Grandparents - What makes you smile??

[Reyz]

Nice thread 

Always remember :
My sister and I up looking up at Nan,  while she opened the present we had chosen ourselves for her birthday. 
The look of joy and delight on her face and in her voice when she opened it -  2 cotton dish cloth's.   

 

[wotty]

My Gran died when I was 9 but I remember watching the wrestling on the TV on a Saturday afternoon with her. She could swear and curse better than anyone I have ever heard. All punctuated with, "don't say that word in front of your Dad, pet". I am sure that if she had been able to be at the ringside, she would have been the old woman who jumped in to the ring and started laying in to the wrestler with her umbrella!!

Then my mum would come to collect me and would always ask if there was anything she could do before we left. My Gran would always say, "can you just put the peas on to steep, honey" and there'd be a big pan of dried peas with some huge white tablet in it lurking there to have with Sunday lunch.

Wotty.

[avm228]

Ahh - my fragrant Grandma who used to sit me on her lap as we read The Magic Porridge Pot together and whose dressing table was a haven of textures and smells - pearls and talcum powder and clip-on earrings and ivory-backed brushes. She never ran out of choc ices for us and had a passion for Ambrosia Creamed Rice.  Grandma had a pond full of goldfish which we fed on Bemax wheatgerm. Then when I was eight Grandma went into hospital with cancer and while she was away the pond dried up (drought of '76) and the fish died and Grandma never did come out of hospital.

My other grandmother, Granny, is still alive in her nineties but unfortunately in the late stages of Alzheimers.  When we were young she would tell us wonderful stories of how she grew up in South America and how her mother grew up in the Wild West of America. Oh how I *wish* I could talk to her now that I have painstakingly traced these adventurous ancestors and am going out to South Dakota in September to check it all out for myself.  Her family has turned out to be more interesting and colourful than I ever could have imagined.

Sadly, both my grandfathers had died before I was born - but thankfully one of them left a wonderful diary and letters which make me smile, even though I never knew him. He was a true romantic - the wartime love letters to Granny are glorious!

Anna

[carrielovesfanta]

ah, I loved going to my nan's. We were like best mates we used to put some music on in the kitchen and be singing and dancing. granddad was a grumpy old man - he used to sit in the lving room watching tv!! he was always known as grumpy-granddad when we were little. Unfortunately they both passed away in 2002. My other nan and grandad are still alive but I don't really see them very much.

I remember my great nanna - grumpy-grandad's mother! She lived to be 100 and was really lovely. I could also have known my great-grandad (mum's mum's dad) but we never went to see him as apparently he wasn't a very nice chap at all. He died in 2002.

Caz

[Su]

Barbara this is lovely  

Dad's Mum and Dad..I am sitting looking at their picture now on my wall.  How I loved them.
Grandad was a Blacksmith and my sister and I spent many a happy day 'helping' him hammer horseshoes and pumping the bellows (he had to lift us to do this).

He had a lovely garden up a cobbled path backing onto the barley fields.  He had an orchard of King William pears and bramley apples, raspberry, black current bushes, and goosgog's as big as gobstoppers, and rows of luschious strawberries.
He was a mad keen golfer and had a hole in the middle of the lawn, and let all his grandchildren (and there were lots of us), play at put the ball.

He loved to tell jokes, and we all had to wait ages for the punchline because he was crying laughing into his big white hankie.
He was also in the village band and there was a cupboard in the front parlour full of brass instruments which we kids were allowed to have a go at blowing, but could never make a note.  Instead we played chopsticks on the upright piano.

Granny was gentle and kind and made the most wonderful pies with all the produce from the garden.
Everytime we visited, the 'slab' in the scullery was just covered with her pies.  She had a cold larder full of jars of salted beans, and jars of rhubarb, apples, pears etc.  Apparently she used to make Rhubarb wine and put it through the mangle.

Before we moved away, we lived a few houses away from thier cottage, and after we moved, my sister and I went to stay with them every school holiday.

Grandad died on Christmas day 1960 and Granny died the following July.

When my Dad was seriously ill after a heart attack and I was worried to death about him.  I was sitting up in bed one night reading to try to take my mind off it, when the room filled with this strong scent of King William pears, and grandad appeared at the bottom of the bed for a few seconds and smiled.  My sister saw him the next day coming through her front door.  He had obviously come to tell us that Dad would be okay and not to worry.

Dad was his Father's son in every way, and I miss them all more than I can say.

Su

[Nutty1966]

Wow what a great thread    I remember my dad's parents very well, I was the 4th eldest granddaughter (22 of us now), Grandad used to take us out two at a time, we used to go on the train to Great Ayton, with Kim the Alsatian, Grandad was by then a school caretaker, great fun on Christmas day also, used to open the school gym and put the trampoline up for all the grandchildren while the adults sat in the house   All that bouncing after a large lunch and a selection box or two lol, my mum's dad had been killed when she was 15, but her mum was a character and passed away two years ago, she was 89, and one of the best memories I have is Grandma had small tin jelly moulds, she made red jelly and we used to love to scrape the jelly out, my mum used to cringe with the noise from the moulds, we used to do it to annoy her lol

Oh I could go on forever but I won't, someone else have a go

Thanks

Jane

[alllegs]

Oh Su,

How lovely, your story brought a tear to me eye.

Legs
xxxx

[yn9man]

Barbara  

This is a wonderful thread. Just reading the some of the memories brought a smile to my face ...

My grandfather passed when I was 10 years old. He was a jolly fellow and came  to the US as a young man in 1910 from England. He told me stories of arriving in the US and being "carted" in an old newspaper delivery cart to a house. He ended up spending his life / career in the newspaper business.

My grandmother used to drive to San Francisco every night in a "big old Buick" to meet my grandfather. Many times I would be invited to go along since I was the oldest grandchild. We would always eat dinner at a a tiny cafeteria / diner counter where I was treated like royalty. I don't remember the food but I always had a grand time  

The year after my grandfather died I became quite ill. My grandmother visited me at least once everyday for the year I spent in bed. She related stories about my grandfather and their early life together. She also taught me how to sew, knit and crochet. I still have the afghans and some of the doilies I / we made and will cherish them forever.


My guest room is still decorated with their pictures and other remembrances.

Ah, the memories ....

Thanks Barbara

yn9man    

[Erato]

Every Sunday, before we went to visit my grandparents, my grandfather would limp slowly down to the corner store (he walked with a cane) and buy us each a candy bar.  He told us folk tales from Angola and he would always sing the refain in the original language,  Umbundu.

Granny would take out her collection of cowrie shells that she'd had since her childhood on the farm.  They had been sent to her from Micronesia by her uncle.  They were her principal playthings and were all named after people and were figures in a complex imaginary social community.

They saved and dried all the peels from oranges and grapefruits that they ate and in the winter they'd have a fire in the fireplace and we would burn the peels to give a cirus odor to the smoke.