Forced to put a name to it, he called it Non-Knowledge and he’d lived with it for years.

It wasn’t about something he definitely didn’t know. It was something that from time to time - very rarely - fleeted around inside his head, without source or detail, never stopping long enough for him to analyse it. And he’d never been told explicitly, so he laboured on in this two-tier state of subconscious Non-Knowledge on the one hand and conscious but infrequent curiosity on the other.

Looking back, he thinks he was comfortable in his state of limbo - his Non-Knowledge world - because it concerned a horrid thing, something that nobody would want to know.

He didn’t know if ‘blissful ignorance’ was the right term but, either way, the outcome was the same: in the absence of certainty he could continue to remember Grandad in the way he’d always remembered him. A role model. Somebody to respect. A man to look up to.

When he was young, he’d sit on Grandad’s lap who’d bounce his knees, imitating the sensation of riding a horse. “One and two and three and one and two and three and one and two and...THREE!” And at this point Grandad’s knees would open and he’d fall through the gap. Grandad always caught him and he always laughed. “More. More!” He could play this bouncy game for hours if Grandad would play along too. Other times he’d just sit on his knee, listening to the stories Grandad would tell and counting the hairs sprouting from nostrils. In truth there weren’t that many and the only way you’d see them would be if you were sitting on his knee, looking up in adoration - like him. Best of all, Grandad was the fireman on a steam engine. It was his job to make sure there was enough fire, water and steam so that the driver could do his thing. He provided for his train. Casey Jones had been a fireman too before he was made a driver. That made Grandad special. And because he was in a reserved occupation, Grandad didn’t go to war. Instead, he stayed in Britain, making sure that everything that had to be somewhere, made it there safely. He provided for his country.

He wanted to be like Grandad when he got old, even if he always felt a bit awkward when friends shared stories of their heroic grandads’ feats during the war. He couldn’t tell stories about Grandad being a hero.

Then one day his world crumbled.

Last year, his mum died (Grandad had died almost 40 years earlier) and it hit him hard. It hit everybody hard but he felt like he and mum were peas from the same pod. The grieving process was taking its time as well as its toll and as he learned to process his past, Non-Knowledge showed its face again. This time, guided by his therapist, he decided to face it down. He was tired of not knowing if he did or didn’t know.

He spoke with his sister. She was certain to know.

“Was it true or have I made it up? Did Grandad abuse mum? I don’t want to know all the details; I just want to know if he did so that I can be on the same page as everybody else”.

“Yes, he did… I don’t think her sisters faced the same thing though - mum protected them. She protected you too by saying nothing - she didn’t want you to be hurt. She always knew how much you loved him.”

She was right. I’d have been devastated. I might not even have believed it. Who knows?

”But, when you mentioned his name, I thought you were going to ask about something else.”

”About what?”

Silence. And then… “I thought you were going to ask about what he did to me when I was 11”.

I felt it in the stomach. For the first time in my life - really - I literally felt sick at what I’d just learned. Sickness gave way to sadness - thinking of the pain and anguish she’d carried for years, thinking of the way I’d not been there for her when she needed me most. Then sadness was joined by a painful understanding of the dynamic that had driven her relationship with mum.

“She knew what he could do - why did she send me to see him?”

What could explain this? Perhaps she was convinced that not even he would damage an 11 year old. Perhaps she was just a mum wanting to make sure that her daughter saw her grandparents while they were still alive - anybody with kids and ageing parents knows about that. There had to be an explanation because there was no way on God’s earth that she - who’d been abused herself - would send her child in like a lamb to slaughter. Certainly not intentionally. Yet, here we were in a situation (sadly, all too common) that saw the two people who’d been abused - rather than the abuser - placed under the microscope when in fact they deserved sympathy, love, redress, compassion, understanding, and so much more.

Meanwhile, I was left with the challenge of recreating the memory of my relationship with my Grandad. He had been a role model. I did love him - even if he said things that scared me sometimes. (He was the one that told very young me that if I didn’t get to sleep “the bogeyman will get out from under your bed and get you”.) But that was then and this is now. Then, he was to me everything I thought he was - that was my reality.

Then.

Now, however, I knew more. I knew never to judge a book by its cover. I knew he’d done wicked things that had damaged my mum and my sister. I knew he’d abused his power and position.

Non Knowledge had become Knowledge.

I could still retain fond memories of the individual moments - the bouncing on the knee, eating fruit that he’d grown in his garden, his distinguished face and profile - but the blanket within which these were all wrapped, the role model blanket, has gone. And I don’t mourn its passing.