The Man Who Taught Me to Look

There are people who teach you facts, and there are people who quietly change the way you see the world.

Grandad did the second.

So many children grow up looking at their grandparents with love and fascination and a sense of immortality, but this man was truly unique in every sense of the word. Life threw everything at him and even as adults he had somehow unintentionally convinced us that he was invincible, immortal. He carried an energy that felt like he had lived this life so many times over and yet it had never lost it’s magic. He was an eternal child. One of Peter Pan’s ‘Lost Boys’. As a child in his company, it was like having a real imaginary best friend. He was naughty, mischievous, loving, supportive, beyond funny with absolutely zero patience for other adults!

I was fortunate to be his first grandchild and I became his sidekick, alongside my best friend, Bruce, a collie x labrador who, if he had caught a brain eating bacteria, they would have starved to death! The three of us did life together until the arrival of my little sister, Lucy. I will admit I wasn’t her biggest fan until…hmmm…about 5 years ago haha! But despite our ability to fight over almost anything, he seemed to instinctively create a peace in us when he was with us and so the three became a four.

When I look back on my childhood, I don't remember expensive days out or elaborate holidays. I remember getting excessively muddy in yet another pair of ‘ruined’ dungarees, long walks that felt like an adventure even if we had walked the same path countless times and the comforting sound of his Devon voice saying, "Get on maid" before getting stuck into something that would probably give a health and safety professional nightmares!

We rarely had a plan. We'd simply walk until something caught his attention.

A bird circling overhead.

A strange tree.

An old gatepost.

A stream cutting through the fields.

A forgotten footpath disappearing into the hedgerows.

Everything had a story.

If we weren't exploring the lanes around Mid Devon, we were on a hilltop farm where my great-aunt Margaret, one of Grandad’s older sisters, kept sheep. Now Auntie Margaret deserves a post all of her own because she too was one of the most unique and fascinating people you could meet and she too shaped my life hugely. Her farm was perched high above the rolling countryside, the views stretched for miles across patchwork fields and winding hedgerows. Beneath our feet was the rich red Devon soil that still instantly takes me back to childhood whenever I smell it after rain.

*A vision of those hill-top stories from Auntie Margaret’s.*

Most parents would probably despair at a child who insisted on rolling around in it. I think it just got to the point where everyone accepted that all of my clothes would adopt a pinky-red hue as no amount of washing can erase the Devon soil once it has attached itself to you.

I absolutely loved it.

Those hills became my playground, and Grandad somehow transformed every ordinary day into an adventure. Looking back, I realise he wasn't intentionally entertaining us or teaching us. he was simply playing in the same way he had as a child. He lived his childhood with us but the lessons we learnt were far more powerful and informative than any classroom lesson. We learnt about wildlife without knowing we were having a lesson. We learnt practical skills simply by helping. We learnt local history because he carried it with him, telling stories so naturally that the landscape itself seemed alive.

He never separated history from everyday life. He never consciously taught us history but he would tell old stories in a way that acknowledged their impact as if we were living them in the moment but with the ability to foresee its impact on the future.

The stories were always rooted in truth, but they were sprinkled with just enough imagination to capture the hearts of two curious children. A quiet woodland became the setting for an old legend. An ancient tree had witnessed generations of lives. A ruined wall hinted at people long forgotten. Every walk became an invitation to wonder what had happened there before we arrived.

As children, Lucy and I accepted it all without question.

As an adult, I realise what an extraordinary gift that was.

Grandad was an eternal child himself. Despite growing up with very little with a challenging home life and later facing significant health challenges, he never lost his sense of curiosity or joy. Even after multiple knee replacements and walking with sticks, he still wanted to be outdoors. He still wanted to explore.

He taught us that adventure didn't require travelling to the other side of the world.

Sometimes it simply meant turning left instead of right at the end of the lane.

Those walks shaped far more than my childhood.

They taught me to notice.

To ask questions.

To wonder why.

To look beyond the obvious.

Long before I ever opened a parish register or searched a census return, I had already begun thinking like a historian. Grandad had shown me that history wasn't locked away in archives. It lived in the landscape, in old orchards, in winding lanes, in the stories people passed from one generation to the next.

I often think that my PhD didn't really begin at university.

It began somewhere back then along a muddy Devon footpath, with a little girl sat looking at him in awe and listening to another story about the place they were standing.

*Look of love. Me and Grandad on yet another walk.*

He probably never imagined that those walks would shape my career, or that one day I'd devote my life to uncovering the stories hidden within families and landscapes.

But they did.

Every time I stand on Dartmoor, walk through Killerton's woods, pore over an old map or lose myself in an archive, a part of me is still that child following Grandad down another Devon lane, wondering what we might discover next.

History gave me a profession.

My grandad gave me the eyes to see it.