Family Photo My Grandparents – The Cavanaghs

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My previous article was a look at a photo of my fathers parents, The Chappells. Now I’m sharing an image of my Mum’s parents, William (Bill) and Phyliss Cavanagh (my mum’s maiden name). They were keen cyclists in their younger years and they had a tandem that they used to enjoy riding over seventy miles to the Welsh coast. This photo was probably taken during such a break. They were very attached to one another though they argued a lot. My grandad only ever liked driving Morris Minor cars and had about seven of them, one after another. He often told tall-stories and yarns, gaining the nickname Tom Pepper but some of his stories were true. Fr example he told people that he had a horse that brought down a spitfire. He rarely elaborated on this but I eventually got the full story. He worked all his life as a delivery rider and later a driver for the railways. When he was working with a horse drawn cart, after the war (the horse was not a Nazi collaborator) he was delayed by traffic ahead. A Spitfire on a cart was being delivered to the Manchester museum. My Grandad’s horse got impatient and bolted, slamming into the truck and knocked the warplane off its support blocks, causing minor damage. He really had owned a horse that brought down a spitfire. My nan was a dutiful housewife, easily exasperated by his tendency to drink and as I later learned, also womanize. He tried to quit smoking but it made him quite unpleasant. My Nan made him start smoking again and he did, returning to normal. My grandad inspired my love of real ale, and he loved playing dominoes in the pub. He treated everyone he met as his best friend, and he was convinced that just mentioning his name would get things done. He told me who to see about railway work with a promise to just say I was his grandson. I found the man he mentioned with some difficulty and that he had no idea who Bill Cavanagh was. He had no work available anyway. Bill got throat cancer and he was being treated for it when a faulty air valve on a hospital ventilator plunged him into a coma. I was by his bedside when he died – the first human death I saw first-hand. Phyliss pined for him a great deal and moved to our house for her last few years. She was irritated by my mum’s constant inane chatter and used to show me that she’d switched her hearing aids off as she sat nodding her head as my mum prattled on endlessly. Phyliss eventually succumbed to thyroid cancer, and again I was by her when she went. Her funeral was the worst I ever attended as the priest kept forgetting her name and other details. I miss all my grandparents a great deal. Arthur Chappell