Bugle Ed’s comment – October

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When deciding about what to write, I often look at the Special Days in each month. Tucked away was a reminder that Sunday 3rd October is Grandparents Day. Although it has been going since 1990 it is nowhere near as popular or even as well known as Mother’s or Father’s Day. Grandparents’ Day was established in the United Kingdom by the charity Age Concern. Age Concern merged with Help the Aged in 2008 becoming Age UK, and one of the first things the renamed charity did was to fix Grandparents’ Day on the first Sunday in October.

Well I’ve been a grandparent for 15 years and I wasn’t aware I had a special day! According to the National Grandparents Day website, the aim of our special day
is:

  • To honour grandparents
  • To give grandparents an opportunity to show love for their children’s children
  • To help children become aware of the strength, information and guidance older people can offer.

That sounds wonderful, but then so do these thoughts on being a grandparent!

  • An hour with your grandchildren can make you feel young again. Anything longer than that, and you start to age quickly.
  • Grandparents are there to help the child get into mischief they haven’t thought of yet.
  • You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandparent.
  • Grandchildren are the dots that connect the lines from generation to generation.
  • My grandchild has taught me what true love means. It means watching Paw Patrol or Scooby-Doo cartoons while football is on another channel.
  • If becoming a grandparent was only a matter of choice, I should advise every one of you straight away to become one. There is no fun for old people like it!

Two of our lovely Grandchildren are currently living with us, and we can honestly say that all the above quotes resonate in one way or another, as I’m sure they do with all the wonderful grandparents living in Bildeston. Recent research suggests that this current young generation has benefitted more from the support in so many ways of their grandparents than the current  grandparents did from theirs. The dramatic shift in two areas, the family unit and working practices, has meant grandparents have taken their place as a major support mechanism.

School gates are a wonderful mix of young parents/carers and grandparents dropping off and collecting children. It is a two way street. There is nothing lovelier than walking along the road and a little hand reaches up and holds on tight…and a little voice tells you all their experiences of the day and asks, ‘Why… why… why…” endlessly. And you look down, and smile and remember when their parent walked along and did exactly the same, so many years before!

Read the October Bugle online.