If my great-grandfather hadn't been deaf, I probably wouldn't be here to write about his son, my grandfather, who has died aged 98. Edwin Piggott, a market gardener from the then-rural parish of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, could not enlist in 1914 because of his poor hearing. My grandfather, Leslie Piggott, was born the following year.
Granddad always insisted he was a lucky man: though there wasn't much money in the house he, his three brothers and sister always had enough to eat, as his father brought home vegetables from the nursery where he worked, seven days a week, 12 hours a day.
Leslie won a scholarship to Hertford grammar school, but for the rest of his life remained bitter about the caning and bullying he experienced there. After leaving school he worked in the local library, but pay was poor, so in 1937 he went to work at the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield and became a skilled tool-maker.
When the second world war broke out, he enlisted in the RAF as a Spitfire mechanic. He insisted that during his service he faced fewer dangers than people in London and the suburbs, including his wife, Eileen, whom he married in 1940. His brother Vincent, serving in the army, was killed in action while helping to evacuate allied forces near the Corinth canal in Greece. Not long ago, Granddad wrote: "There were many, many thousands who did not return, the cream of my generation. I lost my brother and two of my best friends; even now I feel their loss and weep a little when I see film again of those war years. I am, even in my old age, quite an optimist and still (believe) that the world will return to a peaceful state, but it's going to take a long time."
After the war, the family moved to a new estate. My father, Michael, and two more children, Vincent and Kate, were born in the following years. Granddad helped to establish a tenants' association and was its secretary for over 20 years; he would chuckle on recalling how local big-wigs thought council tenants kept coal in the bath. Like many returning servicemen, Granddad voted for Clement Attlee in 1945, and rated him the greatest prime minister of the 20th century.
Granddad spent the rest of his working life as a tool-maker, a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, and working for the Labour party. Despite suffering a serious heart attack in 1972, he worked until 1980 and spent his retirement reading, spending time with his grandchild – me – and great-grandchildren. He had a lifelong love of art and crafts, and produced some wonderful works in wood and metal.
In later years his mobility dwindled but never his mind, and he was able to complete the Guardian crossword until near the end. He remained a committed atheist and socialist.
He is survived by Eileen, his three children, and by me and his two great-grandchildren.