My grandad was a drinker.
What we’d call an alcoholic these days.
He saw me just once (when I was 3 months old so I never really met him) but I’m glad he did, then he died.
During WW2 he was a miner for a while, which was a reserved occupation so he didn’t get called up into the army immediately. Although he did join up later.
Just before the war started he was drunk in the pub chatting to a bunch of people he had never met before.
Much later my Grandma heard him fumbling with his keys trying to get into the house after a shedload of beer.
She opened the door and glared.
He said ‘I had the chance to buy a pig’
She said ‘Well that would have been bloody stupid, Thank God you thought better of…..’
Then she stopped as she heard an oink come from the darkness behind her husband.
Both my grandad and the pig spent the night in the shed.
When war broke out and meat rationing hit the UK my Grandad sold the pig through the black market and made enough money to put a deposit down on a small shop - a business they ran successfully for years.
Some years after the war (same pub, same amount of beer) and he bought a half-share in a taxi with a friend of his, planning to go into business as a taxi hire firm.
Everyone laughed because my grandad was a drinker who couldn’t drive.
His business partner (Alan) could though and did the taxi driving, giving my grandad half of the takings. Alan’s ‘perk’ of the job was of course having control of the taxi for his personal use as well.
It was probably lucky that my grandad couldn’t drive because he continued to drink.
He sold his share in the taxi business to someone else maybe a year later and the money helped pay for my mum (his daughter) to go to Grammar school, which was a first for our family.
Two stupid ideas.
LITTLE ideas that many of his friends and family laughed at.
Ideas that my grandma thought were dangerous.
But it started off their shop business and paid for my mum’s education.
You don't have to be Nike to change your life.
You just have to add a dangerous idea or two into it.