Jonn Arrand

My grandad was a friend of mine, in fact he was the best.

He gave me the lessons in life to help me through all of its tests.

To wake each morning with purpose, to work hard and to provide.

His honest morals were infectious, and these will forever be by my side.

 

He filled our lives with happiness, a guarantee to make you smile.

Nobody too important, that he couldn’t encourage just to stop, and talk for a while.

A spade might be a spade, but that didn’t stop him being tongue in cheek.

It made him popular to everyone, well known along the street.

 

My grandad wasn’t a man, to ever just take a moment and sit.

You’ve got to keep yourself busy and “go ger’ on with it.”

If he wasn’t in his shed, we would go and visit him working late.

He’d say you can have a go steering the tractor, but “you’ve got to try and keep straight.”

 

The countryside was his passion. The land, the moors and the woods.

To shoot, to fish, to care for nature. All these things, he understood.

He taught me everything he knew, and filled my young imagination.

A way of life I must remember, to pass on to the next generation.

 

My grandad was a friend of mine, in fact he was the best.

I shall remember him forever fondly. A true gentleman, one full of jest.