ABSTRACT
How well I remember the telephone call which announced the safe arrival of our first (and so far only) grandchild, on New Year’s Day, 1998. A surge of joy, of pure delight and anticipation swept through me, which surprised me by its strength. We had to give expression to it by whooping, throwing our arms into the air and dancing round the room, before toasting the newborn and his mother (our daughter-in-law) with champagne. Was it just the memory of my own four babies, and the pleasure they brought me, and the thought of being able to relive some of that pleasure again? Or an atavistic pride in having our name and genes passed on to a new generation, an affirmation of family continuity? A combination of both, I suspect. The emotion certainly felt primitive and unalloyed. It was definitely not connected however with the idea of myself as grandmother, newly promoted to the state of grandparenthood.
