Larry Lyons

I watched a documentary about the late Nuala O’Faolain, columnist with the Irish Times and writer of the international best-seller, Are You Sombody?

My sister asked if I had seen our grandfather, that she had spotted him in the same documentary, sharing a panel with Nuala O’Faolain on The Late, Late Show.

Thanks to RTÉ player, I was able to watch Nuala again and sure enough, approximately 36 minutes into the programme, there was our grandfather, the late and great, Larry Lyons.

This unexpected appearance has sparked a week-long dialogue in our house. Grandad, or Pop as we fondly called him, was somebody. He was recognised in Irish society for his contribution and commitment to journalism. He was acknowledged for his best-seller The Gay Future Affair which some thirty years later can still be found on amazon.com! He was editor of The Cork Examiner, husband to Eileen Lyons née Buckley, father to my mother, Paula, and to her six siblings, and he was my grandfather, larger than life, unashamed and unabashed. Cigar smoke surrounded him and miniature bookies’ pencils could always be found in his inside coat pocket which is where, incidentally, I began my relationship with him.

As a small child, my grandfather used to scoop me up in his great padded hands and gently drop me into his inside coat pocket. Then as he would walk, I would stand with my bare tippy-toes pressed against the cool satin fabric, my hands gripping tightly to the folded fabric seam. Sometimes, I would rest my chin on that same seam and stare starry-eyed at the world and sometimes, I would allow myself to slip into the corner of his pocket and sleep secret sleeps close to his heart. With my grandfather, I was a fairy, often cold and never bold. I was Thumbelina. I was Jack. I was Captain Cook and Peter Pan. I was a member of the Swiss Family Robinson and he was my tree-house, my lookout, my elephant marching through the forest. He showed me what it was to hold a birds-eye view of the world.

When I grew too big for his pocket, I progressed to the arm of his moss-green velveteen chair. We studied the form together and wrote with miniature pencils on miniature slips of pink paper. Sometimes, I made it to the bookies with him and, even as a very young child, I understood that I had been granted a special access to the secret world of men. Through the beaded curtain, it was a guttural, smoke-filled place, so strange and wonderful that I barely dared to breathe. When the smoking-ban was first introduced to Ireland, I felt a deep regret for all the young children who would never experience the smoke-filled booking office with their grandfathers on an easy sunny Saturday morning.

At the age of seven, I won the Grand National with a bet on “Forget-me-not”. I won well and with good odds. I remember the sitting room with dust glittering and dancing in the warm light. We focussed. We discussed my selection. I liked the name. We marked our slips and walked out together. It was crisp and cold. I held his hand. He was warm and tall and broad and glorious. He was my Gentle Giant and I was.. well it was enough then that I was his. We watched the race on the television and in colour. I can still feel the strange-urge in my bowels, the anticipation, the final furlong, the win, that glorious win, the pink slip in my hand, that valuable pink slip in my hand, and the look of utter satisfaction on my grandfather’s face. “Forget-me-not” was a horse aptly named.

As I grew from child to young girl, my grandfather recognised the shift and moved me from the world of men to the world of ladies and gentlemen. We took afternoon tea at the Imperial Hotel. A white-gloved doorman marked our grand entrance to fine china, starched white linen, tiered cake-stands and french fancies. I blushed with pride and blossomed in my grandfather’s company. He liked me. He introduced me as his first grandchild. I was somebody too. When the bill came, my grandfather toyed with a fresh young waitress. Monies had changed from old to new some years previous and still he feigned shock at the new sum totaled. “Surely a penny will do?” he exclaimed with mock horror and amazement. She faltered for he was both handsome and debonair and yet his suggestion was clearly absurd. It was cruel.. and yet.. how I enjoyed his wolfish grin.

Reaching double digits, I was neither a child nor a teenager. I was an inbetweenager or a ‘tweenager as my own daughter now protests. I visited with my grandparents that summer and enjoyed a time of near womanhood with my grandmother. My grandfather was writing. His was an intense hermititude, a heavy breathing presence on the wrong side of a firmly shut door. The typewriter clacked and paused and clacked, and clacked and clacked and clacked ever more. Sitting on the polished wood floor outside his door, I became aware of the rhythm of writing, the ebb and flow, the stop and start, the pause and sometimes necessary break to allow the subconscious time to work out where next to journey. I came to anticipate these breaks when my grandfather would emerge from the front room in a plume of smoke, eyes set firmly forward looking to the middle-distance, seeking the next word and key to the next sentence. We hushed ourselves and were still. Granny understood his need and I, adoringly, followed her lead. A gentle kiss, a brush of his lips on her forehead, or eyelid, or sweet powdered cheek and a quiet cup of tea were taken and a brief connection made.

I saw reason to writing that summer. I saw that it was to be quietly regarded, that it could neither be forced nor interrupted, that it was both habit and skill, inspiration and discipline, and that it required stamina and courage and clarity and conviction. Ebb and flow. Stop and start. Pause and break.. and flow again.

I could write and write and write ever more and still only manage to sketch his outline. Suffice to say that I continue to be grateful for having been his grandchild.

Larry Lyons, suffered a heart attack and died in the night when I was 16 years old. My mother gently woke me at first light. I can still feel the drugged confusion of early morning as I struggled to sit and to make sense of her intrusion. It was then she told me.. and I was sad for a very long time.