Telegraph Magazine Article - June 18th 2005

Anne Fine [right] remembers her wayward grandfather Trevor, 1950

The owner of the car (I think it was an Armstrong) was my grandfather, Trevor, and this photograph was taken on the postwar housing estate where my parents lived in Fareham. Hampshire. It was 1950 and I would have been three. Around that time my mother had triplets and so my older sister, Susan (pictured left), and I had been sent away for three months to stay with Trevor and Elsie, my paternal grandparents. Trevor was tall and distinguished, and had been a TT rider in his more dashing years. He was the 'rich' member of our family - he had been the director of a rubber tyre company, but sold out to Dunlop and retired early. He and Elsie lived on the Oadby side of Leicester and they had wall-to-wall carpet, a drinks cabinet and central heating.

It was always a surreal experience being in that car. Everybody's eyes would catch the number plate and they would point and mouth the words, 'Oh, look! All'. He eventually sold the number plate in the 1960s for £30,000 and gave the proceeds to the RNIB.

Between the ages of five and 12, I spent hours and hours in that car - or cars with that number plate (he transferred it from car to car, most often Daimlers). Whenever we stayed with him he would always say to Elsie, Tm just going to take Anne out for a spin,' and put me in the passenger seat. He would drive like the wind, then park up and say, I'm going to get you an ice-cream.' He would leave me in the car with a book to read, and because I was such an Enid Blyton fan I didn't care how long he left me for; it could have been hours.

I always remember there was a peculiar smell at the place where we stopped. Years and years later I was giving a talk in Nottingham and I got out of a taxi and smelt the same smell. I said to my mother, 'I had this very strange experience of smelling the smell which was always in the car when Trevor was getting me the ice-cream,' and she said, That is because your grandfather had a mistress called Bella in Nottingham.' It was the smell of the bone factory there. I had been his cover and a very effective one.

My grandfather was never particularly responsible with us. My first childhood memory was around that time. He took me for a walk near our prefab, and we went past a pond. I had never seen duckweed before and just assumed it was grass, stepped on to it and went straight under. I remember him pulling me out, and both of us knew he was going to be in big trouble with my mother as my wool coat would take days and days to dry.

When I was old enough to stay at home alone, I saw less of him as my parents would go to visit without us. I was 18 when he died at the age of 77; sadly I couldn't go to his funeral because I was recovering from appendicitis. Anne Fine's latest novel, 'Raking the Ashes', is out now