He draws them all together onto the wide, gravelly, bank down by the side of the river. There are the boughs of some spindly trees, some fallen and numerous piles of tangled twigs, dried leaves and bark. The bright sunlight sparkles off the rushing river as it gurgles and splashes noisily along its stony course. A cheeky robin shouts at them from its territorial perch on the muddy bank. He sits down on a conveniently placed rock and looks up river with a far away smile on his face. I stand with my hand in my pockets, wondering how far he intends to walk along this river bank, wondering if I locked the car, wondering which one of my kids would fall in the river first. I wondered why he’d decided to stop here. I knew that there was no asking him, because I knew he wouldn’t tell me but I knew he had something up his sleeve. He was always doing this. This getting us all to join in with some scheme he’d cooked up. The kids all loved it. I wondered why I was annoyed. My father had annoyed me since I was fifteen. “Humbugs!” He suddenly shouted, holding up four spangly, brown stripy, minty little parcels. All four kids homed in on him as if he were a magnet. “Say thank you Grandpa,” I said dutifully. Four ‘thank you Grandpa’s’. He unpeeled a humbug and popped it into his cheek. ‘Where’s mine?’ I thought. “Do you want one Jack?” he said holding a humbug out to me. “No thanks,” I said. He put the humbug back in his pocket to wallow in the lint and fluff alongside his penknife and the four five pound notes I knew would be there for ‘pocket money’ when we dropped him off at home. “Who want’s to learn how to light a fire?” He said. I remembered and knew what was coming next. I sighed, resigned to losing another hour of the afternoon. A clamour of ‘me, me, me’s’ piped past sucked humbugs. “Right then,” he said, “we need a pile of dry small sticks, some dried grass, some bark and some bigger sticks. Top prize for some dried moss” The foraging party erupted in all directions. As the sticks and twigs returned in an ever increasing pile he sorted them into separate piles. “Kindling here, slightly bigger stuff just there. Has anybody found any dried moss?” Once he had a pile big enough to burn down a small town he looked around expectantly. “Right, who’s got the matches then? He said to blank looks all around. “Oh dear, no matches. How will we light it then?” “Rub sticks together!” “Make a spark with two pebbles?” “Find a lighter that’s washed down the river?” “Make a spark,” he said, “that’s good idea. Lets try into this tuft of dried moss.” For five minutes each child toiled, bashing smooth pebbles together, rubbing sticks, trying different sorts of stones. Nothing happened of course. Then my Dad, like a magician about to saw his assistant in half said “let me try.” He pulled out his penknife and a small carborundum stone. He plumped together a few tiny strands of moss and smartly dragged the blunt side of his knife blade down the stone towards the moss. A big plump spark fell on the moss. It smoked. He blew on it, oh so, so gently and a tiny flame came. He added thin twigs and they caught, a smelly wisp of smoke. He added bigger twigs and then sticks. A fire. The kids were utterly and totally delighted and I remembered how I had felt when my Grandpa had shown me the same trick. My Dad reached into his pocket and handed a small steel penknife to each of my children. “Now you take care of these, he said, “and never, ever, mess about with them. They’re not toys and if I hear you’ve cut yourselves I want them back.” He showed them how to safely open and close them. He smiled at me. I smiled back. Over the years he showed them how to read a map, how to read and use a compass, how to build a shelter. He showed them how to catch fish and how to trap a bird and a rabbit. He showed them how to find north from the hands of a wristwatch and how to tell the time without a watch. He taught them how to cross a river using ropes. He taught them all the things fathers think they’ll do with their kids but never actually have time or patience for. He never showed them how to work a phone or a spreadsheet or a TV. I remembered the same joy learning these skills from my Grandpa when I was a child. I don’t know if I remembered the actual event or just the report of it talked about over dinner years later. I never had proper time for these outings with my Dad and the kids, I always had to much work to do, but afterwards I always felt that same warm feeling. My kid’s loved it every time. One day, when my kids were all but grown up, even the youngest was a surly fifteen year old, my Dad and I were out for a walk, We stoped on the gravelly bank by the river. A robin shouted at us from its territorial perch on the muddy bank. He sat down on a conveniently placed rock and looked up river, then turned to me, handing me a humbug. “Remember all the fun we had here son?” he asked. I unpacked the humbug and popped it into my cheek, putting the wrapper in my pocket, next to my penknife. “I do,” I said. “Keep the knowledge safe,” he said, “it’ll be your turn soon.” That was our last walk together and as I held the secrets ready, time took my Dad away. © Steve Dalzell 2021