Isuppose you could describe my grandmother as a “soft Christian”. Her relationship to God was on par with the average working-class Welsh woman of her generation. She didn’t go to church or, to my knowledge, practise whatever faith she had in any organised sense. But she sometimes read me bible stories at bedtime as a kid and put some stock in prayer. (You’d have to, being married to a nutter like my grandad.) She also wore a plain gold cross around her neck. That’s how I remember her: rollie in one hand, blue biro for doing crossword puzzles in the other, and that cross sitting small and solid against her chest. She was never without it, until she passed away and left it to me. Now I’m never without it.

Jewellery is often sentimental. I don’t wear the cross because it represents my belie

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