Elizabeth Day

This is my grandfather's cigarette case.

Okay.

So the grandfather who used to keep every single copy of The Times in his study.

Amazing, yeah.

Was an amazing man and someone I feel so lucky to have been related to, to have in my life.

He taught me so much.

He taught me the importance of kindness.

He was an incredibly kind person as well as being

a self-starter and a massive success story.

So he grew up in Grimsby in a terraced house with an outdoor toilet and no one in his family had ever been to university.

And he managed to get a scholarship to the local grammar school and then a scholarship to Cambridge to read modern languages.

And from there, he became a diplomat and he joined the League of Nations.

And when he was in Geneva on a posting, he met the woman who had become my grandmother, who was Swiss.

And shortly after they met, he was posted to Cairo during the Second World War and they conducted their friendship and then love affair via letter and telegram.

So my grandmother was in Switzerland and my grandfather was in Cairo and in between them was occupied Europe.

Wow.

So they fell in love through writing, ultimately.

And eventually he proposed to my grandmother via telegram and she said yes via telegram.

And then he said, oh, what kind of engagement ring would you like?

I was thinking this kind.