Grandparents - What makes you smile??

[Tephra]

I'm just loving all these memories, they're so beautiful.  Isn't it funny how one or two memories from our Grandparents can leave such a lasting impression.

Barbara             

[dawnwas]

The house where my grandparents lived had a very steep narrow set of stairs and towards the end of her life granny used to breathe quite heavily when going up the stairs. When we were staying with them my sister and I would lay in bed and we could hear her coming up the stairs, her breathing and her hand on the bannister every step.

Do you know if I close my eyes now I can still hear that sound. A very comforting sound!


Dear Kerry...your memories of your granny breathing remind me of my brother in laws nan.When I was about 8 years old,I was being baby sat by my brother in laws elderly,gorgeous nan.It was christmas in the blackcountry uk,snow on the ground and carol singers most nights.This night I heard the sound of muffled singing ( so I thought)....it was actually the nan's chest wheezing I had completely forgotten about it until I read your posting!!!
She was a lovely lady ..thankyou for rekindling a memory of her for me.
Dawn

[ninkynoo]

I remember my Nans wooden draining board .The smell of  well scrubbed wood drying in the sunshine that shone through her scullery window will always stay with me.I used to run my finger down the slippery grooves in the wood.
Lin

[kerryb]

Reading through all these memories of grandparents, is my imagination or do people here seem to have been very close to grandparents?  I wonder what it is that makes the relationship with grandparents so special!

Kerry

[wotty]

Great Uncle Fred was like an extra granddad to me (he took my dad and his sister in when their younger siblings made their house too crowded).

On dark winter afternoons when we visited him, he would give us tea and cakes. At some point during the visit, he would get a big torch from the window ledge and say, "I'm just going to check that the horse hasn't kicked his blanket off". He'd only be gone a few minutes, then come back and say, "he's fine".

As a child, I couldn't work out where he kept this horse among streets and streets of terraced houses. It took me years to realise that he was off to the outside toilet!!

Wotty.

[kerryb]

LOL 

My other grandparents had an outside loo and to this day the smell of paraffin reminds me of dark nights in there.  Spiders lurking in the corners and the cold wind whistling under the door.

Errrrr

Kerry

[nort]

Kerry that reminds me of my grandparents outside loo in the yard.The first time i went to use it as a child they had old newspapers torn up into squares for toilet paper,i couldn't believe it and this was only in the 1960s.After that i used to avoid using it.Later on they modernised and got that hard loo roll paper which wasn't much better!!!We must be soft nowadays in more ways than one.

Steve

[kerryb]

Yes I remember that hard toilet paper - horrible!

Kerry

[PaulaToo]

Hard loo paper! That brings back some memories, like just after the war tearing off a strip and seeing what letters I could find. There were always some letters left from the newspapers it had been recycled from.