‘I would smell Grandad before I saw him. Camel cigars and Old Spice’

Every Christmas my grandfather Dr William Prendiville, aka Bill, would arrive up from Waterford. My dad would do the 100 mile round trip down to Tramore to collect him. We were usually given a day’s notice before his arrival to prepare for the inevitable upheaval of who was to move rooms and share with whom, in order to give Grandad his own room.

I would always smell Grandad before I saw him. A musky odour would permeate the house, a mixture of Camel cigars and Old Spice.

I would come home from school to find him sitting in the corner of the good room, a room we never used except at Christmas and the odd occasion like my mum’s cousins coming up from Coolaney.

He was a fierce looking man, at least to a child's eye. He reminded me of something out of a Dickens novel; a three-piece suit, with a whiskey in one hand and The Irish Times in the other.

He did smile upon seeing me though, a wide toothy grin, and pleasantries were exchanged between us before I’d scurry upstairs to my bedroom or whatever room I had been moved to. My mum was the one usually left looking after Grandad while my dad went to work.

We went missing

As Mum prepared the house for Christmas, he would sit in his chair and tell me stories of homeless people who had nowhere to sleep except in cardboard boxes, the harm we were doing to our environment and the detrimental impact this was having on our planet, and his views on a good match for marriage (his own parents had separated).

My grandad also had a daily habit of going to Mass. He had a deep unwavering Catholic faith despite being of mixed stock. One day my mum suggested I go with him to Mass, no doubt to give her some peace from both of us. After two hours of us going “missing”, my mum arrived in a sweat and panic at the church door to find Grandad and me beside him, in the middle of the rosary. Grandad had decided to stay on after Mass for the recitation. I never went to Mass with Grandad again, except for his funeral. His stories, however, continued with me, and his views and mores still influence my own views and mores today.