What were your grandparents like?

I knew all four of my grandparents along with two great grannies.

All very different, but all very strong determined and resourceful people.

I only knew one grandmother. The others had died.

She had 16 grandchildren and I was the fourteenth. She wasn’t that nterested understandably😬

When I was born I had one grandad who died when I was 8 and one granny who died when I was 18. My granny had been widowed at 40 and left with 3 young children. To keep the family together she took up dressmaking and alterations. She was very deaf by the time I was born, I saw her frequently but by her mid seventies she was old by modern standards and lived with one of my unmarried aunts

Talking about grandparents, there’s a very interesting article in today’s Guardian about the army of grandparents who are stepping in to look after their grandchildren, mainly due to the high cost of childcare. The author is Ellie Violet Bramley. The Guardian is free on line.

I only knew my paternal granny, the others had all died, I liked her a lot, she lived in a cottage right by the sea, we spent days there as a family in the summer. She taught me how to collect and cook cockles, one of her neighbours took me fishing, eel and flounders. She grew some vegetables and fruit, made lettuce wine (added a bottle of brandy), had a gentleman friend and used to deliberately knock over pheasants for the pot.
Great memories.

Kind, wise, hospitable, resourceful and hard working til they died in their early 80s.

I learned/absorbed many lessons from my early years with them and so wish I’d appreciated them more instead of being the self centred teenager that I was…

I only knew my maternal grandparents and they were the best very involved hands on always there for me. Lots of lovely memories I treasure ❤️

One of my grandmothers had three DCs and three GCs and the other one had six DCs and 29 GCs. I am not sure that she lived to see them all.

I was number twelve and my grandmother always sent us birthday cards and a small present.

My gran was a traditional housewife.
In the early 60s they had no running water,no bathroom ( tin bath) .,But she and my grandad managed to raise 7 children in those conditions.
Always wore a blue pinny and wash day on a monday
I remember the tub and mangle to do the washing.
She was a great cook.....
Bacon and onion suet roll.
Beef suet pudding.
Both of these steamed for hours.
Wasnt keen at all on the Tapioca Milk Puddings and the Sago Pudding.( reminded me of frogs spawn)
Unfortunately she died of Alzimers but in those days you were classed as gone mad.

I only knew one grandmother, all the others died in their early 50s. My maternal grandmother gave up her home aged 65 and lived with her daughters until her death ten years later. She was treated as a frail old woman and looked it. At that age I was still working and looking after young grandchildren for many hours every week.
My grandmother seemed like a Victorian relict, in long dark clothes over pink corsets and always a hat outside the house. She was superstitious and had had little education, having left school when her mother died to look after her father and siblings. We laughed when she couldn’t understand the telephone, tape recorder or television. She must have felt like an alien, poor old dear.

Mine were mainly dead too.
Had a sweet Grandpa who lived until I was 12.

All 4 grandparents were alive when I was born. My maternal grandparents were very well to do and had a lovely house. They came from upper middle class families and were slightly scary. Granny was very glamorous, wore fabulous jewellery, furs, expensive clothes and drove a sports car.

My maternal grandparents were resolutely working class. My nan worked in a Lancashire mill and brought the girls out on strike because working conditions were so awful.

My pop was an orphan from the age of 12 and helped bring up his siblings. He got an apprentiship on the railways and became chief electrical engineer of LMS. He loved me to bits and they were really welcoming.

It was my paternal grandparents who were well to do.

My paternal grandfather died when my father was only 13 so I never knew him at all. His mother lived into her 90s and we used to visit her every Sunday. Her oldest and youngest daughters lived at home and looked after her. I don't think she ever left the house except for the time she had an operation. I always remember her sitting by the fire eating bread and milk.
I thought my mother's father was great fun. He used to buy me interesting books and toys. He died when I was 10 and my mother told me later that it was just as well as he used to beat her and would probably have hit me if I'd got to the argumentative age! Her mother was very straight laced and well dressed, but always spoiled the look with a fag stuck in her mouth. I think it was that that put me off smoking.

I only knew my maternal grandmother- we called her ‘Blindnana’ for obvious reasons. Lovely lady 😘

Never knew any GP.

All dead before I was old enough to know them.

My Paternal Grandmother died when I was a baby , her Husband lived to his mid 90s , he was tiny and cross , I was about 10 when he died
My Maternal Grandmother parents were lovely , Gran taught us card games , she loved a bet ! Granda was a cabinet maker and his workshop was so inviting with the smell of wood shavings , he made us wooden toys , dusting the war he churned out coffins for the Glasgow blitz , Gran was a great cook , she grew fruit bushes and made loads of jam

Post war I went on holidays with them , I really missed them Granda went first , Gran died in my bed , she had come to us for a holiday , but she was very frail at 83 , still playing cards and sending her bets to the bookies !

One gran was a milliner. She worked in London. She was mega skinny having had abdominal surgery when she was young ... heaven knows what they did or why but it was probably pretty crude in those times. She had one child ... my Mum. I never met the man who was her husband and my grandfather as he died when I was small. When I was about 4 she remarried a man who went on to put his head in the gas oven a year or so later. The knock on the door from the policeman one Christmas Eve is etched in my memory. When I was older she told me "His behaviour in bed was a disgrace for a man his age" .... oh dear ....
My happiest memory of her was the fact that she loved at the seaside and we spent our summers there.

The other granny lived in London in an Edwardian terraced house off Clapham Common. They let out one room to a single lady ... who terrified me! As did the gas geyser in the bathroom ... utterly terrifying! Gran was huge and busty and sliced bread under her arm .. I used to worry she might slice her boob off! She used to tell me tales of working as a housemaid, and of the days before the NHS. Grandad was the postman who used to visit the big house where she worked. He eventually worked in an office job for the post office.

I used to marvel that these women (as it was the grans who survived) had gone from the days of horse-drawn carriages to seeing men land on the moon via a box in the corner of their living room. And they survived 2 world wars!
My other grandma

Don't know where those last few words came from!

Aw Blindnana crazyH

I only knew one of mine. She was quiet and rather sad. Understandably as her son my dad had died in an accident.
She taught us how to collect mussels, bake scones, sweep floors and iron clothes.
She read women's magazines, which my mum disapproved of, but was frumpy, according to my mum.
She liked to paint pictures of flowers and her best friend was an interesting woman called Cora Wilding. I later discovered that Cora had led a life full of adventure and achievement and her brother Tony won the men's singles at Wimbledon before the first world war.

Granny, who liked to be called Gaga, was born in 1882 and died in about 1960. I knew lots of Victorians.

One was widowed at 40 whilst expecting her 10th. The family had to move out of the house attached to his work and they moved to a smaller house. The older children had to leave school to help with money. When I knew her she was old and dressed in black and spent her time in bed or in an armchair.She reminded me of Queen Victoria and I don't remember ever talking to her.

My other gran I knew well and spent holidays at her house. Again widowed but at 50 she had to leave home and move to a little council house.She kept chickens and grew her own veg and did a part time job S money was short.She took me to work on her bike when I was a toddler. I don't know what my parents were doing but I spent a lot of time with her.She taught me to cook and name plants and animals on our walks.

I knew all four of my grandparents, but my paternal grandmother had a stroke when I was very young, which affected her badly, so I did not know her as an able-bodied person. She couldn’t speak properly but we knew she loved us. My Grandad then worked from home part-time to enable him to look after her. I’ve only appreciated how unusual that was for the time as I’ve got older and I’m quite proud of him! He was a lovely man and good fun.

My maternal grandparents were separated during the war. They lived fairly close to us when I was young so we saw quite a lot of them. They seemed old - I think they were slightly older than my friends’ grandparents.

Both my grandmothers worked through necessity; one as a dressmaker and the other in a shop then a cafe - she had to earn her keep to survive.

All my grandparents had died by the time I was 10. I can just remember my maternal grandmother but she was very ill and died when I was 5. Her husband was a lovely grandpa and my brother and I used to go and listen to “journey into space” on the radio in his room. He and granny lived with us.
My paternal granny died when my dad was a teenager. My paternal grandfather was in hospital a lot and I can remember going with my mum to visit him. I wasn’t allowed into the ward so had to sit in the corridor! I can still remember the hospital smell!