When we were on a car trip with Grandma and Grandad, Grandad would always drive, he was good at it.
He used to be a racing driver, 1st at Silverstone in 1957.
He had to give up and missed it.
He had lost part of his foot when the engine of the E type Jaguar he was racing exploded.
He hobbled around, with and insert to pad out his shoe, and had to use a walking stick a lot.
But in the driver's seat nothing had changed, his response to the road was marvelous.
Dad would sit next to him, the son and heir. Proud and trying to live up to expectation of his father.
Hard to live up to war hero, captain of industry, racing driver, Mr McMillan sir at the factory in Stalybridge.
Dad would sit stiff, passenger seat, trying not to say too much.
I would be in the comfortable back seat, of the latest new car, with Grandma.
And she would, with uncharacteristic sentiment and gentleness, lie my head in her lap, and tell me stories.
I would look up at her adoringly, which she liked, and idly play with the a lovely necklace she wore.
A long gold link chain, and at the end it had a gold bauble, shaped like a hazelnut, with a little clock set in it's base.
Sometimes she would let me wind it, carefully, with my rough country kid fingers.
The stories were always of Horace and Doris, they were hob goblins, who lived in the local wood.
The plots mainly consisted of domestic duties and minor troubles with neighbours.
What was wanting in literary device was made up for in my mind.
I closed my eyes, snuggled in at her maternal bosom, sniffed up her expensive scent, let myself relax.
Every time we took a drive, to Alton Park or Chatsworth, the destination irrelevant.
It was all about the story.
"Please grandma, tell me more about Horace and Doris".
"Oh, Eliza, I don't know if they have anymore adventures".
But they always did,
and I would settle into the life of the backseat.
