I don't think I'd even hit double digits before I'd found my first four-leaf clover. Lucky me.

Grandad and I were on our hands and knees out on the green by Mum and Dad's house, scouring every bud and blade of grass for what seemed like hours. Being the persistent young fellow I was, I wanted to sack it off pretty much immediately - but as we all know, Grandad was not one to give up on something. Not until the job was done.

Sure enough, though, we found one. Like a needle in a haystack also made of needles, in a barn full of needle-haystacks - but there it was, among the rest of its lesser-leaved family, and then subsequently in my eager little hands. I was over the moon. Lucky me! But as far as Grandad was concerned, luck didn't come into it - only perseverance. 

"Joshy, you'll never find anything walking around looking up at the sky," he said.

I laughed, later, remembering his words. "Classic Grandad," I thought. I'm a dreamer, man! Looking up at the sky's my whole thing! Even though I had the evidence right there in hand - and, later on, in book, pressed flat and kept safe - I couldn't help but feel like he'd missed the point, somehow.

Anyway, years later I'm at the pub, propping up the bar, letting my eyes fall downwards before I did - and there, underfoot, I see eighty quid in tenners waiting for me. Paid for the round, or most of it. Lucky me.

And luckier still, to have had a Grandad like Ron. A teacher of lessons, a solver of problems, and an occasional but fervent enjoyer of Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. As irascible as we all knew him to be, with a firm hand and an even firmer way, I'll always remember the man I saw at every family get-together; all beard and smiles, arms reaching down, gruff voice singing: "Hello, Joshy!"

Goodbye, Grandad.