I never really knew my mother’s father.

All I remember: tuft of nostril hair,

spied from sitting on his knee; and a hoard

of half-hidden threepenny pieces

slipped into a sandpit outside the lido.

 

In pictures he looks a kind, fair man.

Worked for his only firm from 16 to 61.

Received a wedding cruet set in 1922,

inscribed "from members and friends" at his FC.

Team photograph dated 1924-25.

 

Found the never-used, tarnished cruet set

in my mother’s cabinet; rescued it.

My wife made it shine again like new,

saying, laughing: ‘At last! We finally

have some family silver to look after.’

 

Now it sits on a long-dead great-aunt’s

chest of drawers, close to the footballers

in their baggy shorts. The treasure of objects;

relatives who arrive and never go away. 

Good that my Nana still allowed him to play.