Ask yer Granny!

Butterfly_Brain

We had to sit quietly when we went visiting anyone for fear of a slap if we didn't behave.
I remember going to our Uncle's house in Catford and our Aunt had a sink full of live eels ready to jelly them (shudder) and their garden was full of fruit and veg.

Do you remember playing dodge the blackboard rubber/chalk at school if you were caught talking :eek: luckily our teacher had a very bad aim:rotfl: If you were really naughty you got the slipper (plimsole) in primary school and the cane in upper school.
You respected your teachers in those days.

EstherH

Thanks 3v3, think I'll stick to the twenty posts though as I am used to that.

I never got the plimsol but I remember two lads who did because they had gone to the office at lunch and said Miss Allan had told them to ask for the football when of course she hadn't.

I did get my arm slapped though once or twice.

I remember one teacher throwing the board rubber at those who were talking.

Off now to catch up with what I have missed since yesterday, have only seen the last couple of posts.

Esther x

EstherH

I loved Enid Blighton, read all the famous five, secret seven, Mallory Towers, St Claire's and loads more.

I never read the Challet School books though. I seem to remember a friend who read them later on when I was about thirteen or fourteen.

I loved the library when I was growing up. I would get as many as I was allowed out each time and then take back the next time we went shopping and get more. We used to go shopping about three times a week then.

Esther x

helzbelz_57

one of my grannies died long before i was born but my dad has told me some things about her. apparently she used to wash her hair in a barrel of rainwater they kept at the back door. sh also used to (like every other mother is suppose) make all their clothes. he remembers sitting holding the unpicked wool on loops round his hands so that she could wind it into a ball to knit something new. he remembers her making all 9 of their hallowe'en costumes every year. he was lawrence of arabia one year! the were quite a well off family compared to the rest in their tiny townland, they ran the local shop and they dad says all their bedlinen was made from big flour sacks stitched together. he also says he remembers her ironing the newspaper after she had read it so my granda wouldn't know anyone had gotten to it before him, he was a very irrational man. my granny had sisters that had emigrated to america and dad remembers getting clothing parcels sent over and how all the other children would be so jealous of my dad and his siblings wearing sweaters with logos on them and baseball caps!! (this was the 60's) it was a real novelty. i think my dad was very fond of his mum (but isn't the type that would say outright), he was very sick as a baby and then when he was still very young his mum got ill and he had to go and live with a neighbour, apparantly he sleepwalked and the neighbours used to find him walking up the road back to his own house in his sleep. they eventually had to hide the key in a bucket of water so that if he tried to get it he would wake up but then they used to find him standing staring into the bucket of water in his sleep. bit off topic there. that's all i can really remember. i wish i had known her, i think i would have liked her. my other nana is 83 now and still living independently. i've never heard her talk much about her child rearing days. my mum says nana wasn't much into the making your own clothes as she was a nurse and there were 9 chlildren too so she didn't have time. i'd say she could still teach me a thing or two though if i asked.

helzbelz_57

salome- " Grandad had his chair, which was placed in front of the tele, and gran had to sit in a chair opposite him. Visitors sat at the back of the room, on the settee !! We weren't allowed to talk when he was watching anything, and only programs that he liked were allowed to be watched"

exactly the same with my maternal granda when he was alive! i remember him sitting there an dif any f us children made a sound he said "whisht" and wuld start coughing and spluttering and light up anther cigarette ( he died f lung cancer in the end)

CH27

My paternal Grandma taught me to bake & inspired my love of roses.
She's been dead 30 yrs now but I still remember her & her ways & according to family I am very like her.

mardatha

Some fantastic interesting families you've had. Loving this thread.

D&DD

I miss my nan too My other grandparents passed after I was born but I lost them all by the age of 1 apart from Nanny Rose my mums mum.
Blimey she had an interesting life,we often said she should have written a book!

She grew up in the East End and was shuttled between the poorhouse and home as and when her dad,a tailor had work.She was 5 feet nothing but hard as nails complete with tattoos :rotfl:

My mum still remembers being mortified at her and my grandad being heaved out of their local on sunday after her finding out he'd gambled and drunk away her housekeeping!She was a feisty beggar but she'd had to be.

They were bombed out during the war and my mum was sent away to Liverpool as an evacuee but hates to talk about it as the woman who she stayed with was so awful to her and basically starved her and used her as a maid!!

My mum lost a brother and sister when they were babies, my nan couldn't afford a doctor,one to measles and the other to pneumonia.

I've learnt many of my oldstyle ways through my nan and my mum having such hard lives and my dad being one of ten kids didn't exactly have it easy..he remembers being chased through his estate during the war when it was 'shot up' by low flying german planes.:eek:

I must read the thread from the start but think I'll need me tissues for this one my nan was 96 when she went and she's been gone for 10 years now but she left a huge hole in all our lives.

PixieDust

I remember my Nanna used to come "all the way from Derby" to visit us on the train (we lived in Birmingham, not exactly an epic journey!!!)...we used to go to New STreet Station to meet her and she always wore the same brown mac with cream edging and always used her tatty tartan trolley bag as a suitcase. She would get off the train and stand still where she was with her arms wide open and I would run allllll the way down the platform for a hug! She wasn't a demonstrative woman, so this was about as tactile as it got!

She would take all five of us kids (me and my four cousins) away on holiday on her own, and I don't remember her ever having a bit of trouble with any of us, nor do I remember her raising a voice or hand to any one of us. She would lead us all into the first class carriages on the trains, where we would sit and do our thing until the inspector came along, at which point she would charm the inspector by saying that she couldn't find seats all together for the five of us in 2nd class.....I don't remember us ever having to move And I was ALWAYS four on buses and trains. Always. No matter what

mardatha

Oh fab grannies , terrific ! My mum's name was Elizabeth, and she once told me she was the 3rd Elizabeth as two had died before her. I found them on Scotlands People. One died of a hernia at 3 weeks and one of pneumonia. Do you think we would be as tough as our grannies if we had to be?