Grandparents - What makes you smile??

[Tephra]

Mum and I were talking today about family I never got to meet and some I met but don't remember as I was too young.   And then we got on to Grandparents and I mentioned one of my fondest memories of my Granny was sitting by her side in an easy chair watching her blow smoke rings. 

But I started to laugh remembering my Grandpa getting me to shave him with a cut-throat razor . . . ..

"Derst want a go?"
"Noooooooooooo"
"Go on lass, 'ave a go"
"Nooooooooooooo"
"Gerrout wi' ye, c'mon 'ave a bash" . . . . .. . . Brave man or very silly??

My Nana would let me brush and comb her long, long, long auburn hair sitting patiently for hours while I combed it and styled it, stuck pins in it and tied it up in ribbons and tatty bits of old lace.

And my Granddad terrified me - him being sooooooo very tall and always looking cranky.

I was wondering what your fondest memories would be, are you lucky enough to remember your Great Grandparents??

Barbara                   

[kerryb]

I have so many fond memories of my maternal grandparents, I used to spend a least a week staying with them most school holidays.

I remember before Grandad retired, Gran would get him up for work, cook his breakfast and he would go to work.  My sister and I would run to the window to wave bye to him and then we were allowed to get up.  If I shut my eyes I am in that front room sitting at the table, I can smell the bacon cooking, see the sun pouring in the window and I can hear granny in the kitchen cooking. 

When grandad retired our greatest pleasure was him sending up the road to fetch his daily paper and giving us enough money for a panda pop (10p each) and a box of fruit gums oh and a packet of prawn cocktail crisps each.

I do remember one set of great grandparents very vaguely, they came over from America in the 1970s when I was quite young and we took them out to visit various places in Sussex.  He was small and Italian.

Kerry

[alllegs]

Ahhh what lovely memories Barbara,  I knew one of my great grans, she died when I was 14, we didn't see much of her as she lived in Middlesbrough and we live on the south coast, but I do remember her 90th birthday party.  She thought she was royalty when dad drove her to he venue in a new white mondeo estate!!  And them my gran (great grans daughter in law) got a little merry and was up on the stage dancing and doing the can can!!

The fondest memories of my gran (same one as the can canner above!) is the fact she cannot say ridiculous but instists on using the word as much as possible and love tunnels.....where the trees on either side of the road meet in the middle causing a leafy green tunnel over the road, she always comments on them.  My grandad will be remembered for whenever he finishes a really good meal he would proclaim that it was 'bloody awful' a phrase which I picked up at a very young age!!

My other gran used to give us 'lucky bags' whenever we saw her, they consisted of sweets etc and loads of shiny new coppers.  He was also known as the panda gran 'cos the only car she would ever have was a Fiat Panda!! And her blackberry and apple pie was to die for!

My grandad died when I was 3, unfortunately I can't remember a great deal about him, but I have memories from photos and my mum and dads stories about him.

Love
Legs
xxxx

[Tephra]

I'm grinning from ear to ear at the thought of 'Bloody Awful'  how wonderful.

Isn't it lovely how we remember the little things of our Grandparents, like the lolly bags  Legs, and Kerry remembering the smell of bacon cooking.

I love those memories.

Barbara           

[sallysmum]

I remember the big wet sloppy kisses from both my grandmothers -  !  Also the smell of real fires - again both grandmas had them, which always makes me smile whenever I smell one.  One other thing, Beattie (left) always cried when we left - we lived over 200 miles away and saw her infrequently.  As I have researched the tree I understand more how lonely she was as all her family had died nearly 20 years previously and was very much on her own.  This makes me very sad when I think about it.
Sallysmum

[Clare Fowler]

My maternal Grandmother's parents were both alive when I was born.  However Nancy (G Granny - but was always just referred to as Nancy, even by my Gran!) died a few weeks after my 3rd birthday.  I don't remember her at all, but we do have a nice photo of the 4 generations - Nancy, Gran, Mum and Me, taken the summer beforehand.

Pop, on the other hand, I do remember as he came to live with us after Nancy died.  He permanently had a bag of mint imperials in his cardigan pocket and was a cantankerous old b**ger with everyone except me!  I always feel quite privileged to have known him at all (although he died when I was about 5), and it is his family that has always been what has drawn me into my research.  I have no idea what has made that line so fascinating but it is the one that I have always wanted to crack 

Clare

[dawnwas]

  What a lovely topic...get ready for a bumper reply I reckon.
My Grandad died in 1965 aged 85...only 2 years after my Gran who he adored.I was 5 years old.
I remember a tall,strong man,a pipe smoker who would light his pipe with a long taper from the fire ...I can still smell the smell of tobacco now....and the smell of the open fire,with the polished copper ornaments and the hand bodged rugs.I remember as a toddler he would turn a stool upside down and sit me in between the legs as a sort of baby pen!!!
He had a hard  but happy life as a coalminer in staffordshire Uk from the heart of what is called the Blackcountry.I remember he wore those grandpa shirts that button up the neck and a thick leather belt around his waste.I was too young to remember specifics...and too young to ask about his life...especially the early days as a miner in Nova scotia in the days when grizzley bears tried to knock the door down.
Too young to ask about the journey over by ship...the upheaval of the whole family going on masse...of the roadrace he won over the Rockies and the football team he played for in Novascotia...his wedding to nan in   Canada,,,where was it?.
He must have been a lovely man( just like my Dad I guess)...because all these years later  I still miss him .
It is because I did not get the chance to share his memories that I spend ages trying to find anything out about his life in Canada...and I am quite fanatical at writing diaries and notes about my life and family to pass down to my children.

My Nan died before I was old enough to remember her...but I have memories of her long auburn hair plaited and on the top of her head and round tortoiseshell glasses!!
Dad makes me laugh when he says that while he was away with the scouts she had all her teeth out and dentures fitted....but the teeth were enormous like horses teeth when she smiled!!!

[PaulaToo]

Both the grandfather's died before I came along, but I remember the grandmothers. Not very well, but I remember them.
Darkness and Light. Strange that.
Father's mother, my Gran Sarah was 5ft 7ins tall (it's in her passport) thin as a stick, white hair and grey eyes. Her front room was bright and blue with comfy arm chairs. She used to let me plump up her cushions for her, and when I was tired of 'plumping,' I used to go and look at the hole in the floor! I suppose now that it was dry rot, or something similar. For years my father waged war with that hole. I have several receipts for work done on it by local builders. But it was always there.
They would say, 'Don't go too near the hole.' Fat chance, even at six I was too smart to let a hole in the floor swallow me up.
On the other hand, Mother's mother was short, stocky, hair as black as soot and eyes like dark chocolate.
We never went in her front parlour. It had a lot of dark red in it as I recall. There was a heavy lace curtain over the window, and the big curtains were always half drawn over.
At Gran Harriet's we sat in the 'back room.' It would have been a lovely room, with it's big, slowly ticking clock and bright black kitchen range. But it was also the home of 'the chair.'
I was scared of that chair, it was one of those big wooden arm chairs, a bit like a Windsor chair, but with arms. When I was little I would crawl under the table to circumnavigate that chair.
No one sat in it, no one touched it even. It was just there, a little back from the head of the table.
Long years after, I told Mother about it, and how I always felt there was someone sitting in it already.
She went a bit white. It was Grandfather William's chair, and it was kept at the head of the table for him.
Spooky, but I'm smiling remembering these things.

[wheeldon]

My Grandad - the hard man - lost his parentss in WW1, spent his youth in an orphanage, joined the Merchant Navy at 14, joined the army, then did bomb disposal in WW2 and was also a bare knuckled fighter.

Then in later years spent hours reading me stories, playing with dolls/football etc., making the best buttered toast EVER for his 'Princess of Whitefield' (me) - The man had endless patience and was the hard man no more.

Also, taught me a million things that I couldn't have got through life without.

Also spent years tracing his family from the orphanges.

I have missed him every day for the past 22 years 

But when I think of him I allways smile