One night, during a camping holiday in the south of France, I had a terrible apocalyptic dream like none I’d had before. I woke up in a sweat, unsettled, anxious. I couldn’t even say quite what the dream was about, but I knew something bad had happened. The following day, I learned that – 800 miles away in the north of England – my beloved grandpa had died, at about the time I’d had the dream.

Alfred was 75 when he passed; I was 18. We had always been close. He lived with Nellie, my grandmother, near the school I attended, and I often stayed with them on a school night. He was always supportive whenever I wasn’t getting along with my mum and dad, and he encouraged me to read more (he was a big sci-fi fan) as well as to play chess. I loved him dearly.

However, after he died, I realised that, despite the bond between us and the many hours we’d spent talking, I had only a sketchy idea of his extraordinary life. I knew he’d been a sports writer in the 1930s and had covered the Berlin Olympics. But I had only the vaguest idea of his bizarre, face-to-face encounter with the Führer, Adolf Hitler, in the Olympic stadium. I knew he’d later been a war correspondent in various European locations. But he had never explained the eerie moment in 1945 when he found, lying on a pavement in Cologne, a photograph of himself, taken nine years earlier at the Games.

At another point in his life, he had some kind of adventure in the Borneo jungle, about which I knew nothing.

I have always regretted not making a more detailed record of Alfred’s remarkable experiences, not just for me but for my children – and for future generations of our family.

I wish, too, that I’d spoken more to my other grandfather about his life and family history. In the 1920s, Big Jack O’Malley, as he was known, migrated from County Mayo in the west of Ireland to the West Riding of Yorkshire, where he found work as a road builder. Since he died, I have become intrigued by the possibility that he was a descendant of the legendary 16th-century Pirate Queen, Grace O’Malley, who was born near Big Jack’s home town.

Surely it’s true! Well, I like to think so...