A grandmother, wrote Queen Victoria in a letter to her daughter, the Princess Royal, in June 1859, ‘must ever be loved and venerated, particularly one’s mother’s mother I always think’. Few are the modern grandmothers fortunate enough to attact much veneration, but, as Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall makes clear in her guide for the best grannies, it’s certainly possible to give and receive love of a kind never envisaged or anticipated. No one, after all, decides to become a grandmother: it simply happens to you. And as such there is no more profound pleasure.
Literature is rich in grannies, from Proust’s devoted companion to Dosto-evsky’s enthusiastic gambler, but most belong to the Queen Victoria mould, imperious, often crabby, usually dressed in black and sometimes whiskery. The modern granny, as Fearnley-Whittingstall spells out in her brief introduction, is quite another creature altogether.
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