Peter Rhodes on generous grandads, bold badgers and the bottom line on batteries
Our extended family was down from Scotland for Easter, travelling in the now-obligatory electric SUV. The driver made a good point: “Remember in the 1990s how we used to worry about radiation from mobile phones? Now we drive around sitting on two tons of battery.”
He may have a point. In this paranoid world of ours, I suspect there may be a market for electromagnetic bottom shields. Do not leave home without one.
The Scottish relatives took our grandson Ruben off to Warwick Castle for the day and I found myself slipping the lad five shiny £1 coins. I was transported back to the 1950s and a day out in Colne, Lancashire. As my Gran and I left the house, my great-grandfather, in his 80s, pressed six old copper pennies into my hand. On the bus my Gran explained with some embarrassment that when he had been a little boy 6d was a lot of money. I did not buy it. Even at that tender age I figured out that my great-grandfather was a mean old devil. Quite unlike me.
