Kate Challis A Personal Tribute I admired Bernard for what he did ...

Kate ChallisA Personal TributeI admired Bernard for what he did, all he wrote and what he achieved, but I loved mygrandfather for who he was and what he stood for.Some people saw him as argumentative, tough, uncompromising, opinionated,provocative, challenging and single-minded, with impossibly high standards. He could beall of those things. But he was also playful, loving, reliable, tenacious, empathic and, mostof all, he was an optimist.He was excited by the future, he felt the world was becoming more complex andinteresting and he believed in the younger generations. You’d never hear him say thatthings were better in the old days. He rarely, if ever, complained and he had an amazingability to see challenges as opportunities for change. The past, including his own, heviewed with a curiosity and respect. He understood that life conditions change and thatyou cannot judge the past on today’s values. It is what made him a great historian, butalso an inspiring man.He was born out of wedlock, the son of an Irish Catholic migrant, in a time whenillegitimacy was a taboo in a way that it is hard to fathom today. His childhood could beviewed like this: he was abandoned by his mother, became a ward-of-the-state, wasfostered to a working class Protestant family who took in an array of neglected andunwanted children, his foster father had had a gambling problem, his foster mother was abusy, distant woman, he grew up underprivileged, alone and unloved.This is a version of his story that you would never hear my grandfather telling. He saw hischildhood as fortunate. His mother made sacrifices to put his wellbeing before her owninterests: she gave him life, interviewed foster families and personally decided on theKeens and, when she eventually married and called for him, Ben wrote to her and askedthat he be allowed to stay at the Keens, a wish she granted. He remembered the gardenof his childhood as a kind of Garden of Eden, Ma Keen made sure he was well fed,clothed, and raised with a strong moral compass, while Pa Keen taught him to read andrecommended he read a chapter of the bible each night, which little Bennie dutifully did. It

was Bertha, the Keens’ teenage daughter, however, who showered him with affection andlove. It was with her he formed a strong attachment so important for his future life as aconfident man with a strong sense of self. In short, he saw his childhood and himself asthe “Lucky Young Bastard”: luck that he was born, luck that he was fostered to such awonderful family and luck that all of this gave him a sort of freedom to create his ownidentity and forge his own path free from the restrictions that family and tradition canunwittingly place. It meant that he had an amazing ability to distance himself critically fromthe crowd. This was the underpinning of him as an academic.He did not conform to familial expectations either. My childhood memories of mygrandfather was a handsome serious figure who spent his time in his study “Cook-ing”. Myprimary relationship, as was the case with all the grandchildren, was with my grandmother.She died the year I started university and I would visit my grandfather once a week,initially, if I am honest, out of a sense of duty. Much to my surprise my grandfather tookgreat interest in me. He never pried or interfered but always showed great curiosity. A fewmonths later, he put a well thought out and thoroughly prepared proposal to me: he hadthis big house that he was rattling about in all by himself, I should think about moving intothe front room, there’s plenty of space, it’s close to university and my work and friends. Hefelt quite lonely, so it’d be nice to have another person around. “But Kate” he said “we’lllive our own lives.” So we agreed we’d see how it goes and if it didn’t work out then therewould be no hard feelings.We lived together for almost 10 years. A lot of people thought it was strange living with mygrandfather in my twenties. Grandpa used to say that we lived in a total anarchy meaning“we did what we wanted when we wanted and it somehow all worked out.”Our relationship was built on years of conversations, arguments, discussions, commonexperiences, shared confidences and supporting each other through a variety ofchallenges.But, before this happened, Grandpa was my teacher. It wasn’t just in the seminar roomsand lecture halls at the university that my liberal education took place. but talking to mygrandfather over cups of tea in the courtyard, going for walks in the neighbourhood parks,having a whisky at night, preparing, eating and cleaning up an evening meal, hanging outthe washing. Sometimes a ‘hello’ on the staircase would turn into a three hour

philosophical discussion: him leaning against the banister and me sitting on a step, bothtoo involved in the conversation to think about relocating.No topic was off-limits. Given our age and gender differences we disagreed about a lot ofthings. My grandfather would only reluctantly concede a point and never would make anyallowances for a weaker – or younger – competitor. He thought that was just plainpatronising. Both he and I knew that the best way to strengthen my game is to engagewith a stronger more experienced opponent. I rarely out-played him intellectually, though,but when I did no compliments were paid, for that too would be patronising.It is impossible to tell you in five minutes everything Grandpa taught and meant to me. If Ihad to sum it up, I’d say he really taught me how to think with rigour and logic, not justfrom an academic intellectual point of view, but also emotionally, to take responsibility formyself, to find the positives in one’s past and present, to act with honour and intrigrityregardless of what others might accuse you. But most of all, G’pa taught me that life itselfwas a great privilege, that we are all lucky for being here and should enjoy it whatever youdo.Over the years he never told me that he loved me nor that he was proud of me. Thatwasn’t his style. This did not mean that he did not love and feel things deeply. Initially Ifound that hard, but as I matured I came to realise that somethings just don’t need to besaid.