March Recall - My Grandad died in hospital :-(

On March 29th, 2007, my Grandad died in hospital aged 92.
Albert Hastings lived a long and happy life, and was loved by so many people.


All my memories of him are happy ones. I never heard him say a bad word about anyone. When I was very young, he was infinitely tall and would stomp around the room with me and my brother Chris clinging one to each leg. On Christmas day, Granny and Grandad would come and visit to see us and our toys, and he would call bingo at Granny and Grandad's annual New Year's Day party.

Other early childhood memories of Grandad include:

• Being collected from school to go and climb 'on the rocks' at the sea-front
• Annual trips with cousins Penny and Nick to Glasson Dock with dinner on the Bar-Be-Gee
• Trips to the sand hills - but not liking sand
• Collection from playschool
• The smell of newspaper and biro-pen from his crosswords
• The Pears Encyclopaedia and Atlas always to hand
• Horse racing
• His electric shaver on Sunday mornings
• Bashing him up with rolled-up newspapers

He was in the Second World War and saw many places, including Basra and Baghdad. He proudly shared his stories and medals with us. He was also a Jedi Knight (but I'm sworn to secrecy on that).


He was a great chef with many trademark dishes including: toad-in-the-hole, waffles, short-bread, Cornish pasties, chicken broth with dumplings and lemon meringue pie. He was very kind - during cold winters, when mum was working and Chris and me came home from school, we often found mystery pans of broth left at the back-door step for our tea.

As one of the great constants in my life, Grandad, you leave a massive void.
Rest in peace - and know you did a great job!