On Saturday 6^th January 2007, my grand­dad Dominic McDonnell passed away, after a merci­fully brief battle with cancer.

On hearing the news, I jumped on a train home so I could be with the family. My grand­mother and most of his children (includ­ing my mum) had congreg­ated at his house in Woking: we spent the evening celeb­rat­ing his life, remin­is­cing and sharing our favour­ite memor­ies of him. It was very much the right thing to do.

A week and a half later, I headed back down south for the funeral. I’m not sure why, but I felt almost emotion­ally detached during the service. The church was absolutely packed with friends and family, many of whom I hadn’t seen for years. It wasn’t until we left the church and I had my arms around my younger sisters that I broke down, as we watched the hearse carry Granddad away. The crema­tion service the follow­ing day was lovely, with his children, Justin, Claire and Stephen all reading pieces about him.

It almost feels wrong to say it, but the parties we had after each service were great. It was good to catch up with all of the people I only ever see at the really big family events.

You may still be wonder­ing why I’ve titled this piece “Boiled Eggs”. It’s because that’s my favour­ite memory. I don’t think I voiced it at the time.

When we were young, Alice & I would occasion­ally be dropped off at the grand­par­ents for a weekend. Our mum & dad were usually off doing something silly like The National Rally on their classic bikes. Anyway, break­fast was always a highlight: Dominic had perfec­ted the art of the soft-boiled egg. It came from the chick­ens they kept in the garden. It went in for four minutes. It never cracked prema­turely. The soldiers were toasted to perfec­tion. There’s probably an element of rose-tinted glasses, but that’s the way I remem­ber it. Good times.

Obviously he was a lot more to me than just the man who taught me how to boil the perfect egg. It was my mother that pointed it out to me: I was probably a lot closer to him than I might have been if my father hadn’t died in my teenage years. Granddad was always a man I looked up to. He was so bright, talen­ted and worldly wise, without ever being condescending.

I was looking through my collec­tion and could only find one photo of him. I’ll have to get some more from the family. My little sister’s got a nice photo of the whole family from the day of the funeral.