Films I saw with... my Nan
More often than not, events in our lives reside in our memories along with the people we shared them with: Holidays, education… trips to the cinema. When I think back to the films I’ve seen at the cinema, those memories are intrinsically linked with those who were with me. Friends, family, and in some cases, people I barely knew.
As the years roll on, I’ll often be found watching a repeat of an old movie, which can still feel fresh because the memories attached keep them relevant.
A couple of years ago I started to play a memory game: Could I remember every film I had seen at the cinema, and who did I go with? Why did I go with that person? What was the story of our connection?
My Nan, Edna, would often take me to the park at the end of her road when I was little. She would babysit me if my parents had gone out for the evening, and sometimes I would sleep over at her little downstairs maisonette. We would sometimes play whatever 1970s board game she had in her sitting room cupboard, play cards in her boxy kitchen (nothing high stakes, of course: Usually “matching pairs”), or a game of “squares” whilst eating cherry tomatoes grown in her back garden. I would chew her ear off (probably) with my obsession with Star Wars, as that was all I talked about back then (although she did once remark when I was showing her my Return of the Jedi book, that she thought Han Solo was “dishy”).
Around 1983 she started taking me to the cinema. She would get the bus into Collier Row where I’d be waiting, and then we’d get the bus into Romford where we would visit The Odeon, followed by a spot of lunch in Littlewoods.
The Odeon was a beautiful cinema - the place itself would inspire my imagination because it was so uniquely different to any other place I’d known. Vast screening rooms where the curtained walls seemingly stretched upwards forever.
We would always go during half-term and summer holidays - whatever film had been timed to coincide with the school kid’s free time, we would go and see it:
Lady and the Tramp
The Jungle Book
The Golden Seal
Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Basil the Great Mouse Detective
Splash (that risky Swedish joke from John Candy was an awkward moment)
Short Circuit
The Karate Kid Pt. II (My Nan hadn’t seen the first one, which I had recently seen on video, but I recall she liked the cut of Mr. Miyagi’s jib)
Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home (She wasn’t a Trekkie, but could get on board with the whole ‘save the whales’ thing)
Bigfoot and the Hendersons
Three Men and a Baby
Crocodile Dundee II
Batteries Not Included
Cocoon (I felt like a champ for recommending this to my Nan, because, y’know, it was about old people, and OF COURSE she would relate to it…).
There may have been other films, but those are the ones that stuck with me.
Cocoon is the movie that pangs in my heart these days, mostly due to the relationship between Wilford Brimley and his grandson, who are like best pals. It kind of summed up my relationship at that time with my Nan.
Looking back, I wonder if it was a difficult watch for her. Her husband/my grandad, Bert, had died shortly before we saw that film.
I don’t remember my Grandad too well - more sensory memories like the smell of Hamlet cigars, squashy cuddles and his long cardigans. But I do remember I had stayed at her maisonette for a few hours when my Grandad was seriously ill. I didn’t know this at the time and found the somewhat unhuman groan coming from my Grandad’s bedroom curious and uneasy. I had no idea what was going on, other than my Nan was to-ing and fro-ing between me and my Grandad.
Thinking back, after my Grandad had died, my Nan obviously must have been lonely. She always had visitors and she was very well-liked, but those day trips out must have been a break from reality.
I stopped going to the cinema with my Nan because I had reached that awkward brink of teendom where the other kids in my school year were all hanging out with each other and I’d become flushed with paranoia about being - gasp - uncool.
After that point, I would take the bus by myself to my Nan’s place in Hainault, do jobs for her (I must have painted the lean-to which my Grandad built at least six times), buy lunch for us from the shops across the road and just… chat.
People would stop by. Neighbours, friends, family. Sometimes the conversation would go on for hours, as they took turns recounting stories about people who were no longer around. Stories about the war. Depending on who had stopped by, there would be some real raconteurs recounting usually funny, sometimes bittersweet tales. And I would just sit there, listening.
It felt out of time, as if time didn’t exist there. The day would just go on and on until my parents would arrive to collect me. It was a quieter, peaceful life; one that I wanted to live. I once plotted to run away and live there permanently because it was so idyllic. I even bought my Nan a cheap little ornament with all the money I had for her to remember me when I wasn’t there.
When my Nan turned eighty, my parents held a secret party for her at our house, inviting all her close friends and family. My Nan hadn’t been to our house for some time (she used to come over for Christmas dinner or just to spend the evening with us, but stopped coming because she could no longer climb the stairs to the bathroom), but it was a final visit to remember.
She had fallen a few times at her home and ended up in hospital, which led to a stay in sheltered accommodation whilst she recuperated. I wasn’t sure if she would ever make it out of there, but she did eventually. My Dad would have to take responsibility for her medication and household shopping, and a carer would visit her, along with meals-on-wheels. This was a very stressful time for my Dad, as my Nan hated most of the food, which she would just flush down the toilet to hide the evidence.
My Nan met my then-fiancée (now wife), but sadly couldn’t attend our wedding. My Nan was the first person I told about our engagement because I wasn’t sure how much time she had left, as her health had been up and down. In 2008, my Nan was back in hospital. I visited her, and it was bizarre, to say the least. She thought she was at an airport, waiting to go on holiday. Then she looked at me with a smile and said “Who’s that handsome man?” like she didn’t know me.
I left knowing that would probably be the last time I would see her, and it was. She’d gone off on her ‘holiday’.
I’d had the chance to tell my Nan that I was going to be a Dad, but she never got to meet my two children. They would have loved each other, and now and then I see bits of my Nan in their faces and personalities.
When we were clearing her maisonette, the only thing I wanted was the ornament I had bought for her, which now sits on my desk to remind me of her.
There was no arguing, never a cross word, no judgment. To me, she was just the best person I’d known. I’m aware I’m very rose-tinted about this because I know she sometimes gave my Dad a hard time, as well as my Grandad (I recall one time he had wallpapered their living room, only for her to say “I don’t like it” - and he had to start again…). She could also get under my Mum’s feet at times, too.
She was one of those people you wish was still around. Her home was a safe place, which is probably why I catch myself thinking about going back there to visit; as if popping back to her old home would somehow provide a glimpse back to those days.
But then there’s always Cocoon.
