Last updated at 09:15, Friday, 23 January 2009

Barack Obama’s grandma travelled from Kenya to Washington for his Presidential inauguration and – as grandmas do – she brought him some house-warming gifts.

A three-legged stool, oxtail fly swat and a warrior’s shield were the surprises in Sarah Obama’s luggage. They’d be lovingly packaged and generously presented, no doubt, in sure and certain knowledge that no government interior designer would have thought to include such basic home essentials in her grandson’s recently overhauled and redecorated White House.

It’s precisely that kind of sweet, no-nonsense, unconditional love that makes all grandmas so special.

“Always wear a girdle and have your teeth out when you’re 21,” was my grandma’s gift of whispered advice when I was a girl and she was pressing her cherished gold locket – the one with the photo of my mum in it – into my hand.

She cared, you see. A practical grandma, she cared enough to want all to be safely gathered in and was anxious to save her granddaughter from toothache in adulthood. Needless to say, not all her gifts were accepted with unfettered enthusiasm – tried a girdle once but preferred breathing and I still have my teeth – but it was nice that she’d thought to offer it. And I still wear the lovely locket.

It’s unlikely anyone will ever see Barack or Michelle Obama balancing on a three-legged stool to swat a bluebottle with an oxtail – and what they do with a warrior’s shield is their own business – but both are bound to treasure Granny Sarah’s thoughtfulness, just the same. Grandmas are like that... they must always be treasured.

In such a week of monumental history-making, it can be hard to put a finger on what directly connects us with a far distant world of political intrigue, ordered by a charismatic commander-in-chief fond of swatting flies with an oxtail on a stick.

But grandmas do it. Whether we’re shutting down Guantanamo Bay or parking up in The Lanes for a spot of weekend shopping, most of us have at some time loved a grandma.

“What do you call Lancashire hotpot in Yorkshire?”

“Lancashire hotpot.”

“Really? So do we in Cumbria – when it’s not tattie pot.”

She’s a grandma and a close friend. I love her dearly but I reckon women change discernibly when they become grandmas. They grow into the role and tilt just slightly off the normal kilter of accepted logic. That must be what makes them so loveable.

We won’t all have the opportunity to dance at 10 balls in one night or take two oaths in as many days – most of us wouldn’t want to – but even if our idea of a special occasion is shared tattie pot, we all have in common that we’re flesh and blood folks with quirky families.

Proud Granny Sarah Obama, 87, told reporters she was finding being Barack’s grandma a full-time job, given her big ideas for the lad and her inconvenient distance from him – her home being in Kenya.

“I want him to work hard and achieve world peace, to stop all the fighting in many places around the world,” she said – which was probably as tall an order in his terms as wearing a girdle and false teeth was in mine. You know – nice idea in theory. But in reality...

Grandmas are dutifully proud of their grandchildren, whether they get things right or not. My chum the hotpot gran is gushingly proud of all of hers.

An element of her family’s traditionally kept table manners has apparently been the declining of second helpings with the following fulsome compliment to the cook: “No thank you, I have had an elegant sufficiency.”

That must be Cumbrian. Ours in Yorkshire tended to be: “I’m so pogged... but yes please.”

Little Hannah, a cultured Cumbrian, having filled her boots with tattie pot at her grandma’s house, decided that, at four-years-old, the time had come to take up her own responsibility for maintaining and continuing the high standards of polite Carlisle society with her own version of eloquence.

“No thank-you,” she said. “I’ve had an elephant’s deficiency.”

For her grandmother this was an enormous improvement on the original and inarguable evidence of a new brilliance gene having entered the family line through the genius of young Hannah.

Who would gainsay her? Who would ever take issue with a grandma – be she in Washington, Workington, Kenya or Kirkbrampton?

Not me. If Lancashire hotpot must be known as tattie pot then so be it. And should anyone need to know what to call an oxtail in Washington – or anywhere else for that matter, now a new superpower has been sworn in twice – take advice from the indomitable Granny Sarah.

Henceforth you shall make your soup from a fly swat.

First published at 05:19, Friday, 23 January 2009
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk