It's been a few years since my grandfather’s death, and I guess I'm starting to feel a little sentimental on this cold June morning and so have finally decided to add my memories to this tribute page. The earliest memories of Grandfather are of a jovial old bloke always willing to entertain us grandkids. I can remember him bouncing me off his knee, pulling funny faces when we arrived for our weekend visits and laughing mischievously as he passed wind in the middle of a crowded room (I hope that observation from my youth isn't too ignoble for the sensitive moderators of this forum). My Grandfather was also very hands on with us grandkids, and I feel he defiantly wasn't one for "Children should be seen and not heard". I remember our little excursions to the park fondly, playing in the trees and running through the scrub lost in my imagination. On one particular walk we stopped off at a construction site on a slight detour from our usual path. I don't know how or why we were let in, but Grandad always loved putting his nose in other people’s business and I suppose some smooth talking on his part played a significant role. I remember having a great time causing mischief for the construction workers, running around under ladders, knocking things over and playing in the churned mud. However, I soon quietened down when I came across some wooden off cuts in a scrap pile which remember thinking would make a great fort for my various toys/action figures. Grandad didn't bat an eyelid, and promptly gathered up this refuse and brought it back with us for me to play with. I continued to play with those blocks for years, and always looked forward to going around to Nana and Granddads to build new combinations of barricades/forts/spaceships for whatever the toy of the day was. My Grandfather was also obsessed with making sure we all spoke the Queens English as it was intended. I can’t count how many times I was encouraged to say “pardon” instead of “what” (and being compared to a frog whenever I said the latter), that I was “well” instead of “good”, and that “someone and I” did something instead of “me and such and such”. These corrections started from an early age and continued well into my early twenties! My grandfather was also quite the orator. He had this uncanny ability to change the topic of conversation onto one which he found more palatable and less of a bore. He was also an astute student of history, and would often sit with me looking over the globe and informing me of the various notable points of history which occurred in each geographical area. I always found my conversations with him intellectually stimulating, and miss my weekend visits greatly. I suppose I could go on and on about my memories of Granddad, but would like to conclude by saying that I was very fortunate to have meet him, and love him very much. I also look forward to seeing him again many years from now and hope I will be as good of a role model to my future grandchildren as he was to me. Господи помилуй, Alexander