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

My paternal grandmother had a hard life as an adult, she was widowed when my father was 12, so 1938 and as a woman was not granted the tenancy of the farm they lived on. her earlier life was much happier and although I talked to her about her love of art and school days, I wish I'd talked to er more about some of the things she did. She went to what is now Reading University Agriculture department to learn about cheesemaking, that must have been a huge adventure. She left her pony and trap at a pub to be looked after when she went shopping in our local town and the wrong horse was harnessed up in her trap for the journey home, which she didn't notice until it had charged off and deposited her and the trap in the ditch. People were so snobby then that if she walked to school anyone better off than her would not give her a lift in their horse drawn conveyance, they would just ignore her. I always thought we were very close but there is so much i'd want to ask her if we were to meet again.

My Paternal Grandparents lived in a beautiful Georgian townhouse overlooking a river and next to a church. He was a darling, she was not. He was terribly kind, she less so.
My best memories of her involved visits when she would show me all her glass and china ornaments and allow me to use a china musical mug which played "Uncle Tom Cobley" - and she taught me all the words. Worst memory was hearing her criticising my Mother and seeing her kill a hen for Sunday lunch.

My maternal Grandparents were so lovely. They lived at the bottom end of the market town in the Wye Valley in a lovely timbered house which had originally been a coaching inn. It was not in the best of condition, but very comfortable. We went to live with them and at various times, in parts of the very big house, there was my widowed Aunt with her toddler son, an Uncle with his Wife and small son, and a spinster Aunt - who would spend hours teaching me things and from whom I picked up my love of animals and gardening. Other Aunts and Uncles would turn up for meals which were always from a table groaning with home-cooked food. A Great Uncle in the town was a Fish and Game dealer and Granddad grew all his own vegetables. There were hens in the yard, one Uncle kept geese and pigs and beyond that a big vegetable garden. My earliest memories were of gas mantles throughout the house, endless stairs to attic rooms where swallows had made nests having flown through a broken pane and where Granddad stored all his apples in twists of paper, and kept sacks of potatoes. I would climb the stairs to bed from a warm kitchen where there was a big range and a copper for bath nights, followed by my Mum who carried a warming pan with coals from the range to warm my bed in a freezing bedroom. I had a candlestick with a lit candle - maybe around 6 years old - and I would always be spooked by the dancing shadows the candle created on the dark walls as we went upstairs. No bathroom. An outside privy with a wodge of newspaper squares on a string, but it did have the most wonderful wooden polished seat. Awful on cold nights, but we all had chamber pots upstairs (po's as they were called. I can never pronounce 'pots' like that in France now without thinking of what the word meant in our home all those years ago!)

My Granddad had fierce dark eyebrows, but lovely twinkly Irish grey eyes and a sense of humour. His serge work trousers were always buckled with a wide leather belt and he wore a collarless shirt in the house. Grandma was a gentle soul but with a very determined nature and a wonderful sense of fun. She had a best room in which there was a pretty cabinet filled with bone china cups and saucers. I now have these and have such pleasure in using them for visiting friends. Sadly she succumbed to cancer before my teens; Granddad later fell down the dark staircase due to his Glaucoma, and he broke his neck and died. I missed him dreadfully.

Life was hard for both of them. They worked from dawn until dusk, cleaning and laying fires, growing, preparing and bottling vegetables and doing housework with nothing but brooms and carpet sweeper, heavy buckets and a mangle and no electricity. She heated big flat irons on the range for the ironing. The milk was delivered by a local farmer and his horse and cart. He'd climb the steps, open the front door and fill the empty jugs from a churn and ladle from the cart. The jugs were covered in those little net things with beads on to keep out the flies. Meat was in a meat safe, in a draughty hallway with stone floors, as was butter in a dish of cold water. I was allowed to walk to the dairy next to the milking shed across the field with a small churn if we ran out of milk. I can still remember the Pish-tickkaah, Pish-tickkaah sound of the machine in the milking parlour and the smell of the cows as they stood happily munching. I would also go to the grocers on the corner and pick up some untipped cigarettes for Granddad and, occasionally, take a jug along the street to the little window of the Pub for his jug of ale. Grandma would bake bread and I too had an Aunt who, as MissDeke described on this thread, used to grip the bread saw and cut slices towards her own body. I was both enthralled and horrified. It was like a magic trick, I thought she would be sawn in half! There was no traffic - Great Granddad had owned a horse and carriage. But the blacksmith's dog - which would sleep soundly in the middle of the road - would have to get up and wander out of the way of the one truck which visited the blacksmith each working day. Grandma and Granddad and their big extended family made the first years of my life extremely happy. I have lovely memories and some super black and white photographs.

My maternal gran always seemed old. She reminded me of Queen Victoria, long grey hair pinned up in a bun,dressed in black and sitting regally on her chair waited on by her daughters.
Widowed at 40 while expecting her 10th child they had to leave the lovely seafront house and move to a townhouse in Derry city centre.

Her husband died on the kitchen table during an operation to remove his appendix.

No memories of my father's parents I don't think I ever met them.

We lived with my maternal grandparents in a 1930s flat on a busy London street. They had lived there for roughly 15 years before I was born. The flat had two bedrooms, quite a smart bathroom and a small, dark kitchen with a very old gas cooker. Heating was an open coal fire in the living room and small gas fires in the bedrooms. My Nan (born in 1880) made it her mission to ensure I was raised to be a lady. Good manners were of the highest importance, and from a very early age I was taught to embroider, sew and crochet, skills she considered essential for a lady. Thus began my passion for handcrafts. Nan would regularly take me into London on the bus to buy fabrics at MacCulloch & Wallace (near Oxford Street), where she was offered a seat and everything was brought to her for approval. Customer service indeed! I still buy from them, albeit online now. Before we went home we would have tea at Derry & Toms roof garden. I wonder if it's still there? Nan was always very smartly dressed and bought quality clothes in the sales and altered them to her taste. She was a bit of a flirt if there was a good looking man around, and she could be very sharp tongued and critical mostly of other women, or my mum. My GF was a quiet man, always walked with a stick (rheumatism) and enjoyed following aĺl sports on radio or TV, especially rugby. My GPs looked after me while my mum worked, grandad taking me for walks and Nan teaching me to read and write, I was fluent at both by the time I was four. Sadly my GM developed dementia till eventually she didn't know who I was. My GPs were probably the biggest influence on my life and I still recall things they said and did and talk about them frequently.

My nanny lived in a cottage on a hill. She had an outside toilet. She used to have her big front door key hanging on a piece of string over the letterbox so anyone visiting just put there hand threw letterbox and grabbed key that was dangling in piece of string to let themselves in. She used to sleep with candle wicks in her hair at night to curl her hair.She had a big arga I’m the kitchen where all the undies would hang off the doors drying. Monday was washing day she would do it in the yard with her mangle it took all day.

Happysexagenarian thank you so much for the info., you've shared on this lovely thread. MacCulloch & Wallace will now be on my contact list! Derry & Toms closed down many years ago but the roof garden is Listed.

My paternal grandmother in Ireland used to use a corner of a clean tea towel soaked with milk to clean her face. She had beautiful pale skin.
I didn’t know her for long as we moved back to the UK, but I think my younger sister has the same pale unlined skin, along with really dark hair.

I remember the little old lady, my 'London nanny', dad's mum, came to live with us to childmind my little sister while mum and dad were at work. I recall her telling me about standing in the street watching Queen Victoria's funeral. That was in 1901! She also thrilled me with stories of 'Penny Bazaars' where nothing cost more than a penny.

My DH's maternal grandparents lived in a railway tied house where there was no electricity upstairs and they bathed in a hand filled zinc bath in front of the fire.

In 1967 I visited my great grandmother's house in the West of Ireland. She brought up eight children in a two room cottage with no power or running water. Tea was brewed from a blackened kettle over the peat fire. My cousins were out on the farm cutting peat for the winter and the loo was a bucket in the barn.

And I am 'only' 63!

I wish someone would collate all these into a book!

This is beautiful and resonates with me. The constancy of hardship, endurance and love permeates it. My Granny was a hard working lovely lady. We lived with her when my Grandad died. When he was about good behaviour and silence was the order of the day. Not endearing but tolerable. Outside toilet with what we called 'room and kitchen' was accommodation. Spartan indeed but seemed totally acceptable to me as a child. Didn't know anything different and, crucially, I was loved to bits. I always remember my Granny doing piles of washing on a scrubbing board with a large square bar of soap (never seemed to get smaller!). In winter she had what she called 'hacks' on her hands as a result of this scrubbing and she used green 'stuff' called 'Zambuck' to give her some relief. Strange the things we remember..... She gave me the most profound teaching of the basics of cooking. The soups, stews and other tasty economic dishes. Wonderful woman. Yep, by comparison, many of us live in Shangri-la.

There are several chapters here already!
I’ve enjoyed dipping in and out of it since I added mine last night.
Such an interesting variety of family backgrounds.

My mother’s mother was a hoot. Widowed when mother was 9 she didn’t get on with my father or even with my mother, resenting that they had left her on her own in the north and moved down south before they married. This in spite of the fact that she had a wonderful second husband. She was very deaf and had a hearing aid with a wire which went down to her waist where she wore a quite large black box with an on/off switch. She delighted in snapping at my father and when he tried to reply she would hit the off switch and sit back with a smirk on her face. Her conversations were peppered with references to ‘lavvies’ and pubs. Everywhere she talked about it seemed was close to a lavvy. My parents had worked hard at hiding their working class origins and we found their discomfort very funny. We lived too far away to see her often but enjoyed the few times we visited.
Father’s mother was a severe lady who was always in the kitchen, never said much and certainly didn’t go in for hugs. My auntie would take us down narrow stairs into the cellar which was hugely exciting with a long butler type sink and an enormous mangle, marble topped table and meat store. Very cold and a little creepy. We were evacuated to their house during the war but I was a toddler and don’t remember that at all.

Norfolk Grannie and Grandad ran the village fish and chip shop which made me proud as punch. I always went to stay for the whole summer and used to boast to other children about spending my holidays living in a chip shop. The fryer was coal powered and Grandad would throw shovel fulls of coal into the furnace underneath and cook the fish and chips. Grannie served at the counter and when I was old enough I waited tables in the little lean-to cafe at the side. Grandad took me to Lowestoft in his van to buy the fish and I remember the noisy and exciting fish market. There was no passenger seat in the van so I used to sit on a crate of crabs on the way home! They were so kind to me and Grannie always used to call me her little woman and sing me lovely songs whilst I was cuddled up in bed dropping off to sleep.

My maternal grandparents were East End born and bred. They met at primary school. They never owned their own property but either rented or lived in a terraced house in East Ham bought by an uncle so they could have great-grandma to live with them. The front room was great-grandma's. She insisted on cooking for herself on the open fire. Every night she had a glass of Guinness and I had my own special glass for a drop. The middle room had a dining table and the TV. I can't remember them having a settee in that house. The back room was the scullery with an Ascot on the wall over the sink. Toilet was outside with Izal paper and a backyard. Upstairs were three bedrooms and a bathroom. Nan's brothers were builders and they put the bathroom in. The only problem was it had no toilet and no hot water, so to have a bath we had to carry saucepans of hot water upstairs from the Ascot in the scullery. The bed I slept in was very high, very soft with a bolster and very thick eiderdown. They had a dog (Judy) and a ginger cat (unneutered). Nan worked as a cleaner at the Port of London and Grandad worked at Ford Dagenham. I spent a lot of time with them and I used to walk up to Upton Park underground to meet her off the train when she came home in the late morning. When great-grandma died, the uncle wanted nan and grandad out so he could sell up. My parents bought them a house in Gidea Park. Shortly after moving there my grandad died and nan was moved again to live near us in Orpington. Again in a house owned by my parents. Nan was only 58 at this point. Nan did loads for our family, cleaning, ironing, babysitting. When she was about 70 she suffered what I think was a nervous breakdown. Eventually she was put into a nasty council run care home and my parents moved 150 miles away. My mother would go and see Nan about every 4-6 months. I don't think my father ever saw his MIL again. My Nan died in the care home at the age of 94 in 2009. She was my rock and I have never forgiven my parents for the way they treated my Nan.

My maternal grandparents lived in a rented 2 up 2 down in a terrace of similar you sets. My grandad was like a child following a brain injury acquired in the fire brigade fighting fires in the east end during the war, so it was Nanny Buster (so n,named because she went everywhere on the bus with dusters in her shopping trolley.

Nanny was very pious, attending daily worship, she cleaned the church, and when we stayed we went with her to church, and also to the Mothers Union meetings. She was always old, tall, with large boobs that our faces got lost in when being hugged by her. She always wore a navy shirtwaster, the belt sat under her boobs, she wore a navy hat with either a fruit bowl or flower vase as adornment. Her stockings were dried above the bath in the brand new indoor bathroom which she wouldn't use as in her mind it was unhygienic. We used the loo down the garden with tracing paper for loo roll during the day, and at night the dreaded pot.

She was strict, punishment was immediate, bad language? A mouthful of soap. Not sharing? We didn't get a treat. She was stern, and had high expectations, but at the same time she was warm, and patient.

My Nana lived with us. My gran and grandad lived in a two up two down cottage with an outside toilet. A downstairs bathroom was added probably in the late 1970's. Until then it was a tin bath in front of the fire! Grandad was a gardener at 'the big house', gran was a payroll clerk.

Such wonderful memories. Great idea for a thread Mary! I'm going to try and read them all.

Two amazing ladies born in different centuries, almost 20 years apart. Both lived in terraced houses, no bathrooms and long drop toilets in the yards when I was young. Grandma H, my MG had been widowed when my mum was 11 and auntie was 14. I remember the rack over the fireplace as well as the dolly tub, posser and mangle. We generally visited on Sundays when we would play games, especially dominoes and listen to the radio, she didn't get a TV until about 1970. The wonderful pies she baked on Wednesdays, I used to go for lunch everyday whilst I was at secondary school and her fascinating stories of growing up and starting work part-time in the mill at the age of 12. She died aged 84 shortly after I got engaged. I saw more of my PG as we lived on the next street to them from me being almost 7 and as my dad's youngest sister was 2 weeks younger than me we were always together and invariably at Grandma's. She let us "bake", taught us to sew and had the patience of a saint. She would build us a tent in the backyard with a wooden maiden and an army blanket and serve us banana butties and glasses of milk. Both Grandma's were so proud of their families and I'm just sorry that Grandma H died before any of her grandchildren got married and had children. The overriding memory of both these wonderful ladies is warmth, love and laughter and I miss them both.

My Granny and Pop (great grandparents) lived above a bookie and Pop used to get me to put his line on for him without Granny knowing - I think I was about 8/9 at the time and then he’d slip me 50p for sweets! He was an auld scoundrel! I also remember they used to keep all the condiments in the tv cabinet in the living room which my brother and I begged my mum to do in our house because we thought it was hilarious! It’s funny the wee things that make me smile now thinking back on them.

Such a great thread. Thanks for all the wonderful granny stories.

The only one of my gp who I knew was father's mother. She was born in 1882 in New Zealand - pioneer stock.

My sister and I lived with her after our dad died, who was her son.
She was very kind to us and indulgent but she must have been sad. Our mum and baby brother weren't with us.

Dg lit the range every day, chopped wood for it and could make scones in 15 mins. She showed me how to iron, to sweep a floor, to make scones.
She had been a farmer's wife but now widowed, the farm belonged to my uncle and she was in a small cottage beside the sea. We loved it and played on the beach and swam all day long. probably not really
We went to the school in her town for a few months.

Granny sat in her chair and knitted. She listened to the radio and had womens' magazines which I loved to look at. I don't remember having any toys. My DSis and I squabbled a lot and granny hated that. She could not deal with us. She would just cry.

I loved it when she showed me photos of her family. She was the youngest of 8. Sadly we came to England when I was 10 and I never saw her again.

We all lived in my nan's council house. When she died (I was 8), we got kicked out by the (Labour) council as the rent book was in her name and they wouldn't pass on the tenancy to my mum, her daughter, as the rules were they only passed council houses on to sons.

Mum and I lived with her parents in a country cottage on a smallholding.The toilet was downs path under a huge pear tree.It was a wooden construction,which my grandad or one of my mum's brothers used to empty onto the manure heap,I used to visit my friends when this happened,the smell was unbelievable.We had a black leaded grate in the living room which did all the cooking,it made wonderful rice pudding.The kitchen had two small rooms going off it,the pantry and the milk house.This is where Nana made the butter etcand housed the dolly tubs for washing day.The kitchen had a huge boiler in the corner which was lit on Mondays when all the washing was done.Bath day was in a tin bath in front of the fire,I was first in because I was the cleanest! We had a huge garden full of potatoes,green beans, beetroot,celery and many other veg I can't remember.Although it was during the rationing years,we were never short of food.My fondest memories of my nan were standing on the form.and learning to cook,from being a very small child.I plucked and dressed my first duck on my fifth birthday,much to everyone's amazement!I loved my grandparents dearly even though grandad was a tyrant sometimes.My nan taught me to !knit,sew,do embroidery and make the trusty rag rug.I could fill a whole book of things I did,but I'd better stop now.

My grandad died the month before I was born so I had maternal nanny winnie and paternal nanny Ethel. Nanny winnie lived in a huge rented Victorian house in Hackney with her sister on the next floor up, auntie flo & uncle stan on the top floor and auntie vera in the basement. The house wasn't formally divided, they all shared the front door and the living arrangement was left over from the war! There were gas lights, old wiring, a real musty smell they all seemed immune to and oh, the old enamel sink! Bathtime was in the old tin tub in front of the fire and the beds were warmed by an old style, long handled bed warmer. Nanny winnie taught me how to blow my nose properly and she taught me to sew when I stayed with her. She really was a lovely genteel lady, along with her sister. I visited the house after she passed away and the council were dividing it into official flats. The huge red chair from the drawing room was still there and suddenly it was a little chair and my childhood memories suddenly shattered..
I have lots more memories of nanny winnie than I have of nanny Ethel, she wasn't as soft and gentle as nanny winnie!

Paternal Grandmother - lived in a very large house. Basement contained uncle and aunt, ground floor contained 3 uncles in one huge room and a snooker table, piano and dressing table in the other. Fond memories of shelling peas for her sat at the kitchen table. She always wore a pinafore and a headscarf when out with hairgrips. Poor thing, she never really got her life back and died mysteriously in Hospital.
Maternal Grandmother - Only got to see her periodically as she lived in a caravan in a field on a chicken farm in Hampshire. Originally from up North, always had mushy peas when we did visit and never had equal or better since.