grant
Grant's story begins at the turn of the Century when, at the tender age of 12, he was born into a well-to-do military family in Aldershot, England. Drafted immediately into the 5th Hants Volunteers, he rose quickly through the ranks to become an Admiral of the British Army, a title he was given following his deployment of battleships in an overland assault on Belgium ("It seemed so obvious to me - ships had been an enormous success at sea, why not on land?"). With 15 medals and a BAFTA award to his name, he looked set to follow Wellington, Nelson and Mainwaring into the history books, but his meteoric career was cut short by scandal when it was revealed in the pages of Blimey! magazine (the army's in-house gossip monthly) that he was not a virgin - a situation which the British Armed Forces will not tolerate even today - and he was given an instant, dishonourable discharge.
The news was delivered to Grant on the Scottish front line at the height of the infamous Tunnockburgh revolt. He was so shocked that he fell immediately in a dead faint from his horse, Grace. Fortunately, his fall from Grace was cushioned by Pillows, his faithful Daschund and Cushions!, the army's in-house soft furnishings weekly, a hundred copies of which - each bearing a free army draught-excluder, coincidentally modelled on the dog Pillows, who was famous in his own right - lay stacked up next to his elderly gelding. Grant was unharmed but the pooch was entirely flattened. Heart broken, Grant, thinking about the cost of having his lifelong companion stuffed, transferred the animal's collar and name tag to one of the draught-excluders, which was subsequently put on display in a glass case in the officers' mess at Sandhurst, where it survives to this day.
Unable to adjust to a normal civilian life, Grant took the next ferris wheel out of town and travelled the world, looking for - and finding - adventure. After ten years of exploration, with his inheritance entirely spent, he was fortunate enough to bump into Edward Mondrian, the editor of "No way!" Magazine for Boys, who employed Grant as chief feature writer for the mag, a task which required him to scour the Earth looking for extraordinary things, a job which he continues to do, from the safety of a glass case - a protection against draughts, which have become fatal to him - to this day.
Grant is married with 100 children and continues to play the accordian, despite being a lover of music. |
