Skills for writing

My grandfather's name was James Cooper and we all loved him very much. When we were kids
we used to go to my grandparents' house every weekend for dinner. Grandpa always had a smile
on his face. He used to tell us terrible jokes and funny stories when he was young. My grandfather
was born in London in 1928 and had a beautiful childhood. He had a brother and two sisters and
they all had a good relationship. In 1936, his family moved to Montreal, Canada, and lived there
for 10 years. He grew up speaking English and French fluently and in 1946 he returned to the
United Kingdom to study medicine at the University of Cambridge. He graduated in 1952 and
worked as a doctor in different hospitals in the United Kingdom from 1953 to 1962. In 1962, he got
a job in a hospital in San Francisco. In the United States he met his grandmother and they married
in 1964. A year and a half later, my mother was born. When my mother was 10 years old, my
grandfather was offered a job in South Africa and they all went to live in South Africa in 1975. They
lived there for five years and then returned to San Francisco in 1980. During their stay in
Johannesburg, grandfather became good friends with the famous South African heart surgeon,
Christiaan Barnard. Grandfather retired in 1988 and died 12 years later, in 2000. The whole family
missed him very much.