My grandmother on my father's side was called Elsie.
She was a beautiful woman.
A wonderful, wonderful person.
She was about 4 ft high with bandy legs; with her heels together, you could have kicked a football through her legs (before she had her knees done). She had a brutal, brutal, hard life, as poor as poor could be. She was a Catholic who married a Protestant who had a cleft lip and unrepaired palate.
He carried the buckets of rivets in the shipyards, not even skilled enough to put the rivets in himself.
I remember in the late 1970s, we used to go to their house once a week to take them a hot meal because it was the only one they would get.
My father was bitter about that; he said he would never vote for Labour again as long as he lived when he saw what happened to his parents.
She died when I was a house officer in Glasgow.
I don't think about it all the time, but I do think about it a lot because she was so smart, so clever, so practically brilliant.
Years later though, after she died, I remember hearing someone talk about ‘the granny on my shoulder’.
The lady who was presenting had done well for herself within dentistry; she was well known, well respected, speaking to big crowds.
She talked about the fact that she always felt like her granny was on her shoulder, asking, “What are you doing here?”
She felt like she was going to get found out any minute.
Ever since that time, I've always imagined Elsie there, talking to me, wondering how you got to do the things that you do, why you got to be here.
It's not that you're not good enough; it's just, well, unbelievable.
It's when the feeling stops, when you think that someone's gonna tap you on the shoulder and tell you there's been a mistake and you have to move along or move aside; it's probably time to stop overall.
None of us should be exempt from that; impostor syndrome is a thing that drives us forwards to be better.
Blog Post Number - 4665
Back in the day, when I got diagnosed with my thyroid disease and I was trying to go and ride the Haute Route 5-day event in the Pyrenees, Alex supported me through that when no one could see. In the lead-up, he even pushed me up a hill.
He wrote a blog after that, which I've kept, and I'll never publish it because I don't have guest bloggers here - sorry.
But I remember it, and I remember it well, and so what he said at the end of that was chapeau, and that is what cyclists say to each other out of respect, and when they are impressed.
So, chapeau, Alex.