I've got arthritis. I got it when I was 34. That's around the same age my grandma got it.
She stopped bending her knees when she got it, so eventually she walked a bit like R2D2. I decided to keep bending mine, in case they set in place, and also I think they have better drugs these days. I'm sure riding a bike helps, because that's tough to do without bending your legs.
My grandma used to infuriate me by sellotaping 50p to my birthday card, but then telling me I had to share it with my brother. But it's my birthday I used to say, to no avail. Still, the same thing used to happen to him on his birthday.
My grandparents lived in a back to back house in Sheffield the first few times I went to see them. They only had an outside toilet so if you needed a wee in the night you had to pee in a pot called a Gazunder (because it goes under the bed). It wasn't much good for number twos, and tripping up when taking it to be emptied was not to be recommended.
My grandma would give me games that she'd cut off the back of the Cornflakes packet, and she once gave a big build up to the fact that she'd bought me a Taxi. I used to collect Corgi cars (before I smashed them all up to make a junk yard) and I thought she meant one of those, but it was actually a chocolate biscuit.
My grandad had an affair once. He used to pretend he was off round to his mate's house to do the pools but he was actually seeing another woman. Not sure if she helped him fill in his pools coupon or not. Details are sketchy on that.
One day he thought he'd been found out. Something his son said to him made him think he'd been rumbled. So he jumped out of a window. It was six floors up. I think he meant to die, but he didn't quite make it. As well as damaging his legs, he also bashed his head in, and not long that after he became schizophrenic.
When I saw him after that he used to giggle a lot and buy furniture. Sometimes he'd tell my grandma he was off out to the shop and the next thing he'd turn up at our house in Leeds (about 40 miles away) giggling.
My grandparents only lived in a small flat but they had so many settees and chairs it was like a game of 'We are the Champions' getting from one side of the room to the other.
Eventually my mum had to circulate his picture to all the furniture shops in Sheffield. Sort of like a Wanted poster but with the message 'Do not sell furniture to this man!' underneath instead of a reward. But that didn't stop him. When they were on holiday in Skegness he ordered a 3 piece suite to be delivered from there. He gave them a key and told them he'd left a bag of money in the wardrobe to pay for it. He hadn't though.
As well as settees and chairs they had about 7 things that my grandma used to call 'Poofies'. They were just big lumps of stuff you could rest your legs on, or stand on if necessary to get stuff off the top of cupboards. I'm not sure if they have a real name.
Those two were the only grandparents I knew, and they both died in the 1980s when I was still at school. My dad's parents died before I was even born. And my dad didn't last long either.
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