Last week, one of the biggest inspirations of my life, my Grandad, Jim Doubleday, died. He was two months shy of his 97th birthday. Today, my family will say goodbye to him at a service in Melbourne. I can’t be there, but my final letter, my last goodbye, will be shared by my cousin. As Grandad was a man who was an inspiration to so many people, I share my goodbye with you.
Dear Grandad,
There is something missing. My world feels out of kilter. There is a goodness, a rightness, a friendship that is gone. The voice of a sage that has led, calmed, inspired and loved me has gone quiet. The words of my master storyteller have ended.
Grandad, you have gone and the world is a poorer place. Dying with you is a time of more simple, less frenetic ways. Of values reared on the wide-open spaces of Australian wheat and sheep country, on hard work, on wartime endurance and on family happiness. What you stamped on this world, and what you have given your family, is a moral compass that makes us all want to be better people.
For me – your granddaughter who never stops asking questions – you left a special gift. An anthology of your history, shared and recorded in our emails to each other. For as long as I have lived in London – and in the years that I have gallivanted around the globe, quenching a thirst for travel that you first inspired in me – you faithfully sat at your computer, reminiscing, remembering and typing. You gave me glimpses into not only your life, but life across Australia’s 20thcentury.
Grandad at his computer
I badgered you with so any questions; sometimes lighthearted, sometimes extremely personal. What was your mother like? How did you propose to Nan? Can you describe Melbourne in the 1950s? What songs did you listen to during the war? What do you consider your greatest achievement? What did it feel like to lose a child? In your return emails, which you wrote with panache, with emotion and always with a loving salutation, came your anthology. It’s a collection in which you analyse life with an engineer’s brain and a gentleman’s heart.
You shared with me how your curiosity in engineering, first sparked by working a farm in central New South Wales with your eight siblings, led you to the No. 10 Squadron RAAF as a Sunderland pilot where you protected the British coastline during WWII, and then to a career as an air crash investigator. This curiosity also helped you solve problems, to build the practical and the functional. Your memories showed me whatever you built, it was laced with love and care. Like the garage you built for your family’s first home in Strathmore, using the discarded packing containers from cars shipped from England. Like the gymnastics beam erected in the backyard for your daughter; like the rocking chair built for the joy of your grandchildren. Like your contribution to pioneering the black box, which to this day gives comfort and closure to the families of plane-crash victims all over the world.
Your anthology is also a touching account of life during wartime. It was a time when you met the love of your life, my Nan, Valerie, and then were forced to spend five years on the other side of the world from her, never knowing if the last goodbye would be the final goodbye. Many passages from your descriptions of that period I’ve read, and re-read, with simultaneous smiles and tears. Like this one …
“You ask for my thoughts when I first met Val. Nothing earth-shattering. Simply thought she was nice, attractive, very smart, friendly, and that I would like to get to know her better. I thought that she probably had more boyfriends than she knew what to do with and would not be likely to be interested in me. Fortunately, I was wrong about the last one. I do recall that my main concern the night we met was how I could ask Val to go out with me, because apart from whether or not she would do so, I felt that under the circumstances I had an obligation to ask Nancy first. (Nancy was the daughter of Joe and Rita Lawrence, at whose house Grandad first met Nan, when he went there for tea with his friend Ken Woolford.) Fortunately for me, this dilemma was solved by someone organising the four of us – Nancy, Ken, Val and I – to go to a movie on the following Friday night. I did not know at the time, but Val told me later she instigated it. She sensed my dilemma and did it to help me. When at the State Theatre on the Friday night I arranged to meet Val the next day. Thus began sixty five wonderful years of being together.”
Nancy, Jim and Valerie
Grandad, through your email anthology I learnt more than most grandchildren do about their grandfather. I learnt that your wife was the achievement you were most proud of and that plastic is the invention that had the greatest impact during your lifetime. I learnt that the loneliest day of your life was the day the war ended in Europe because you were 12,000 miles from where you wanted to be. I learnt that the best film you ever saw was the 1938 version of Pygmalion, with Leslie Howard, and that the book you would take with you when stranded on a desert island is a book of poems by Ogden Nash.
Of course, I wasn’t the only one with questions during our email conversations. Your insatiable inquisitiveness meant that you wanted to hear my perspectives as well. How did my German friends perceive World War II and its legacy? What did I think about the attitude of the British towards social welfare? What exactly was the point of a derivative (at the time I was working as a financial journalist, covering the credit derivatives market)? One of the last times I saw you, we spoke about the phone hacking scandal in the UK and debated the good, the bad and the future of British journalism.
You always took an interest in every aspect of your grandchildren’s lives and told us how proud you were of us. But Grandad, by gee, we were proud of you – a man who transcended generations. You were a 90 year-old that emailed, scanned and compiled DVDs. You were a man that had to walk with a frame, but could fix a Mac computer. As your body slowed down, it was like your mind sped up, craving and absorbing more knowledge.
I shared stories of you with my friends and you evoked awe. One friend told me this week that after she met you, she had grandfather envy. My husband told me that if he could be only half the husband you were to Nan, then he will have done a good job. That was your beauty, your draw. You were far older than anybody else in your world, but you were a friend to everyone, and you inspired all ages.
Grandad, after nearly 97 years you died surrounded by those who loved you most. To the end you were the gracious and humble patriarch. Every simple, kind gesture from your family was always rewarded with a ‘thanks pet’. Our time spent conversing with you always met with a ‘thanks for coming’. To the end you were telling people to stop fussing, to not be bothered with you and to go and live their own lives.
Well Grandad, we were bothered with you, we will always be bothered with the memory of you because you made our lives what they are. You made our lives better. Your anthology is an amazing gift to me because with it I can share your memory, and your legacy, with those in our family that are too young to have fully known your wonder. It also means we can all remember the cheeky sense of humour that often flashed in your eyes, and that was so beautifully captured in your writing. Some of your quips that really made me smile include:
- Keep off major motor roads. They are DANGEROUS;
- Serena Williams looks like an elephant but moves with the speed of a snake; and
- Why in the hell don’t they widen the goal posts in soccer. That way there would be more goals scored, fewer drawn games and thus less penalty shoot-outs.
Your emails Grandad were also heartfelt. In one, you wrote about the pain of losing your first child Helen, at only 10 weeks old. You said of that event, that the “sadness may diminish, but you will never forget”. Grandad, I know my sadness at your death will diminish, replaced by a kaleidoscope of happy memories. But, I will never forget how hard it was to say our final goodbye two weeks ago when I left Melbourne to get on a plane back to London. I will never forget your anthology. And now that you are finally where you want to be, at peace with Nan, the love of your life, I will end this letter the way you ended almost every email to me. Take care of each other.
Love, Laura
Grandad and me, November 2012
(Written by Laura)