1、.Pub Talk and the King s English(酒吧閑談與標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語)Henry Fairlie (亨利費爾利)1. Conversation is the most sociable of all human activities. And it is an activity only of humans. However intricate the way in which animals communicate with each other, they do not indulge in anything that deserves the name of conver

2、sation. 人類的一切活動中，閑談是最具交際性的，也是人類特有的。而動物之間的信息交流，無論其方式何等復(fù)雜，也是稱不上交際的。2. The charm of conversation is that it does not really start from anywhere, and no one has any idea where it will go as it meanders or leaps and sparkles or just glows. The enemy of good conversation is the person who has “something t

3、o say.” Conversation is not for making a point. Argument may often be a part of it, but the purpose of the argument is not to convince. There is no winning in conversation. In fact, the best conversationalists are those who are prepared to lose. Suddenly they see the moment for one of their best ane

4、cdotes, but in a flash the conversation has moved on and the opportunity is lost. They are ready to let it go. 閑談的引人入勝之處就在于它沒有一個事先設(shè)定好的主題。它時而迂回前進，時而奔騰起伏，時而火花四射，時而熱情洋溢，話題最終會扯到什么地方去誰也拿不準(zhǔn)。感覺“有話想說”的人是一個“完美閑談”的最大敵人。閑談不是為了爭論，盡管爭論常常是閑聊的一部分，不過其目的并不是為了說服對方。閑談之中是不存在什么輸贏勝負的。事實上，真正的閑聊高手往往是隨時準(zhǔn)備讓步的。他們也許會偶然間覺得該把自己最

5、得意的奇聞軼事選出一件插進來講一講，但一轉(zhuǎn)眼大家已談到別處去了，插話的機會隨之喪失，它們也就聽之任之了。3. Perhaps it is because of my upbringing in English pubs that I think bar conversation has a charm of its own. Bar friends are not deeply involved in each other s lives. They are companions, not intimates. The fact that their marriages may be on t

6、he rock, or that their love affairs have broken or even that they got out of bed on the wrong side is simply not a concern. They are like the musketeers of Dumas who, although they lived side by side with each other, did not delve into each other s lives or the recesses of their thoughts and feeling

7、s. 或許是從小混跡于英國小酒吧的緣故吧，我覺得酒館里的閑聊是別有韻味的。酒館里的朋友們對彼此的生活毫不了解，他們只是臨時的伙伴，相互之間并無深交。這些人之中，也許有人的婚姻面臨破裂，有人戀愛受挫，有人碰到別的什么不順心的事兒，但這些都無關(guān)緊要。他們就像大仲馬筆下的三個火槍手一樣，雖然朝夕相處，卻從來不過問彼此的私事，也不去打探別人內(nèi)心的秘密。4. It was on such an occasion the other evening, as the conversation moved desultorily here and there, from the most commonplac

8、e to thoughts of Jupiter, without any focus and with no need for one, that suddenly the alchemy of conversation took place, and all at once there was a focus. I do not remember what made one of our companions say it she clearly had not come into the bar to say it, it was not something that was press

9、ing on her mind but her remark fell quite naturally into the talk. 有一天晚上的情形正是如此。當(dāng)時人們正在漫無邊際地東拉西扯，從最普通的家?，嵤铝牡糜嘘P(guān)木星的科學(xué)趣聞。完全沒有一個特定的主題?？赏蝗婚g中心話題奇跡般地出現(xiàn)了，大伙的話題都集中到了一處。我不記得其中一個伙伴的那句話是什么情況下說出來的 不過，顯然她并沒有特意地準(zhǔn)備什么，那也算不上是什么非說不可的要緊話 那只不過是隨著大伙兒的話題十分自然地脫口而出的。 “Someone told me the other day that the phrase, the King s

10、 English, was a term of criticism, that it means language which one should not properly use” “就在前幾天，有人告訴我說標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語這個詞是帶貶義色彩的批評用語，指的是人們應(yīng)該盡量避免使用的英語?！?The glow of the conversation burst into flames. There were affirmations and protests and denials, and of course the promise, made in all such conversation,

11、that we would look it up on the morning. That would settle it; but conversation does not need to be settled; it could still go ignorantly on. 此語一出，談話氛圍立即熱烈起來。有人表示贊成，也有人怒斥，還有人則不以為然。最后，當(dāng)然少不了像處理所有這種場合下的意見分歧一樣，大家約好次日一早去查證一下。問題就這樣解決了。不過，閑聊并不需要解決什么問題，大家仍舊可以糊里糊涂地繼續(xù)閑扯下去。 It was an Australian who had given h

12、er such a definition of “the king s English,” which produced some rather tart remarks about what one could expect from the descendants of convicts. We had traveled in five minutes to Australia. Of course, there would be resistance to the King s English in such a society. There is always resistance i

13、n the lower classes to any attempt by an upper class to lay down rules for “English as it should be spoken.” 告訴她“標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語”應(yīng)做這種解釋的原來是個澳大利亞人。知道這個后，有些人便說起刻薄話來了，說什么囚犯的后代這樣說倒也不足為奇。就這樣，不到5分鐘，大家便扯到了澳大利亞。在那個地方，“標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語”自然是不受歡迎的。因為下層人民總是會抵制上流社會給“規(guī)范英語”制定的條條框框。 Look at the language barrier between the Saxon churls an

14、d their Norman conquerors. The conversation had swung from Australian convicts of the 19th century to the English peasants of the 12th century. Who was right, who was wrong, did not matter. The conversation was on wings. 想想撒克遜農(nóng)民與征服他們的諾曼統(tǒng)治者之間的語言隔閡吧。于是閑聊的主題又從19世紀(jì)的澳大利亞囚犯轉(zhuǎn)移到了12世紀(jì)的應(yīng)該農(nóng)民身上。誰對誰錯，并沒有關(guān)系。閑聊依舊熱

15、火朝天地進行著。 Someone took one of the best known of examples, which is still always worth the reconsidering. When we talk of meat on our tables we use French words; when we speak of the animals from which the meat comes we use Anglo Saxon words. It is a pig in its sty; it is pork (porc) on the table. The

16、y are cattle in the fields, but we sit down to beef (boeuf). Chickens become poultry (poulet), and a calf becomes veal (veau ). Even if our menus were not written in French out of snobbery, the English we used in them would still be Norman English. What all this tells us is of a deep class rift in t

17、he culture of English after the Norman Conquest. 有人舉了一個眾所周知但仍值得深思的例子。在談到飯桌上的肉食時我們用法語詞，而談到提供這些肉食的牲畜是則用盎格魯-撒克遜詞。豬圈里的活豬叫pig，飯桌上吃的豬肉便成了pork（來自法語pore）；地里放養(yǎng)的牛叫cattle，而桌上吃的牛肉則叫beef（來自法語boeuf）；小雞叫chicken，用作肉食則變成poultry（來自法語poulet）；calf（小牛）加工成肉則變成veal（來自法語vcau）。即便我們的菜單沒有為了裝洋耍派頭而寫成法語，我們所用的英語仍然是諾曼式的英語。這一切向我們昭示

18、了被諾曼人征服之后的英國文化上所存在的深刻的階級裂痕。10. The Saxon peasants who tilled the land and reared the animals could not afford the meat, which went to Norman tables. The peasants were allowed to eat the rabbits that scampered over their field and, since that meat was cheap, the Norman lords of course turned up their

19、 noses at it. So rabbit is still rabbit on our tables, and not changed into some rendering of lapin. 撒克遜農(nóng)民種地養(yǎng)殖牲畜，自己出產(chǎn)的肉自己卻吃不上，全部送到了諾曼人的餐桌上。農(nóng)民們只能吃在地里亂竄的兔子。因為兔子的肉便宜，諾曼貴族自然不屑去吃它。因此，活兔子和兔子肉共用rabbit這個詞表示，而沒有換成由法語lapin轉(zhuǎn)化而來的某個詞。11. As we listen today to the arguments about bilingual education, we ought to

20、think ourselves back into the shoes of the Saxon peasant. The new ruling class had built a cultural barrier against him by building their French against his own language. There must have been a great deal of cultural humiliation felt by the English when they revolted under Saxon leaders like Herewar

21、d the Wake. “The king s English”-if the term had existed then-had become French. And here in America now, 900 years later, we are still the heirs to it. 如今，當(dāng)我們聽著有關(guān)雙語教育問題的爭論時，我們應(yīng)該設(shè)身處地替當(dāng)時的撒克遜農(nóng)民想一想，新的統(tǒng)治階級用法語來對抗撒克遜農(nóng)民自己的語言，從而在農(nóng)民周圍筑起一道文化壁壘。當(dāng)英國人在像覺醒者赫里沃德這樣的撒克遜領(lǐng)袖領(lǐng)導(dǎo)下起來造反時，他們一定深深地感受到了文化上的屈辱。“標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語”-如果那時候有這個名詞的

22、話-已經(jīng)變成法語了。而九百年后我們在美國這個地方仍然繼承了這種影響。12. So the next morning, the conversation over, one looked it up. The phrase came into use some time in the 16th century. “Queen s English” is found in Nashe s “Strange News of the Intercepting of Certain Letters” in 1593, and in 1602, Dekker wrote of someone, “thou

23、 clipst the King s English.” Is the phrase in Shakespeare? That would be the confirmation that it was in general use. He uses it once, when Mistress Quickly in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” says of her master coming home in a rage, “here will be an old abusing of God s patience and the King s English

24、,” and it rings true. 那晚閑聊過后的第二天一大早便有人去查閱了資料。這個名詞在16世紀(jì)已有人使用過了。納什作于1593年的截獲信函奇聞中就有過“標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語”（Queen s English）的提法。1602年德克寫到某人時有句話說：“你把標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語（King s English）簡化了”。莎士比亞作品中是否也出現(xiàn)過這一提法呢？如出現(xiàn)過，那就證明這個詞在當(dāng)時既已通用。他用過一次，在溫莎的風(fēng)流娘們中，女仆Quickly在講到她家老爺回來后將會有的盛怒情形時說，“ 少不了一通臭罵，罵得昏天暗地，“標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語”不知要給他糟蹋成個什么樣子啦?！焙髞淼氖聦嵐槐凰f中了。13. One c

25、ould have expected that it would be about then that the phrase would be coined. After five centuries of growth, of tussling with the French of the Normans and the Angevins and the Plantagenets and at last absorbing it, the conquered in the end conquering the conqueror, English had come royally into

26、its own. 我們有理由認為這個詞就是那個時候產(chǎn)生的。經(jīng)過前后五百年的發(fā)展和與諾曼人、安茹王朝及金雀花王朝的法語的競爭，英語最終同化了法語。被統(tǒng)治者成了統(tǒng)治著，英語取得了國語的地位。14. There was a King s (or Queen s)English to be proud of. The Elizabethansblew on it as on a dandelion clock, and its seeds multiplied, and floated to the ends of the earth. “The King s English” was no long

27、er a form of what would now be regarded as racial discrimination. 這樣便有了一種英國人值得引以為傲的“標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語”。伊麗莎白時代的人沒費吹灰之力便使其影響日盛，遍及全球?！皹?biāo)準(zhǔn)英語”再也不帶有今天所謂的種族歧視的性質(zhì)了。15. Yet there had been something in the remark of the Australian. The phrase has always been used a little pejoratively and even facetiously by the lower clas

28、ses. One feels that even Mistress Quickly-a servant-is saying that Dr.Caius-her master-will lose his control and speak with the vigor of ordinary folk. If the King s English is “English as it should be spoken,” the claim is often mocked by the underlings, when they say with a jeer “English as it sho

29、uld be spoke.” The rebellion against a cultural dominance is still there. 不過，那個澳大利亞人的解釋也有一定道理。下層階級在使用這一名詞時總帶著一點輕蔑、譏諷的味道。我們會發(fā)現(xiàn)，就連Quickly這樣一個婢女也會說她的主子凱厄斯大夫管不住自己的舌頭，而講起平民百姓們所講的那種粗話。如果說“標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語”就是所謂“規(guī)范英語”，這種看法常常會受到下層人民的嘲笑譏諷，他們有時故意開玩笑地把它稱做“規(guī)反英語”。下層人民對于文華上的專制還是頗有抵制心理的。16. There is always s great danger, as C

30、arlyle put it, that “words will harden into things for us.” Words are not themselves a reality, but only representations of it, and the King s English, like the Anglo-French of the Normans, is a class representation of reality. Perhaps it is worth trying to speak it, but it should not be laid down a

31、s an edict, and made immune to change from below. 正如卡萊爾所說，“對我們來說，詞語會變成具體的事物”是一種始終存在的危險。詞語本身并不是現(xiàn)實，它不過是現(xiàn)實的一種反應(yīng)形式而已。標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語和諾曼人的盎格魯法語的性質(zhì)一樣，也只是一個階段用來表達現(xiàn)實的一種形式。讓人們學(xué)著去講也許不錯，但既不應(yīng)該把它作為法令，也不應(yīng)該使它完全不接受來自下層的改變。17. I have an unending love affair with dictionaries-Auden once said that all a writer needs is a pen, pl

32、enty of paper and “the best dictionaries he can afford”-but I agree with the person who said that dictionaries are instruments of common sense. The King s English is a model-a rich and instructive one-but it ought not to be an ultimatum. 我一向?qū)υ~典有著始終不渝的酷愛-奧登曾經(jīng)說過，一支筆、夠用的紙張“他所能弄到的最好的詞典”就是一個作家的全部所需-但其實上我

33、更贊同另一種說法，即把詞典看成是一種常識工具。標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語是一種范本-一種豐富而又指導(dǎo)作用的范本-但并不是一種絕對的權(quán)威。18. So we may return to my beginning. Even with the most educated and the most literate, the King s English slips and slides in conversation. There is no worse conversation than the one who punctuates his words as he speaks as if he were wri

34、ting, or even who tries to use words as if he were composing a piece of prose for print. When E. M. Forster writes of “the sinister corridor of our age,” we sit up at the vividness of the phrase, the force and even terror in the image. But if E. M. Forster sat in our living room and said, “We are al

35、l following each other down the sinister corridor of our age,” we would be justified in asking him to leave. 由此我們可以回到我先前的話題上。即便是那些學(xué)問再高、文學(xué)修養(yǎng)再好的人，他們所講的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語在閑聊中也常常會離譜走調(diào)。要是有誰閑聊時也像做文章一樣句逗分明，或像寫一篇要發(fā)表的散文般咬文嚼字的話，那他說的話就一定極為倒人胃口。看到E.M.福斯特筆下寫出“如今這個時代陰森恐怖的長廊”時，我們可以深刻體會到語言的生動、比喻的張力。但假若福斯特坐在我們的會客室里說“我們大家正一個接一個地步入

36、這個時代陰森恐怖的長廊”時，我們肯定會讓他離開。19. Great authors are constantly being asked by foolish people to talk as they write. Other people may celebrate the lofty conversations in which the great minds are supposed to have indulged in the great salons of 18th century Paris, but one suspects that the great minds wer

37、e gossiping and judging the quality of the food and the wine. Henault, then the great president of the First Chamber of the Paris Parlement, complained bitterly of the “terrible sauces” at the salons of Mme. Deffand, and went on to observe that the only difference between her cook and the supreme ch

38、ef, Brinvilliers, lay in their intentions. 常常會有一些愚人要求大文豪們在交談時也像寫文章一樣字字珠璣，也有人對18世紀(jì)巴黎的文藝沙龍里那些文人雅士的高談闊論極表稱羨?？墒?，說不定那些文人雅士們在那里也只不過是閑談，談?wù)摼剖车暮脡牧?。?dāng)時的巴黎大法院第一廳廳長亨奧爾特在德芳侯爵夫人家的沙龍作客時就曾大叫到“調(diào)料糟糕透了”，接著還大發(fā)議論說侯爵夫人家的廚子和總廚師長布蘭維利耶之間的唯一差別不過就是用心不一而已。20. The one place not to have dictionaries is in a sitting room or at a d

39、ining table. Look the thing up the next morning, but not in the middle of the conversation. Otherwise one will bind the conversation; one will not let it flow freely here and there. There would have been no conversation the other evening if we had been able to settle at once the meaning of “the King

40、 s English.” We would never have gong to Australia, or leaped back in time to the Norman Conquest. 會客室和餐桌上是無須擺放詞典的。閑聊過程中遇到弄不明白而需要查實的問題可留待第二天在說，不要話說到一半?yún)s一邊查起字典來了。否則，談話變會受到妨礙，不能如流水般無拘無束地進行了。那晚，如果我們當(dāng)場弄清了“標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語”的意義，也就不可能再有那場交談辯論，我們也就不可能一會兒跳到澳大利亞去，一會兒又扯回到諾曼征服時代了。21. And there would have been nothing to thi

41、nk about the next morning.Perhaps above all, one would not have been engaged by interest in the musketeer who raised the subject, wondering more about her. The bother about teaching chimpanzees how to talk is that they will probably try to talk sense and so ruin all conversation.（from The Washington

42、 Post, May 6, 1979）而且，我們也就沒有什么可以留到第二天去思考了。尤為重要的是，如果那個問題能做當(dāng)場解決的話，人們就不會對于那位引出話題的“ 火槍手”發(fā)生興趣了，也不會想多了解她的情況了。教黑猩猩說話之所以很困難，原因就在于它們往往可能盡是想著要講出正經(jīng)八百的話來，因而會使對話失去意趣。摘自1979年5月6日華盛頓郵報Marrakech馬拉喀什見聞 George Orwell喬治，奧威爾- 1 As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it,

43、but they came back a few minutes later.一具尸體抬過，成群的蒼蠅從飯館的餐桌上嗡嗡而起追逐過去，但幾分鐘過后又飛了回來。2 The little crowd of mourners - all men and boys, no women-threaded their way across the market place between the piles of pomegranates and the taxis and the camels, walling a short chant over and over again. What really

44、 appeals to the flies is that the corpses here are never put into coffins, they are merely wrapped in a piece of rag and carried on a rough wooden bier on the shoulders of four friends. When the friends get to the burying-ground they hack an oblong hole a foot or two deep, dump the body in it and fl

45、ing over it a little of the dried-up, lumpy earth, which is like broken brick. No gravestone, no name, no identifying mark of any kind. The burying-ground is merely a huge waste of hummocky earth, like a derelict building-lot. After a month or two no one can even be certain where his own relatives a

46、re buried. 一支人數(shù)不多的送葬隊伍其中老少盡皆男性，沒有一個女的沿著集貿(mào)市場，從一堆堆石榴攤子以及出租汽車和駱駝中間擠道而行，一邊走著一邊悲痛地重復(fù)著一支短促的哀歌。蒼蠅之所以群起追逐是因為在這個地方死人的尸首從不裝進棺木，只是用一塊破布裹著放在一個草草做成的木頭架子上，有四個朋友抬著送葬。朋友們到了安葬場后，便在地上挖出一個一二英尺深的長方形坑，將尸首往坑里一倒。再扔一些像碎磚頭一樣的干土塊。不立墓碑，不留姓名，什么識別標(biāo)志都沒有。墳場只不過是一片土丘林立的荒野，恰似一片已廢棄不用的建筑場地。一兩個月過后，就誰也說不準(zhǔn)自己的親人葬于何處了。3 When you walk throu

47、gh a town like this - two hundred thousand inhabitants of whom at least twenty thousand own literally nothing except the rags they stand up in- when you see how the people live, and still more how easily they die, it is always difficult to believe that you arewalking among human beings. All colonial

48、 empires are in reality founded upon this fact. The people have brown faces-besides, there are so many of them! Are they really the same flesh as your self? Do they even have names? Or are they merely a kind of undifferentiated brown stuff, about as individual as bees or coral insects? They rise out

49、 of the earth，they sweat and starve for a few years, and then they sink back into the nameless mounds of the graveyard and nobody notices that they are gone. And even the graves themselves soon fade back into the soil. Sometimes, out for a walk as you break your way through the prickly pear, you not

50、ice that it is rather bumpy underfoot, and only a certain regularity in the bumps tells you that you are walking over skeletons.當(dāng)你穿行在這樣的城鎮(zhèn)其居民20萬中至少有2萬是除開一身聊以蔽體的破衣爛衫之外完全一無所有當(dāng)你看到那些人是如何生活，又如何輕易地死去時，你永遠難以相信自己是行走在人類之中。實際上，這是所有的殖民帝國賴以建立的基礎(chǔ)。這里的人都有一張褐色的臉，而且，人數(shù)如此之多！他們真的和你一樣同屬人類嗎？難道他們也會有名有姓嗎？也許他們只是像彼此之間難以區(qū)分的蜜

51、蜂或珊瑚蟲一樣的東西。他們從泥土里長出來，受苦受累，忍饑挨餓過上幾年，然后又被埋在那一個個無名的小墳丘里。誰也不會注意到他們的離去。就是那些小墳丘本身也過不了很久便會變成平地。有時當(dāng)你外出散步，穿過仙人掌叢時，你會感覺到地上有些絆腳的東西，只有這些有規(guī)則的突起的土包才會告訴你，你正踩在死人骷髏上。4 I was feeding one of the gazelles in the public gardens.我正在公園里給其中一只瞪羚喂食。5 Gazelles are almost the only animals that look good to eat when they are st

52、ill alive, in fact, one can hardly look at their hindquarters without thinking of a mint sauce. The gazelle I was feeding seemed to know that this thought was in my mind, for though it took the piece of bread I was holding out it obviously did not like me. It nibbled nibbled rapidly at the bread, th

53、en lowered its head and tried to butt me, then took another nibble and then butted again. Probably its idea was that if it could drive me away the bread would somehow remain hanging in mid-air.動物中也恐怕只有瞪羚還活著時就讓人覺得是美味佳肴。事實上，人們只要看到它們那兩條后腿就會聯(lián)想到薄荷醬。我現(xiàn)在喂著的這只瞪羚好象已經(jīng)看透了我的心思。它雖然叼走了我拿在手上的一塊面包，但顯然不喜歡我這個人。它一面啃食著

54、面包，一面頭一低向我頂過來，再啃一下面包又頂過來一次。它大概還因為把我趕開之后那塊面包仍會懸在空中。6 An Arab navvy working on the path nearby lowered his heavy hoe and sidled slowly towards us. He looked from the gazelle to the bread and from the bread to the gazelle, with a sort of quiet amazement, as though he had never seen anything quite like

55、this before. Finally he said shyly in French: 1 could eat some of that bread.一個正在附近小道上干活的阿拉伯挖土工放下笨重的鋤頭，羞怯地側(cè)著身子慢慢朝我們走過來。他把目光從瞪羚身上移向面包，又從面包轉(zhuǎn)回到瞪羚身上，帶著一點驚訝的神色，似乎以前從未見過這種情景。終于，他怯生生的用法語說道：“那面包讓我吃一點吧?！? I tore off a piece and he stowed it gratefully in some secret place under his rags. This man is an emplo

56、yee of the municipality.我撕下一塊面包，他感激地把面包放進破衣裳貼身的地方。這人是市政當(dāng)局的雇工。8 When you go through the Jewish Quarters you gather some idea of what the medieval ghettoes were probably like. Under their Moorish Moorishrulers the Jews were only allowed to own land in certain restricted areas, and after centuries of t

57、his kind of treatment they have ceased to bother about overcrowding. Many of the streets are a good deal less than six feet wide, the houses are completely windowless, and sore-eyed children cluster everywhere in unbelievable numbers, like clouds of flies. Down the centre of the street there is gene

58、rally running a little river of urine.當(dāng)你走過這兒的猶太人聚居區(qū)時，你就會知道中世紀(jì)猶太人區(qū)大概是個什么樣子。在摩爾人的統(tǒng)治下，猶太人只能在劃定的一些地區(qū)內(nèi)保有土地。受這樣的待遇經(jīng)過了好幾個世紀(jì)后，他們已經(jīng)不再為擁擠不堪而煩擾了。這兒很多街道的寬度遠遠不足六英尺，房屋根本沒有窗戶，眼睛紅腫的孩子隨處可見，多的像一群群蒼蠅，數(shù)也數(shù)不清。街上往往是尿流成河。9 In the bazaar huge families of Jews, all dressed in the long black robe and little black skull-cap, a

59、re working in dark fly-infested booths that look like caves. A carpenter sits crosslegged at a prehistoric lathe, turning chairlegs at lightning speed. He works the lathe with a bow in his right hand and guides the chisel with his left foot, and thanks to a lifetime of sitting in this position his left leg is warped out of shape. At his side his grandson, aged six, is already st