Mr Cameron's Class - Set 1 English

Controlled Assessment – Creative Writing Example

When I recall my grandparents I find along with that recollection what I would describe as a tangle of feelings that needs some unravelling. This is not for negative reasons, but rather that I experienced the pain of losing them as an older child/teenager, as well as the undoubted impact they had for good upon my young life.

How could I forget for example the occasion I travelled with my Grandpa (my mother’s father) as a kid on the bus. It was to a primary school event, and for some reason I was worried about something. I can’t recall what, exactly – whether it was that we might be late getting there, or that I’d forgotten something I’m not sure, but what I do recall clearly was his calm assurance to me that, “in most situations, everything works out all right!” It was just the reassurance I needed at the time, as an impressionable young child, and it has stayed with me ever since. A trivial enough situation it might seem, but out of such “small events” our lives are shaped and moulded, one way or another.

My other grandfather was “granddad” to me. We all loved him because he was lots of fun to be around: always laughing and joking, or tickling us. He had us squealing with laughter, though the tickling often prompted the happy protest, “Don’t Grandad!” In fact, he heard this so much, that when he took the time to write down his own childhood memories for us grandchildren, these two words became the title of the piece. He taught me fishing, French cricket, knot-tying, lashing things together with string or twine, and some gardening skills as well.

His house was very old-fashioned to my mind – dark rooms, old-style furniture, mantelpieces full of various objects and faded photographs, paintings on the walls, clocks ticking quietly in the background.... He and my gran would share a leisurely breakfast with toast, cut in half and cooling on the toast rack, a pot of marmalade with a spoon, and freshly brewed tea in a pot, made with loose tea-leaves, while he puzzled over the clues in the Times crossword.

And then he was gone. I’m not sure how much I’d noticed him going downhill. However, it was not so long after he began to deteriorate that he died in his sleep. He had had cancer. Now, as an eleven-year-old, I wasn’t old enough for the emotion of grief to hit me in any real depth. I struggled to relate the silent coffin at the funeral to the man I had known as Grandad. I do know that the qualities which made him what he was: his integrity, his faith, his hard work and his sense of fun, have all had a strong impact on me.

My mother’s father (Grandpa) was alive for a few more years. From about the age of ten, I suppose because then I was old enough to appreciate it, he began to write some longer letters to me, some of several pages in length. I treasured these: there is something very personal about a letter that can be lost a little these days in our world of instant-messaging and email. Maybe the previous generation have something to teach us here. Although my Grandpa had four of us grandchildren on our side of the family alone, how special it was to find a letter addressed specifically to me from him. I had been picked out, and felt privileged and valued. He was a good letter-writer