia but these did little to help. One night she went to take a bath and was gone for hours. George went upstairs and found her unconscious in the bath. The medic was called out and said she was fine, that the extreme heat that night had caused it, but George noticed a change in her after this. She began to worry about being dry, irrationally: crying if there was any saliva in her mouth, and shouting at vegetables that wouldn’t dry. She was hospitalised soon after.

I went to visit her in hospital. She looked so skinny I wanted to cry. She looked fragile. She’d scream at random if she sensed water in her mouth and refused the water that the nurses recommended. I’m glad I saw her this last time. She was in such a simple state. She pointed individually at each person around her bed: “And I love you. And I love you. And I love you. And I love you”. She seemed in a happy place. George sat by her bed every day; one day the nurses came over and asked if he was leaving soon as all other visitors had gone home hours before and the nurses were finished with their shift, he hadn’t realised. Margaret would pull the wires from her skin that the nurses put in to help her. She survived over 20 days without ingesting any water into her system. I came back from Leeds Fest in the summer and my dad came up to my room and told me she’d passed. I lay on my bed crying for my lost nana, bittersweet that she wasn’t in pain anymore.

I wondered what my granddad would do after this. If he would cope. He did. He quickly sorted out all the possessions in his house. Started to redo the drive. He bought a massive 60-inch TV. He was invited to my parent’s house for Christmas but declined – instead he cooked himself a Turkey dinner, moved his sofa to the middle of the room, then sprawled out and watched films all day. He’s been living a peaceful life since.

I remember he once put pictures of him and me as children side by side and we looked almost identical. My nana mistook who was who. My granddad George is linked into me forever. I’ll always remember him as a funny man, a silly sense of humour, and always pointing out the absurd things in life. He has a deep, friendly voice, and a calming demeanour. Few images of my childhood live inside me like lying in bed hearing about the ogres under the bridge.