Dear LPG,  

I wonder if there are any other readers who are old enough to be retired and realise that retirement is more than just the age that creeps up on us as we travel through lives journey. 

When I was a child, and I suspect that I am not the only one who remembers it this way, the older people that influenced my life were regarded as the matriarchal and patriarchal leaders of the family.  I was one of the few who’s grandparents immigrated with my parents during the late stages of the ‘Windrush era’ and I am talking about a time when the whole family would get together for Sunday dinner because my aunts and uncles did not live so far away.  Grandma was in charge of providing a meal which it was accepted that only she could do justice to while we children spent the afternoon on our best behaviour. 

After dinner the ladies would deal with the dishes while the men would have a good chat and the younger children would be very mindful of their manners while catching up with what their cousins had been up to. 

In our family, my Grandfather was the one who questioned my siblings, cousins and myself about what we had been doing at school all week and our answers needed to impress however bad the reality was.  If you thought that your mum and dad were strict, you needed to be even more wary of him as did his children.  While the oldest generation of the family were the kindest people I knew we children would need to be doubly as prepared for our grandparents’ idea of discipline.   

I was the child of a family that started life in the West Indies and after a morning at church this was what happened in my grandma’s house by the mid-1960s.  It was granddad’s too but if you were asked to describe it, while Grandad lived there too, as far as the young children were concerned, it was Grandma’s house.  

Then came the 1980s when my mother became the leader of our family pack and took over the hosting of that Sunday meal.  At the start of the decade, everything else remained much the same but, factions of the family had started to move further afield.  My siblings and cousins gradually bought houses that were sprinkled all over the south east of England.  My little part of the family bought a brand new house a little way away and those dinners gradually became monthly, quarterly and as infrequently convened as  biannually  over the years.   I would like to think that when we do all get together, the structure of the family gathering is loosely the same, but the  grandchildren’s ‘best behaviour is now more often the result of the hand-held games console, tablet or games app on their parents’ mobile phone they are intent on. 
.   

The big difference is that I am now more likely to be that biannual host  most of the time and I grew into that role without even noticing until my grandson pointed out that he quite liked coming to grandma’s house…  

This is just another illustration of how radically things have changed and, even though we were there all the time, it is only when you take the time to think back that you realise that the changes even happened! 

AK, Sydenham.