Grandpa Jimmy was a patriarch in the true sense. He ruled the family with a resolute and unwavering authority. His sons were important to him but his daughter, not so much. Women were useful to his comfort and well being but didn't count. It was his misfortune to have only granddaughters - six in total. Not one of us could carry on the Balharrie name, so we were of little value. He was a Mason and truth be known, also a closet Orangeman. I learned many lessons from him such as the perfideousness of Catholicism, and Jews were not to be trusted. People of colour were never discussed because they didn't exist in his world. Where my grandmother was compassionate, he was hard. Where she was flexible, Grandpa was unbending and where Grandma had an open mind, his was closed. But his values ruled.
I was afraid of him. So was everyone else in the family. Still, I have fond recollections of him telling me stories. Every morning after breakfast we would retire to the sun room where he smoked and told me a long continuous saga about Black beauty and cousin Allie. Alie was a mentally unbalanced relative who wore a Coca Cola carton as a hat in real life but led the life of Don Quixote with his trusty horse Black Beauty in the story. Each day there was another chapter. Needless to say, mornings with Grandpa were exciting. This lasted the six months I lived in that house. Once we moved out it was over and I never recaptured that intimacy with him again.
I was for that brief time, the child of his daughter whom he thought had died in the war. We returned and his relief translated into tenderness for a little while. After that, I was tolerated but never accepted. I was a foriegner, the child of a foreigner who his daughter had regrettably married. Watson was his favourite and he showed it. My mother felt it so acutely that she was always striving for his approval. She was a grown woman ever anxious and always disappointed. He went to his grave withholding his approval. Once he was gone, my mother relaxed.
