If there is one measure with which to easily garner the amount of power one gathered throughout their lifetime, it surely must be to see how many people know of their passing – granted that this is because of their person, and not some extraordinary manner of death. My grandfather was a powerful man. The first to hear of his death on a summer morning in 1929 was my father; second were the newspapers, and by nightfall surely everyone in London had to be aware.

Perhaps this should not have been such a surprise to me, provided that my grandfather was one of the largest icons of the steel industry, and praised as the man that had provided Britain with equipment during the Great War. The man was ever persevering, with a cold, confident grasp on the company, and an upper lip so stiff the last name it spoke with any enthusiasm had to have been Queen Victoria’s. To some he was the quintessential gentleman, who had to be looked up to and emulated, to others little more than a tyrannical overlord, whose mere mention elicited balled fists and gnashed teeth.

I was subjected to neither his cunning nor his cruelty however, as those appeared to be reserved for his business and my father. By then ten years old, I was the eldest boy of my numerous cousins, and his prized heir. My father surely must have befallen that same role at some point in his life, but inevitably done something self-determined enough that it earned him disapproval. I on the other hand hadn't had the opportunity yet to think for myself, and thus like an unworked slate was able to reflect my grandfather's beliefs on the surface.

In my case that would come with praise and gifts. If I had been more inclined towards terror, like some children innately are before their better inhibitions set in, I surely would have had free-reign to do so at his behest. But I was solely interested in learning and thus never abused any good graces.

On some level, certainly, I understood that he treated me unfairly well, even as a young boy, but I did not grasp how limited the reach of his kindness was until much later. And regardless of how little warmth he had in the entirety of his character, with my grandfather's death there was still a presence lost in my life.

The downside of good fortune would then appear to be that the ordinary becomes awfully ill-fated – and there is little more ordinary for a man to do than to die, regardless of whether he were a tyrant, gentleman, or my grandfather. All are equal amongst the dead.