Family history

The things you find and learn when you’re clearing out the belongings of deceased relatives can be quite amazing. Just this morning I discovered that my grandfather, as unassuming a gent as you could meet, once saved a life while going about his job as a gas meter reader all the way back in 1972.

According to the letters he was checking meters down the road when he heard cries and discovered that a year old girl had drowned in a pond – he performed mouth-to-mouth and revived her before the ambulance arrived. Both the mother and the ambulance crew wrote to the gas company to praise my grandfather’s actions, which was the first the company knew of what he had done; he was commended by everyone, including the company, for what he did but he refused any publicity. That’s exactly the man I remember, the sort who just got on with things and didn’t want constant acknowledgment.

Thank you gan-gan for being who you were; you might be gone but you’re not forgotten.