I was born in 1986, one year before my grandad left Charlotte Chapel. So my experience of him being the pastor of a local church is sleeping through most of his sermons during my first year of life (something I later learned that not many other people did during his preaching!).
My earliest memories are predominantly of my Granny. In their flat in Spottiswoode Street me and the rest of the cousins would swarm around her for Winnie the Pooh stories, the greatest Yorkshire puddings in the world, Vienetta ice-cream, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Annie, and Pinocchio on VHS tapes recorded from the telly. She gave the greatest hugs, the sloppiest kisses, and was painstakingly thorough at drying in between your toes and in your ears after a bath.
Grandad, or ‘Mr Prime’ as everyone else seemed to call him, was often away, or grafting in his study at the end of the corridor. He’d ‘retired’ as pastor of a local church, but was still dogged as a pastor-teacher to folk across the globe. In those early days I remember the way Granny called for him with a ‘Cooey!’ when we came back into the flat. When he emerged he was always wearing a shirt and tie and had smart shoes on. And I vividly remember sneaking into his study when he was out, obliterating his pencils with his big rotating pencil sharpener bolted to the massive bookcase, and finding all the best hiding places underneath his huge desks (Auntie Cilla showed all of the grandkids the best places to hide!).
