What do you remember about how your grandma used to live?

My maternal GP's lived in a Northern terrace house with two rooms and a scullery downstairs.
The front room was for best, and to my knowledge it was never used.
The back room was a kitchen cum sitting room with a huge range which was "blacked" every day. Religiously.
There was a walk in cupboard off the kitchen called the glory hole. Everything was put/shoved in there.
Monday was wash day which involved lots of clothes bubbling in a metal cauldron, the being put through the mangle several times.
Washing was hung outside even on icy cold days and was often brought back inside just as wet.
Gran had lots of huge aspidestra type plants in a sealed glass tank infront of the window. The glass went mouldy.
Gran wallpapered the rooms every single spring. Trouble was, she never removed the old paper, so the walls became thickened and squidgy!
Grandfather walked to the corner pub every evening to collect a jug full of ale to "sup" at home.
Outside toilet and the proverbial newspaper squares on a string. Don't know where these came from as neither of them read the newspapers.
Happy memories of a lovely Gran who would do anything for her family.

Some interesting stories here, I remember the 'glory hole' as well grannysue

My grandparents refused to acknowledge me as I was adopted and illegitimate. Their loss.

Grandmother No 1 died when my mother was 16 - so obviously no memories. Grandmother no 2 - hideous old bat who we were forced to go and have tea with a couple of times a year. When she and (lovely downtrodden grandfather) down sized she made my parents go to the auction to buy any furniture they would like. (My parents immediately post war were living in a tied cottage on 10/- a week agricultural pay). She made every attempt to break up my parents marriage, eventually succeeded and changed her will to leave the lot to her new Grandson. My mother 'only' had two daughters! When I produced my second daughter she wrote to commiserate with me that I had not had a boy!!!!!!! I never spoke to her after that. She had no redeeming features - none.

Grannynannywanny. I have similar memories as you. My Nan never had a coat, she always wore a shawl, huge black one. We had a long walk to church on Sundays and I always had ice cream after church. I adored the wonderful lady.

Gran was born in 1902 and as a child had to attend church 3 times on a Sunday, changing her clothes every time. She was put into "service" at the age of 13 where she had to take letters in to the mistress of the house on a silver tray. She was up at 5am cleaning grates. She had half a day off a week. She used to say, "Good old days? There was nothing good about it!"

My maternal grandparents lived in various different houses in Lancashire. I can't remember my grandad working but they were always buying or building properties that they used to rent out.He would start building a house, leave it for a few years, and then carry on. They were always 'flitting'. If someone wanted to rent the house they were in they would move to another one. I lived with them during the school holidays and never knew where I would come back to.

My grandad was the town mayor and a JP but my granny used to run a black market shop from the cellar of her house. I can remember the neighbours queuing up every week for bacon.

In later years my grandad used to have tons of bricks delivered. He used to spend all day breaking them for no particular reason. He also employed a couple of men to help him.

I think you would class them as eccentric, to say the least.

MacCavity2 the ice cream was a lovely treat! My grandpa used to cycle the 18 mile round trip to the nearest town and bring back a block of ice cream wrapped in several layers of newspaper to stop it melting. Siblings and cousins waited excitedly for his return.

It was sliced up and handed round sandwiched between wafers ?

My paternal grandmother - Nanna lived in a terraced house like many already described. Two rooms and a scullery downstairs, the scullery still had a gas light which hissed. Everything happened in the back room, she baked there grandad sat in an armchair there reading the paper, the TV was there when they got one. They both watched the racing and picked out horses. Nanna told fortunes in tea cups. On Sunday evenings all the family had tea at the table- ham or some other cold meat, bread and butter, pickle, celery in a glass in the middle followed by tinned fruit and evaporated milk. Then we children were sent into the front room while the grown ups played cards.
My maternal grandmother was widowed when I was 11. She moved into a prefab when I was 7. It was an amazing house and I loved staying there. First house I ever saw with a fitted kitchen and a fridge. There was a huge garden which grew all sorts of soft fruit. Raspberries and fresh cream from the fridge was my favourite. She used to sing when she was doing the housework. I still remember "I like a nice cup of tea" and "When the red red robin". She lived to be 90, moving into a sheltered bungalow in her 80s. In later years she always carried a bottle of brandy in her handbag-"For medeecenal purposes."

Maternal GPS lived in next road & our back gardens were only separated by a drive giving access to garages so I could dive over there if Mum was cross with me. I was spoiled rotten.
Other GPS lived near Clacton in Essex so holidays there were fun too.
I was very lucky.

I only remember one grandparent. She lived with us for about the last ten years of her life and made us all very unhappy. She hardly spoke to my father at all. I cannot remember her ever saying anything positive to me. It was always 'you could do better'. On the rare occasions I did do something okay I was told 'well it should always be like that - there's no need for praise'!

Due to family problems I was brought up by my gran from when I was 8 they was the happiest years of my life you brought back so many things my gran used to do but she would go in the back entry on Colman day to see if they had dropped any coal if they had she would put it in her penny pocket another 1 was putting a shilling in the meter and buying mutton for Sunday dinner but we had it all week

Lived in an Edwardian semi in South London. Grandfather a packer for WH Smith but nice solid house. I was allowed to help feed the clothes through the mangle in a sort of glass lean-to behind the kitchen. She made brilliant fairy cakes and also caraway seed cake. Grandfather taught me to play drafts and chess. I remember seeing the hole in their back room floor after a bomb dropped, and grandfather going out in a tin hat as an air raid warden.

My maternal gparents lived way outside the village and I remember my dear, tiny GM pushing a trolley with milk churns in to walk to a standpipe in the village when the well was dry. GF couldn't do it as was blind in one eye (school playground accident) and walked with a stick (farming accident). The toilet was a bucket affair across the tard with newspaper on a string. The copper, where all the washing was done, was across the yard. GF used to chop the piles of wood needed to boil the water. Mangle in the outhouse. I remember the treacle cakes she used to make in the big black kitchen range, my favourite bit was in the centre which was always gooey.
The 'best room' with stuffed animals under glass domes, only used on special days! Busy bee was a good name for her, I can nevervreally remember her just sitting down and doing nothing. GF used to smoke a pipe and she would go to the village for his 'baccy', her little legs going like mad, even if she had only just got back from one such trip. She used to make rabbit stew when GF and the other farmers cut the corn in the next field, and the rabbits popped out.
We had oil lamps or candles for lighting and just the kitchen range for warmth but I can still feel the happiness and contentment of that very basic, simple life.

My Grandma looked like a cuddly Miss Marple. She was always baking and she would knit jumpers for us all and warm socks for my uncle who was a copper. Shopping was done every day and it was my job to count the bags of coal as they were delivered by the coalman. Only heating was a fire in the living room, gas fire in the dining room and a paraffin heater in the bathroom. She had a bathroom but also an outside loo, freezing in the winter and spiders in the summer! The big water geyser in the bathroom for hot water terrified me as it was so noisy! Also a big enamel bath I struggled to climb in to. Happy memories.

When my grandad died my gran had to leave the big house and move into a small unheated housing exec house on a new estate.
I often stayed there a d was allowed to do all the things I couldn't do at home. We baked and cooked every day, I cleaned and set the fire and hoovered.After our morning coffee we walked into the village where she had a long chat with every shopkeeper.
After lunch we listened to woman s hour and sometimes went for a walk through cup try lanes where we found watercress and primrose.She was a great gardener and taught me all the names of things.I used to take her bike out sometimes as there was no traffic.
I was woken in the cold back bedroom at 6.00 by the factory hooter . In the drawer beside my bed were some interesting items of my grandads. Never knew what they all were but one was a long rubber tube with a sphere in the middle that pumped air.I dread to think what he used it for!

My Grandma, born 1885, used to tell us about her work as a waitress in a posh hotel. Apparently the correct way to eat asparagus is to pick up the stalks, which were covered in butter, in your fingers and eat from the bottom up.
Funny thing to remember.

My maternal grandparents lived in a house then owned by the NCB. My grandfather had a job in the office at the local colliery, but was semi-invalid from his late 30s due to a stomach ulcer. I'm not sure whether that was the cause or a symptom of his bad temper! Or it could have been the 8 children..not THAT much of an invalid, then! But no television, only a radio which was turned on and off when he said so.
My nan, on the other hand, was the sweetest old lady ever put on this earth. She managed with very little income, and was kept busy fetching and carrying for her husband, who for as long as I could remember seemed to be permanently ensconced in a chair beside the kitchen fire. Her many grandchildren adored her. She had the fine, velvety skin of a baby button mushroom, and always wore a flowered wrap-around pinny. Never seen outside without her squishy crimson velvet hat, nailed firmly to her head with a steel hatpin. She taught me to crochet when I was very small, with fine cotton yarn and a very fine hook. Both grandparents died when I was 12, within eight weeks of one another. Granddad first, stomach ulcer finally burst and killed him. Nan followed 8 weeks later, she said she could still hear him barking orders at her. Funny thing was, they adored one another, even though they never demonstrated it in front of anyone else, even close family. When the house was cleared after their deaths, I was allowed to choose a keepsake. I still have the hatpin and crochet hook. I also have a photo of my nan in her early 40s, looking no different to when she was in her mid-sixties. Times were hard.

My nan on my Dads side was quite a formidable character. I remember her being tall and quite stern. My granddad on the other hand was a nice man and I wasnt scared of him. I remember having to visit every Sunday for tea - Angel cake or Battenburg and watching Black & White minstrels on their tv. Granmother on my mothers side died before I was born so my mum and her sister were brought up by their Uncle. He lived next door to his brother and they had a doorway between the two sittings rooms which was partitioned by a heavy curtain so you could hear him coughing next door. The front room was an immaculate 'victorian' room, with polished wooden furniture, old oil paintings, piano and we were not allowed to play in there. The toilet was at the bottom of the garden with newspaper hanging in square sheets on string. Those houses are no longer there now and last time I drove past you could see the outline of what was the toilet at the end of the garden, the rest is an open air car wash.

I’m enjoying this thread, it’s wakened up the old grey matter. Really interesting to read about other folks childhood memories.

Despite the poverty and hardships they endured I have no recollection of ever hearing my grandparents grumble. They just accepted their lot and made the best of it.

My two grandmothers were very different!
My father’s mother was an older mother, and my father was nearly 40 when I was born, so she was on the older side.
she knew how to drive, having been a driver for an Army General in WW1 (Unusual I think for women of her generation, born in Victoria’s reign) and she used to love zipping around the Sussex country side in her Triumph car!
They lived in a cottage out in the Sussex Weald and most exciting for me they had their own wood and orchard in the grounds which I got to explore as much as I wanted to; I can’t see today’s parents allowing this! Age 5 or 6 when staying with them, I would get up have breakfast then run down the garden to the wood and be there unsupervised for hours playing in the tiny stream or building dens. I also Especially remember afternoon tea which always featured Lapsong and Earl Grey and Lovely home made cakes which I didn’t get at home!
My other grandmother was completely different, part French she had trained as a chemist before the Second World War and has worked for a big company I remember her as being very elegant and chic! My mother was bought up in Egypt where the family owned factories, so both mother and grandmother spoke French and Arabic and both cooked lots of Middle Eastern food at home.
When I was a teenager she told me to call her by her first name and used to take me shopping which was great fun.
When she was widowed she lived with us for a couple of years before buying a cottage just up the road from us, I loved visiting as she wasn’t strict in anyway, cooked lovely spicy meals and let me play with her makeup and jewellery.

What a lovely thread. So very interesting!
I can't remember housing in days gone by, but l remember shopping, daily.
There was a shop for each item you wanted, and no one had even heard of a supermarket.
And hardly any cars, and the ones that were around, were started by a crank handle at the front.
The rag and bone man called every day to my street, and the cart was pulled by an old horse.

Thecatshatontgemat the rag and bone man was always a disappointment for me. He’d arrive in our street blowing his bugle with an array of goodies on display. Balls, plastic torches, table tennis bats etc.

But no matter what size bundle of rags I ran out with he only ever gave me a balloon!

On a positive note his horse usually left a deposit in the middle of the road and my Mum scooped it up for her roses!

I was born in Swindon during World War 2, and still remember that awful droning noise that German planes used to make at night before dropping bombs. My Mum used to throw my brother and me under the table to save us. One day she showed us through the window a plume of smoke from a house in a nearby street. It belonged to Mr Strange and he was killed. I liked him as he was the local greengrocer and always gave my brother and me sweets when he saw us. He had a shock of white hair like a fuzzy halo. Looked a bit like Einstein.
Another thing I remember in those days was my parents kept a little radio shop and we lived above it. My brother aged 3 and I aged 4 played in the front room which was kept warm by a coal fire. My father was away in the Army and Mum was in the shop. Suddenly while chasing me my brother tripped and fell backwards over the fireguard with his head in the fire. I rushed downstairs shrieking to get Mum but she was busy serving a man who was buying something. I pulled at her skirt, screaming and crying, but she ignored me until the transaction was over. Then she ran upstairs and pulled my brother out of the fire. His hair had caught light and she called the doctor. Thankfully it seems no permanent damage was done, and my brother survived. I got the blame as Mum said I had pushed him.
Mum's parents were quite well off and lived in Swindon in a large house. Grandad was chief inspector on the railways and had a good salary. Grandma, who had 8 children, always wore a fur coat when she went out. My other grandparents were living in Brazil at the time so I never saw them at that time.
These are my earliest memories and they and one or two others were rather grim. We moved to South Africa when I was about 7 and I have a lot of happy memories of my childhood there, and that is where my father's parents moved to and I finally met them.

My paternal nanna lived in London and their house was opposite the Kenco Coffee Factory. That combined with the stink of the river Wandle which was nearby I will never forget. My grandad was a real old grump and never spoke to me or my brothers. We always used to visit them after church on a Sunday. As we left I always remember my nanna, would pop some big old pennies in our hand and whisper don't tell your granddad. I also remember he would not have electricity put in the house and if we visited later in the day you had to sit almost in the dark until he put a, light on the gaslight. When he died my dad got the electric in straight away for my nanna. Happy days. My other nanna loved in Northern Ireland and I would visit for a few weeks each year with mum. I loved it as I loved to listen to their Irish lilt and everyone was so friendly. I also remember that you were not allowed to go down certain streets to play because of the different religions. My nanna, went mad when my cousin married a girl 'who kicked with the other foot' and they are still married after all these years

I lived next door to my Nan until I was 10.
She was a mother of 10 and lived in a 17th century cottage that had originally been thatched but at some point the thatch had been replaced by asbestos corrugated sheeting.
The cottage had 2 main rooms downstairs (one only used for special occasions!) and the kitchen had been built on during the 1900s. You went up two steps to reach it. Next to that was a barn (including a hay loft!) and the toilet - no bathroom! Upstairs were 3 bedrooms - one was more like a landing. I have no idea how 10 children/ teenagers slept there apart from 2 of the girls used to sleep at their aunts house round the corner.
When I was little, Nan also had a chicken run in her back yard - her flower garden was at the front. ably watered from the water butt.
Nan used to have an open fire - no central heating that had a cast iron surround, complete with a bread oven and metal things that used to swing across the fireplace where she used to dry her teatowels and sometimes her undies (as long as she wasn't expecting visitors!)
She did her washing either by hand in the belfast sink , or later on, by a twin tub. No tv until she was in her 70s and was given a black and white tv by one of my uncles that she used to enjoy watching Coronation Street on - up until then, it was radio and especially The Archers each evening.
When my mum was in hospital having my brother and then my sister, I used to go to nans after school for my tea. I used to run errands for her to the butchers on the corner as well as another general shop about 100 yards away - she used to give me 50p a week for that- when we moved elsewhere in the village, I still carried on doing that for her.
A staunch church goer and member of the Mothers Union - only missed if she was unwell, and sat in the same pew each week at church.
After she had a bad case of flu, followed by a fall breaking her hip and a hospital stay ( she was horrified that she was not allowed to wear undies in hospital), the family got together and formed a rota for "Nan sitting" so she was not alone at night - her bed was moved downstairs into the parlour while whoever was staying slept upstairs - my mum took her turn on a Thursday and often said about how cold it was in the winter - hot water bottle, a pair of bedsocks and sleeping in a dressing gown was a must!
Nan always had a tin of humbugs in the cupboard next to wear she sat that used to be handed out to the grandchildren.
I got married on her 83rd birthday and she continued living in the cottage all year round until a couple of years before she died, when she went to stay at my aunt's (her eldest daughter) house from Christmas until Easter.
She sadly died peacfully in her sleep,while I was living in Australia - the day after moving to my aunts for the second year, but she insisted on my Christmas card being posted a few days before. I still have it.
After her passing, the family central hub had gone - her house was the place everyone met up with the rest of the family and was the exchange place for presents at Christmas!
The cottage is still there, but it has been gutted and redesigned so is completely unrecognisable and missing the warmth and love that was always found there.