On a grey January morning, at a small, sparsely attended ceremony in a chapel in North London, we said goodbye to my granddad, one more statistic in this vile pandemic. Jack Brown grew up in poverty in Ipswich and performed heroically in the Navy during world war two; twice-sunk, once by an enemy torpedo, once by a collision with an Allied boat (the family joke is that Uncle Albert from Only Fools was based on his experiences). He went on to father six children, and had a 40-year career as a station-master. As granddad’s coffin was wheeled in, draped in a Navy flag, it was hard to dismiss the thought that Covid-19 had done what the Nazis had failed to do: see him off.
Except it’s not that simple. Granddad was 97, and had been in hospital for weeks following a fall at the flat where he had lived alone since the death of his beloved wife in 2008.
