MY first overwhelming feeling on seeing my newborn grandson was one of utter terror.

Of course, in time, I did come to feel those other emotions every grandparent's supposed to feel - overpowering love, joy beyond words. But the terror was there first. True, Jonah was such a tiny scrap of humanity, just six pounds in weight. He wasn't feeding properly either, and the nurses in the busy London hospital ward seemed too rushed off their feet to pick up on problems.

Then, too, he'd come into the world at a troubled time, barely two months after September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre had been destroyed by terrorists. It had been a hard time for our family too, with the deaths of two elderly parents followed by months of serious illness for our daughter, auntie to this new baby.

I suppose what I felt was a kind of supercharged version of what I experienced as a new mother, 30 years before. Then, I remember waking up in the dark, panic stricken. Everything would be quiet, too quiet. There should be some sound, surely, I'd think; something to show that the little creature in the crib by the bed was still there, still alive?

I'd strain my ears, trying to hear something - anything - above the terrified thudding of my heart. Even the baby crying would be better than this, though that would be terrifying too, in another way, because I couldn't always tell what the crying meant.

Then I'd hear it: the gentle, even breathing, the soft snuffling sounds a new baby makes, and I'd sigh with relief. All was well, my baby was alive. You can't do that, as a grandmother. The baby's not beside your bed. There's no way of checking up on him.

So in those early weeks I'd wake terror-stricken in the night, unable to do anything at all to reassure myself. Is he feeding all right now, I'd wonder, or have the nurses still not come to check?

Worse, perhaps he has some serious problem that stops him feeding properly, which no-one is going to spot in time to save him from dying of hunger. Is he going to need some horrible corrective surgery, which will scar him for life?

Then there was the world outside the hospital: the violence, the bombs, all those people full of hate; pollution, disease, the terrible consequences of everyday human mistakes. It all seemed very dark, infinitely threatening.

Yet I'm an optimistic person. I know life can be hard, but I tend to hope for the best and look on the bright side. It's just that the birth of a grandchild suddenly brings a new dimension to your life. Until that day, there were just two generations, our own and that of our children, all steadily growing older. You know - or you very much hope - that your children will outlive you, but they've reached adulthood, they've found their feet, you can see more or less where they're going.

As for you, well, it's a case of enjoying what life brings, taking it as it comes, making the most of what's left. You've reached a kind of plateau and you know roughly where the horizon is, even if you're not thinking about it much.

The birth of our grandson suddenly shifted that horizon into infinity. Here was a new young life, just beginning. This time, I had no direct responsibility for the course it would take. My son and daughter-in-law were the ones who day by day, had to give up their lives to caring for the new arrival.

My part was simply to love our grandchild to bits, which was easy, and yet frightening. It's hard to love someone while not being able to do much to make his life as trouble-free as possible. But when we can do something, then we grandparents do it as best we can. Even when it's something so big as trying to make the world a better place.

Our generation was born into a world at war. Our parents lost loved ones in that conflict. We have no illusions about what humans can do to one another. That is why there were so many grandparents among the anti-war marchers in London, in February 2003.

That was why I was with them, with my husband at my side and our grandson in his buggy, taking part in my first protest march since student days. Because, after years of not thinking very much about the state of the world, we now have every reason to want it to be a perfect place.

We didn't change anything this time, but we'll go on trying. We have a stake in the future, even though it's one we won't live to see.

Published: 11/11/2004