My Grandfather

[poliphilo]

 My grandfather turned up in a dream I posted about the other day and a friend asked if I had pictures of him.

Sure I do....

Here's one of my favourites. Cyril Henry Grist as a cocky young engineer working at the Vickers armaments factory in Dartford during the Great War. Vickers did guns, they also did planes and- I'm sure- all sorts of other clever devices for killing people. I'd like to think Cyril Henry was designing planes but I've no evidence he did....



He was a self-made man. I think he was part Romany (like Charlie Chaplin). He started out poor and rose to be a director of big American engineering firm. He was domineering and very well-read. I loved him. I could write a whole lot more but as Marlene Dietrich says of Orson Welles' character in Touch of Evil, "What does it matter what you say about people?"

Here he is as I remember him. My Grandmother is on the far left and the other three ladies are her sisters, my great aunts. 

Comments

[sovay]

Cyril Henry Grist as a cocky young engineer working at the Vickers armaments factory in Dartford during the Great War.

That is a wonderful picture. Do you know who took it?

[poliphilo]

Absolutely no idea. My grandfather didn't like talking about his earlier self and the little I know about his younger days is derived from pictures like this.

I know it was taken at Vickers because it has "Vickers" written on the back.

[cmcmck]

Part Romani......like me! :o)

[poliphilo]

Yup....

Which means I am too.....

[cmcmck]

It makes us didaki in Romani.

[paserbyp]

By 1940, Vickers-Armstrong were producing a range of seven different tracked armoured vehicles comprising of the Light Tank Mk VI / Mk VII (Tetrarch), Cruiser Tanks Mk I (A9) / Mk II (A10), the Infantry Tank Mk I (Matilda I) / Mk III (Valentine) and the Vickers Machine-Gun Carrier.

[poliphilo]

During the Great War (1914-18) Vickers was best known for producing the Vickers machine gun- a formidable weapon....

[paserbyp]

Romany like gypsy?

[poliphilo]

That's right.