Grandparents - What makes you smile??

[Su]

How lovely Erato
I can smell that tangy smoke from here.  It wouldn't have the same effect on an electric fire would it 

Smells seem to play a huge part in remembering our grandparents.

I often catch a wiff of something from the past and sometimes can't put my finger on what it is, but just know it played a part in my earlier (or even past) life.

I know this sounds yukky, but when it's warm and I go through a field with cow pats in it, I'm transported back in the old time machine, to Dunham Massey where I was born and where Gran and Grandad lived.

There is an unmade lane there which leads through a farm yard and down to the Bolin Valley where we used to play and have picnics.  The lane was always full of ruts and covered in cowpats which we used to jump over like hopscotch.  Those were such lovely lazy hazy days.  We would paddle in the river with our frocks tucked in our knickers and fill jam jars with water and catch tiddlers.

At night time my sister and I shared a bed and hung out of the bedroom window whispering to the girl next door, who was hanging out of hers, until Granny called up the stairs saying it was time we were asleep.

Su

[kerryb]

Su

It's true that smell is important, whenever I smell the scent of old fashioned roses I am taken back to my grandparents bedroom, they had an old pink rose that grew up the side of the house and when the window was left open through the summer, it would climb in the window and when the sun shone the scent was beautiful

Takes me right back

Kerry

[Su]

Much nicer smell than cowpats Kerry 

[Mobo]

 

[Mobo]

What a wonderful thread, and isn't it strange how childhood memories stay with us !  I love your stories Sue, indeed everyone has such wonderful tales to tell.

Both my grandpas died before I was two, but at various times, I lived with both grandmas and they were as different as chalk and cheese.

Mum's mum was small, dark and pretty and wore her hair in a bob.  She was always singing, smelled of lavender and moth-balls, and could make the most wonderful cakes & pastry by seeming to just throw any old ingredients together.  She never tired of playing my grandpa's records, liked to gossip, loved people, and hated domesticity. She was also a fantastic story- teller, and could change her voice and mood to suit the particular character she was portraying, sometimes frightening me to death before bed-time.   It was she who gave me my love of music, the English language and theatre.

Dad's mum, on the other hand, was fair skinned with red  hair and blue eyes, and you did not mess with this lady.  She was very domesticated and the house always smelled of Mansion polish and Carbolic soap, and there was always a roaring fire in the back room.  If you stayed the night, the bedding would be whipped off, washed and on the line, before you could eat your substantial breakfast, and up until the day she died, she still grew fruit and vegetables and sold them from her garden gate. I remember she always smelled of snuff, liked a "flutter on the gee-gees"  and drank a bottle of Guinness everyday with her lunch.  She was an absolute 'whizz' at figures and dates and tried many times to teach me how to do the same, but to no avail.  What I did learn from her though was thrift and how to be a homemaker.

   

 

[Gadget]

One set of grandparents died 20 years or so before I was born.  The other pair died when I was 3. However, I still have some fond memories of them.  In particular, my 'hoolie' gran. She was cuddly and a  refuge if I'd done something wrong and my parents were after me!

Gran had an amazing set of risque postcards which she kept on her mantle shelf and brought down (with a chuckle) for me to look at. I liked the pictures 

I am putting quite a bit up on my website about her. She was lovely.

I was a bit scared of her husband , my Taid. He was very stern but died a few months after her. The family said he died of a broken heart. They'd been married for 49 years.

Gadget

[Erato]

A picture of me with my g grandfather.  I don't remember him because he died not long after this photo was taken.  He was a schoolmaster and later headmaster at various trade schools in and around Bristol.  He taught metal working, engraving, and other such practical subjects.

[kerryb]

What a lovely scene Erato, can you remember it being taken, the lupins and you feeding him sand!!

Kerry

[MarieC]

What a wonderful thread, Barbara!!  Reading it has brought smiles and tears to my face!

I never knew my maternal grandfather, who died ten years before I was born.  However, my maternal grandmother lived near us in her own little flat until she died in her nineties.  She was always immaculately dressed in nice dresses made for her by a dressmaker, stockings and corset.  I used to take her shopping and to the library to choose her books, in her later years.  She liked a little tipple herself, and would sometimes share it with me.  One very hot day, I was going to do the shopping for her, and thinking herself very "with-it", she said, "Use the money that's left to get half a dozen chubbies, dear, and you can have one when you get back!"  Aussies will know that a STUBBY is a small bottle of beer, designed as a good drink for one person!  The family laughed a lot over that, but she bore it with perfect grace!!!

We lived next to my paternal grandparents when I was a child - they died when I was about 11.  Granddad seemed stern but I know that he was crippled by arthritis in both hips, so was probably in a lot of pain.  I was sent over to thank him when he bought me a pony - he looked at me and smiled gruffly!  Granny was lovely - I was very close to her.  I remember running over to her in tears when my favourite kitten died, and she held me and comforted me and defended me against one of my aunts, who complained that she couldn't hear on the phone because of my crying!

I still really miss my grandmothers, though one has been dead for fifty years!

MarieC