# Poetry in a Northern Kitchen: My Gran
Some people leave behind photographs.
Others leave behind houses, jewellery, or money.
But many of us are left with something far more precious.
A memory of walking through our Gran’s front door.
In my new book, *Poetry in a Northern Kitchen*, I write a poem called **Gran**. I wasn’t trying to tell the story of one remarkable woman. I was trying to capture something many working-class families shared.
My Gran welcomed you with one enormous hug that seemed to make everything feel better. She wore her pinny without a second thought, her hair tied up in a scarf with rollers sticking out the front, and there was often a cigarette balanced between her lips while something delicious cooked in the kitchen.
The smell of fried eggs and ham seemed to live in that house.
It wasn’t glamorous.
It wasn’t perfect.
But it was home.
Food was never just food. It was how that generation showed love. They didn’t always say, “I love you.” Instead, they asked, “Have you had something to eat?” Then they’d put another slice of bread on your plate before you’d even answered.
Looking back now, I realise those kitchens were about much more than meals.
They were places where families gathered after hard days. Where stories were told over cups of tea. Where children felt safe. Where worries seemed a little smaller for an hour or two.
Many of our grans had lived through war, rationing, hardship, and making do with very little. Yet somehow, they always found enough to feed everyone who walked through the door.
That quiet generosity has stayed with me all my life.
**Gran** is my way of saying thank you.
Not just to my own Gran, but to an entire generation of women whose love rarely made headlines, yet shaped families in countless ordinary kitchens.
If this poem reminds you of your own gran, then perhaps we’ve both been lucky enough to have known the same kind of love.
Sometimes the greatest inheritance isn’t something you can hold.
Sometimes it’s simply the memory of a hug, the smell of fried eggs and ham, and the certainty that, no matter what was happening in the world outside, Gran would make sure you never left hungry.
*Poetry in a Northern Kitchen* will be published at the end of the year.
Thank you for reading.
🖤 Your DislexicPoet