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

My Nannie (dad's Mum) lived in a rented terraced house. It had a small scullery which had a very old gas cooker, a table and a belfast sink with a cold tap and single draining board, I can remember no other furniture in the room. There were 2 further rooms downstairs - a living room and the 'best room' which had a front door, straight onto the street. The best room had a 3 piece suite and a mahogany display cabinet full of china plates and nicknacks; the room was never used. My Nannie sat everyday in the living room, on an armchair next to the black fire range and her legs were constantly mottled and red from sitting too near the fire. She seemed to constantly have a cigarette in her hand and smoked Capstan Full Strength cigarettes. There were 2 bedrooms upstairs, but I was never allowed up there. There was an outside toilet, which was freezing and I tried to avoid using it. My Nannie was a formidable woman, I was scared to death of her, she never ever cuddled me or my siblings or ever spoke kindly to us. I can't imagine never hugging my grandchildren; it's just not natural and I wonder what prevented her from showing us affection, although I know that many of that generation were the same, so sad. I so wish I had asked her about her childhood, she was born in 1901 and from researching my ancestry I found out that as a child she lived in what, at that time, was one of the poorest parts of our town. She must have been tough to survive it. I also found out that her husband used to beat her and she and her 4 children did a moonlight flit to escape him. As my dad left when I was a baby, I never really got to hear much about my grandparents and their upbringing or my father's younger life, which is such a pity.

My maternal Nan looked after me a lot I remember my main time with Mum and Dad were Sunday’s and sleeping at home
I now live in my Nans house and still have the dangly light cord in my bedroom Nan had no fridge so everything was kept in the ‘pantry, milk stood in bowls of cold water she made her own ginger beer it was delicious and I loved hearing the corks pop off, she made rissoles I used to help with the mincing and also delicious lemon curd There was a coke burner in the kitchen we used to toast bread on toasting forks by the front room fire, our legs used to get red and a bit blotchy too
No phone, so went to the corner shop in an emergency
Outside toilet with squares of newspaper threaded on the door also outside was a mangle and her rugs would go on the washing line to be beaten
I used to help clean the brass putting the brasso on leaving it to dry them wiping it off and buffing it up
We had a flowery Jerry under the bed
Nice memories

My paternal grandmother, youngest daughter of a nice middle-class family, eloped with the milkman. PG was a delightful woman, who made a fortune buying and renovating houses when her marriage failed. She lived in a string of elegant townhouses while I was growing up, later in bungalows or flats, all of which she owned. She was glamorous, permissive and taught me how to drink, smoke and live well when I was a teenager. She used to give me cocktail sobranies and martinis before dinner, and we’d push the tables back after dinner so she could teach me the foxtrot. She remarried later in life to an Eastern European refugee scientist.

My maternal grandmother, the nicely brought up and well educated daughter of an ex-soldier, married an illiterate cow-hand and produced her first child three and a half months later. MG was a sour, po-faced woman who took pleasure in stirring up ill-will between her many daughters. She used old-wives tales to terrify me and my cousins, and tried secretly to convert me to Catholicism, at least partly to get at my Mum. She lived in a Council house with the back garden entirely turned over to fruit and vegetables, with chickens for eggs and the table. Grandad wasn’t allowed in the house during the day except to eat. When he died, she moved into an old people’s flat and bullied all her neighbours until dementia disabled her ability to make others unhappy.

My grandmother also lived in a northern terrace, small private back yard with outside toilet which always seemed to have a burst. Newspaper sheets hung up and a tin bath hung in the yard. Don’t think it was in use as we had a bath (but not a toilet) in our bathroom so she visited for her weekly bath and I went in after her! The water was always liberally doused in talcum powder.
She had 2 paraffin heaters and one always had a bowl of senna pods stewing! I was frequently sent to a local shop to collect her gallon of paraffin.
In her kitchen, I was fascinated by her marble slab, on which pastry was frequently made, and she had a meat safe larder, a green mangle and a blue gas cooker. If I misbehaved I was threatened to have my fingers put in the mangle! The sink had a cold water tap and I remember her getting a hot water geyser installed. She had pink carbolic soap and a pantry full of the stuff which she had stashed away during the war.
Her dark bedroom scared me, gold coloured curtains hiding the contents of nooks and crannies which stored goodness knows what. How times have changed!

My grandma lived in a pre war council house in an area known as Corn Beef Island. They reckoned this was because the rents were so high the residents could only afford to eat corned beef. She had a porch outside her back door with the toilet leading off it and she had an indoor downstairs bathroom. Our house had a toilet down the yard and no bathroom so the novelty was amazing. Her kitchen was always warm and humid even if the rest of the house was cold and smelt of carbolic or sunlight soap. Upstairs she had three bedrooms each with a light switch on the wall but also had a cord switch over the bed so you could turn the light on and off either way. She only had lino on the floors upstairs with bedside rugs to stop you putting warm feet onto a cold floor when you got up. It didn't work because you had to step off the rug at some point . Her living room had a coal fire with it's obligatory rag rug, armchairs, a massive square table that I used to sit under and ….a television!!!!. Black and white with a 12 inch screen but it was a miracle to us. We didn't know anyone else who had one.

All in all my memories of Grandma's are the smells of carbolic and sunlight soaps, Domestos, soap powder, burning coal and frying sausages. The sounds of the coals cracking and sparking and the sausages sizzling. The different feeling in each room.....warm and damp in the kitchen when she was doing a boil wash, the heavy heat of the living room with it's coal fire and thick/solid furniture and curtains, the coldness of the rest of the house as it had no heating (even the bathroom). The sight of her in her flowery wrap around pinnie, gray hair and stern face. Why did all old ladies look stern in those days ?

i am very old now, so the Granny I remember had gas lights, which she used to light with a match or taper She always cooked in big iron pots, and no-one suffered from anaemia in pregnancy, because iron leached into the stew.

All dead before I was born, so I grew up with no grandparents.

Great aunts---yes. All dressed in long black dresses.

What do I remember ? Being scared stiff

My granny and grandpa lived in a stone cottage that had a toilet that had to be accessed by going outside, down a path, over a stream and then back up another path to a row of outdoor privvies. Getting there and back when the streamwas full was interesting. Their was a hook with newspaper squares threaded onto string hanging on the back of the door.

Their house was immaculately clean and all of their very dark heavy wooden furniture was polished every day. Their front room was never, to my knowledge, ever used and was saved "for best". They had polished wooden floors with rugs on, which were absolute death traps and I remember skidding on the landing carpet and falling down stairs when I was about 6 years old.

Grandpa kept a pair of lovebirds in a cage that hung from the ceiling in the kitchen. The kitchen had a black cast iron range stove that was lit summer and winter, day and night and all cooking and baking was done on that.

My bed there was so high that I needed a step to climb in. There was a tiny leaded window that had a cord wound around the latch to stop it being opened too far. They had no bathroom.

One of mine died when I was four and the other more than 35 years before I was born, so no memories here, I’m afraid.