I only have one photo of Grandad
from his years of service in the Great War,
and in it he’s wearing a leopard-skin leotard.

My paternal grandfather, Grandad,
was brought up in Brockley, South-East London
In his teens he was conscripted
and became a gunner sergeant in the Royal Field Artillery.

I still have his stirrups and his French/English phrase book
which includes useful words, like dysentery,

(think of the movie, ‘War Horse’, and you’re almost there).
He fought in the mud in France and put a lot of horses out of their misery.

Apparently, he enjoyed the stage – a song and a dance,
and almost went professional after a string
of successful nights at the local Roxy,
all of which makes me want to have known him better,
but he died in my teens.

He laughed a lot, loved his vegetable garden
and had a collection of handy-sized, hard-back books
giving details of how various circuits and wiring worked.

I recall his bear of an armchair
and how it was in easy reach
of a slim stack of shallow drawers
from which he would take slender tools or small curios
and sit and explain their significance to my bemused child self.

I have the brown photo somewhere -
it’s not one I’d like to frame as it raises too many questions for me.

Like – is that bloke next to grandad meant to be Robinson Crusoe?
Like – what prompted grandad to ‘black up’ from head to toe – is he Man Friday?

And now, I stare at the photo handed to me by my friend of his grandfather, complete with rifle and medals,
and again I silently ask my grandad – why?