They were the colour of their money, my grandmothers.
Silver Gran had pure white hair. She gave me sixpences, shillings, florins, half-crowns. Copper Gran, who had sallow skin, emptied pennies and halfpennies from her purse. "I wasn’t born rich like you-know-who," she’d say.
In Bob-a-Job week, the last year I was in the Cubs, I biked to Silver Gran. She was ill in bed, medicine bottles at her side. She set me polishing her best cutlery and promised me five shillings when I’d finished to give me a good start. I worked on the knives and spoons on a tray next to her. She gave me barley-sugars.
Next day I found her dead with a silver spoon in her mouth. She’d picked up the wrong bottle and swallowed Goddard’s metal cleaner.
I was more careful with the Brasso at Copper Gran’s.
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