In his sleepy, tropical home town, the people who knew the late Nobel-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez as a child are greeting his death with warm memories and hope. “His grandfather, who was the colonel, kept him in the house a lot, very protective. And (Garcia Marquez) just came out to go to school,” recalled Anibal Calle, who knew the literature laureate as a very small boy. “At that time, the teacher would stop by their home and take him to school by the hand,” said the elderly Calle, glancing at the picket fence across the street that encloses the leafy patio of the Garcia Marquez family home. Garcia Marquez, whose “magical realism” told epic stories of love, family and dictatorship in Latin America, died Thursday aged 87 in Mexico City.