SNEDDON, DONALD (1903 – 1980) My grandfather's character was borne of adversity. Relocated from his native Colonsay to Glasgow at the age of five, he was forced to endure the taunts of his new schoolmates who dubbed him ‘Island Boy' and ‘Rufus' on account of his red hair. Further scapegoated by teachers on account of his sense of fair-play, my grandfather was regularly tawsed for other people's misdemeanours (often ones to which he himself had drawn the teachers' attention). I remember lying stricken by one of the illnesses that dogged my childhood, listening him recounting these injustices from my bedside. If I close my eyes, I can still see him kneading his brow with his taut knuckles, tears of anger rolling down his cheeks.

Active throughout his life, in a professional capacity as a florist, recreationally as an author (see RALPH STEADFAST), poet and after dinner speaker, retirement caused my grandfather to brood over indignities he had previously confronted head on. I experienced a similar failure of will in the aftermath of the virus that depleted my powers. The man of calibre, however, is galvanised by adversity. "Pucker your lips, Donald, old son," my grandfather would say, wiping his eyes as he dragged himself from the depths of memory. As I watched him from my sickbed, he did just that, sending out a whistle, initially hesitant but gathering strength until the room was filled with a trill of celebration. "As long as I have enough breath in my lungs to whistle," he said, "and someone to whistle for, I feel like the luckiest man alive." Neither Spencer nor Christine enjoyed our grandfather's spontaneous melodies. "I wish he'd shut up," Christine once hissed as he accompanied a tune on the radio. "If they wanted some idiot whistling along, they'd have put it on the record." Within three months, he was dead. While we've never discussed it, I suspect that repressed guilt contributed to the peculiar virulence of her acne.

 

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