The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
BENEDICT ALLEN INTO THE UNKNOWN
When the going gets tough, I think of my dear granny and her no-nonsense approach to life
These are indeed worrisome times – and so, by way of reassurance, I’d like to tell you about my granny. She was, you see, quite wonderful. And in that regard, she was perhaps rather like you. Let me explain…
Born around the turn of the 20th century, Jean Stafford is sadly no longer with us but, like most from that era, was brought up to be resilient. Not for her, talk of “Health and Safety” – the perils of climbing trees or, heaven forbid, playing conkers. Such hazardous activities – walking to school would be another – were part and parcel of growing up.
There were in those days fewer opportunities available to women, indeed men. Like many of her generation, Granny was brought up to expect less – because there was less. There were no iPads. Indeed, there were no “mod-cons” whatsoever. (I tell you, the Snowflake Generation know not the joys and pitfalls of the Outside Privy).
She lived within the shadow cast by the Great War. When she married, it was to a doctor who had been blown up while trying to retrieve wounded men from no man’s land. But even with only his left arm (and the thumb missing from that hand), he became coroner at Westminster – you’ll recall the Crippen case.
Granny was made of the same stuff as her husband and believed in doing the Right
Thing. She christened her
Morris Minor “Nelson” – for it too must do its duty.
So when, many years later, I announced that I was going to be an explorer, this went down well. After all, explorers extolled all the virtues of the Victorian era. They were steadfast and, like the missionary David Livingstone (another doctor), they plodded on despite all adversity through the thicket – though admittedly, in all his 32 years of service he didn’t quite manage to convert anyone.
My first expedition was not to Central Africa but Dorset – I was only aged 10. Off I went with my mum and dad in the family camper van and along the cliffs sought fossils – chiefly ammonites and belemnites.
“What you need is a proper hammer,” announced my granny, as I spilt the fruits of my first adventure on her rug.
Next thing, we were proceeding apace down Chalfont St Peter high street to the hardware shop. The hammer that she bought was light, shiny and blue-handled. It looked brilliant tied to the back of my canvas rucksack – a bulky thing obtained by amassing a considerable number of Green Shield stamps. Off we trundled again in the camper van to Lyme Regis. I set to with my hammer. The head flew off after just a few blows.
“Disgraceful!” my granny said, when I reported back. “And I see that it’s made in Germany.
Typical of their workmanship.”
I was marched back through Chalfont St Peter. “This hammer…” Granny said to the man in the brown overalls.
“What about it?”
“Evidently, it’s not up to the job.” She proffered the two pieces. He looked at them. “So?”
“So, we’ll want a replacement.” “You do realise, madam, that this is a tack hammer? It’s for securing carpets and so forth. See? There’s the magnet at the end, for where you put your tack. Now, I do hope this little boy here hasn’t been using it for a purpose outside its stated warranty. To bash rocks, for example. I only say that because there’s a lot of grey dust on it. From rocks.”
I hid as best I could. I knew what was coming.
“I’m so sorry,” Granny began. “Should I fetch a doctor?” “What?”
“Fetch a doctor. Because you’re obviously under the weather. Otherwise you wouldn’t be behaving in THIS FRANKLY APPALLING MANNER.”
The gentleman brought out a replacement. I still have it.
My expeditions over the years have grown more ambitious, of course. But when up against it, I often think back to my granny. Because here’s the thing: in her era she wouldn’t have been seen as so extraordinary. If called to be, we each have it in us to be amazing in the face of adversity, like Dr Livingstone striding onward through the thicket.
To read more articles by Benedict Allen, see telegraph. co.uk/tt-benedict