ON THE DESK in my office is a black-and-white photograph of a good-looking man seated in a chair and surrounded by the sort of leafy green plants you associate with old-fashioned colonial splendour. The only clue to his identity is that he has the same shaped nose as my father, but there are no memories attached to either the man or the setting of the picture.
This is my father’s father – my grandfather – and I never met him. In fact I only acquired the photograph a few months ago and looking at the picture is a bit like finding a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle that is still far from complete.
That jigsaw puzzle is my family history. I have no memory of either set of grandparents and though it would be an exaggeration to say this is something that has dominated my life, it is something I think about increasingly as I get older.
Without grandparents everything stops with my immediate family – of which there are now just my father, my sister and myself.
There is nothing tangible that I can grasp to understand more about where I came from or what my heritage is. And in a strange way, not having known my grandparents highlights what I don’t know about myself as much as what I don’t know about my family.
The colonial impression given by the photograph of my paternal grandfather is somewhat misleading – but his life is no less exotic-sounding. Both he and my grandmother were White Russian émigrés who fled to China after the 1917 revolution and then settled in South America – one in Argentina and one in Paraguay. My father did not go with either of his parents and was instead rescued by a Quaker spinster teacher in China, and taken to England where he was educated. As a result my father never saw his own father again, and only saw his mother once. I never met either of these grandparents.
Similarly I did not know my maternal grandparents. My mother, who was born in Egypt, had a distant relationship with her own mother, who during the 1920s can best be described as something of a social gadfly. She sounds like an incredibly interesting woman who was far ahead of her time: according to stories she used to catch turtles and ran a number of business enterprises. But pursuing these hobbies gave her little time for her own family.
Eventually she had a second family, and more children. I met her when I was in my teens and she did not show any interest in me. My mother’s father died when she was just thirteen so I never met him.
Perhaps it was a blend of this sense of rootlessness on the part of both my parents, and my mother’s somewhat difficult relationship with her own mother, but my parents worked hard to ensure my sister and I had functional and stable lives. And yet, even with such a secure upbringing I feel acutely a sense of loss from not having known my grandparents.
I had a lot of unanswered questions. I wondered, for instance, whether there would ever have been an alternative place to go to for advice, or if there might have been someone who would always have had time for me without the distraction of work.
Of course it is very easy for me to romanticise the role of grandparents. But I did grow up with the sense that there was something missing – a link with the past, and with the very people who give you your roots. This has made me inquisitive about the things and the people I do not know – and as I get older this sense of curiosity becomes greater.
This was crystallised in early 2008 when my father, who is now in his eighties, said that he had one ambition left, and that was to see his father’s grave. He had not seen his father since he was a teenager, more than seventy years ago.
Two months after we had that conversation I took him to Paraguay, where his father had settled. It was an emotional journey, where my father got to meet family he never knew existed and I learned a little about my own heritage.
As we came through customs at the airport I immediately recognised my father’s half-sister. It was the same resemblance I had when I first the saw the photograph of my grandfather. We also met my father’s nephews, nieces and my cousin in Paraguay.
The trip made me realise that there were all these people who are connected to me who are strangers. And I came away feeling that it would have been nice to have more of us when I was growing up.
So, as I sit here now, looking at the photograph of my grandfather I wonder what it would have been like to have a kindly older grandparent in my life. Of course it is a romanticised view. But not having known my grandparents has made me determined to make a real effort with my own grandchildren when they come along. I will take them on trips. I will take them to the theatre. I will teach them how to shoot.
And I, as a grandparent will have a romantic view of my grandchildren. I will be more thoughtful of putting aside quality time to spend with them. It is a bit of a conscious pay back: what you don’t do for your own children you would like to be able to do for your grandchildren.
Sir Stuart Rose is Executive Chairman of Marks & Spencer. He was knighted for his services to the retail industry and corporate social responsibility.