Special memories Back in Granddad/Grandma’s day.

Some lovely memories here. Funny someone should mention fish paste jars as I remember visiting my Great Aunt Queen and drinking from what I thought were dolls house glasses. When I reminisced years later mum told me they were fish paste jars as Aunt Queen didn't trust children with her nice glassware.

My paternal grandfather and I were devoted to each other. He was a builder and I used to be his (entirely useless) little helper.

I knew all four and my paternal great-grandmother when I was small.
Both families were very different a bit like the Katie Morag Stories of today. I had Granny sea side who cooked lots of fish and knew all about the beach. The other was granny country. She cooked with herbs she had collected herself and my memory is sitting down to some unusual meat and being told it was a pigeon. My grandad showed pigeons and he had been culling them, I couldn't eat them and cried. They never gave me it again.
My paternal granddad told me all about the countries he had visited in WW1 , luckily he had been in the same regiment as my other and they were friends. Lucky because my other never mentioned WW1
My great gran is a distant memory of an old woman dressed in a long black dress like Queen Victoria she was kind when we visited and she always gave me half a crown.

Never met them. Never knew their names. They lived in Ireland.

I am blessed to have known all my grandparents. We all lived in the same town. We visited paternal grandparents every Saturday afternoon for tea, a marshmallow wafer was a treat.
We used to pick buttercups and daisies in the park and take them for my maternal grandmother. She had a china log with an opening along the top to put them in.
Lovely childhood memories.

My maternal GM died when mum was 8, but maternal GF lived with us until I was around 7. Paternal GP's we only saw very occasionally. They lived in London and I do remember their kitchen, a glowing fire with a grid front.

All my grandparents and one great-grandmother were alive when I was born and into my childhood. Both my grandmothers lived into my adulthood, my maternal grandmother until my sons were teenagers. When I was a kid, we saw the matenals weekly, as they were only 30 miles away, and the paternals for holidays, as they were in Wales. As an adult, I saw my grandmothers more often, as I could drive (my parents and grandparents couldn’t). So lots and lots of memories.

All so lucky to have those memories. All four of my GP had died before I was born . My Mum was a wonderful GM and I follow her example with my GC and hope they will have lovely memories of me !

I knew only one gran who I mostly saw at her house where she always sat in the same chair by the fire. or as an occasional treat she took me shopping with her for groceries.
Fast forward and I sit here struggling to think of interesting things to do with my g/c who are coming tomorrow for a couple of days and think of my Nan who never took me anywhere other than the local grocer shop, yet I loved and remember her with affection.
The difference is that we were expected to fit in with whatever the adults, were doing and now children’s needs are foremost and I am feeling stressed!

I stayed with my paternal grandparents at weekends when I was little. I still remember the big double bed I shared with my grandmother. I was a spoilt madam and demanded rice crispies with hot milk for breakfast. Apparently I wouldn't get out of bed til I had breakfast. When my dad found out, he put a stop to it as I was becoming thoroughly unpleasant. My grandmother took me to Ireland by boat when I was four. She visited relatives where I developed measles. All I would eat was salmon and I would only drink ribena. I have vague memories of that.

Tea at paternal GM’s house - she didn’t live near so it wasn’t often. Penguin biscuits! Dairylea triangles! Two things my mother never bought.

And there was always orange jelly with mandarin oranges in. After she died I took the glass dish the jelly was always in - not very beautiful, but sentimental value. Was so upset when dh broke it.
Also when she was once visiting, I picked some little flowers, put them in an empty fish paste jar (!), wrapped a paper napkin round it and wrote Granny on it.
She kept the empty jar with napkin on her mantelpiece at home for ages.

I remember all four Grandparents my maternal GM used to work in a shop and she made glass animals using a small blow torch and sticks of coloured glass they were amazing sadly we don’t have any of her creations. My paternal GM used to let us kids wind up her record player one of those with the huge ones with the metal horn. One GD was always in the garden growing veg. Lovely memories.

Only one grandparent still alive when I was born, she died when I was 3, so no memories of my own grandparents sadly.