What would your granddaughters tell you if you were to ask them what influence you'd had on their lives? This was what author Jean Swales set out to discover when she packed up her trusty campervan and set out on an adventure to talk to grandmothers and granddaughters across the country.
Jean Swales
Grandmothers and their granddaughters
Posted on: Thu 11-Aug-16 11:08:53
(39 comments )
My husband had died three years earlier and I was feeling lost and with a total lack of direction. I also wanted an adventure myself having spent most of my life caring for others, and suddenly I thought "It's your turn now".
But what to do with 'my turn' was the problem.
There were a number of reasons for my decision on how to have my adventure, one being I had become a grandmother myself recently and was just amazed how different child rearing was now compared to when I was a child.
Then I found out that a relative had just married her fiancée on a beach in Barbados wearing a short red wedding dress and no one present except the hotel staff, whereas her grandmother had had a full conventional wedding for 200 people some sixty years earlier. So a seed of an idea settled in my consciousness.
How perfect it would be to travel round the British isles vising places I had not been to before with the intention of finding and interviewing grandmothers and granddaughters to compare their lives as children and learning about the childhood living conditions, including schooling, holidays, hobbies, and later their dreams for the future and of course their relationship with each other.
What was so lovely about these answers was how surprised the grandmothers were to read them.
I eventually found eight grandmothers who were happy to be interviewed and who also had granddaughters who were happy to help me.
The last question I asked the granddaughters was what had they learnt from their grandmothers. I loved the answers, which ranged from "I was very close to my grandmother who visited me regularly when I was in boarding school and my parents were overseas. I have been so very lucky to have her as my grandmother" to "I have learnt from my grandmother how to be very practical and adventurous" to "Grandma is a true matriarch whose strength and example have influenced me in so many ways. Spending time with her as a child has helped shape the way I see the world today".
What was so lovely about these answers was how surprised the grandmothers were to read them.
On a personal note, it has been such a joy to have met these lovely ladies who, although rather nervous to start with, really became excited when looking for photos that I wanted. Also I have learnt so much about this extraordinary country I am lucky to live in.
Jean's book Blossom and Me, which chronicles her journey up and down the country in Blossom, her campervan, is available now from Amazon.