Ask yer Granny!

mardatha

Reading this has made me wonder if you can still buy pinnies anywhere!? I remember seeing my granny wearing a sack for a pinny, tied round her middle.
I can't do the Irish side of the family tree, they were Cassidys and there's just too many and I'm not sure where they came from exactly.
My dad's lot the family tree was done by a cousin and goes back to 1830s. They were all seamen from Lowestoft before they came up to Fife.
I find the single biggest sad thing is the huge numnber of babies born. If they'd had the pill then, think of the heartache and loss that would have been avoided eh.

smileyt_2

What a fab thread!

I never knew either of my grannies as they both died before I was born, and I only have the dimmest memories of my grandads as they died when I was a little girl. My mum is doing her family tree, and apparently my great-gran ran away from home to join a travelling circus and marry the man who was the circus clown! They settled in my Mum's home town eventually and had lots of children, who dispersed to the four winds. My Dad's grandad (my great grandad) came over in the Irish potato famine, and that's all I know about them.

My Dad's dad was an ice-cream seller and a fantastic gardener; he grew all the veg for his large family (my dad was one of ten). I think the gardening gene has skipped a generation and manifested itself in me :rotfl:

A few years ago I hosted an American teenager for a year - she lived with me and went to school here for a year as part of an international education programme. She's now 23 and has been going steady with her boyfriend for a year. She comes from a huge Catholic family who are very keen on marriage, and she loves kids and wants them herself .... so I am hoping that maybe, in the next year or two, I will become an adopted transatlantic granny myself ....

ALIBOBSY

Was talking to my mum about this thread and she started telling me about her grandparents-one set lived in an old police station.

There were cells outside the main building like in a yard and land to the side so the cells got used to store chicken feed for all the chickens and pullets he had growing out the back he like ev1 at that time grew alot of his fruit and veg as well.
Mum thinks this is why she has a phobia of birds (she won't go into our garden any more since we got our chooks), when the grandad died all the chickens were split between the children so then mum had to put up with a load of them in her own garden as well.

She said thinking back she remembered that just like me great grandads dream was to have a small holding and to move out of the city into the countryside, makes me more determined to strive for it as he never reached his dream .

I agree about parents moving away from OS, my mum used to make all our and her clothes. But rarely does any clothes sewing now. Mind you she still does alterations/fixing zips and all her curtains (she reckons ready made are too expensive). She rarely bakes and buys things like ready made mash/jars of sauce and ready meals.

Can't blame her really, but she just dismisses any old style stuff as "not worth the effort". She can't see that we have the time but not so much the spare cash so it is worth it to us (putting aside the fact of being better quality/taste/the satisfaction of doing something yourself etc etc).

This thread is lovely, but it does bring a few tears as well.

My daughter recently said to me (after we asked for christmas lists, but told them to bear in mind money was limited so we would get what we could-and see what father christmas could get ), Mummy the best thing about christmas is having a few days all together as a family and having nice food and a good time together awwwww.

Ali x

suzybloo

Mardatha if you are ever in Perth pop into an old fashioned drapers in County Place called Fergusons - its like stepping back 60 years! They have the pinnies and are regularly in the window from the full wrap round ones to the tea aprons and the ones with the frills round the edges, along with the old fashioned flanelette gowns from your neck to your toes! there are two shops - one for 'casual' wear and one for 'workwear' The workwear one has proper tackety boots with the turned up toes, the proper hessian piecebags and the mens denim work dungarees and greaser jackets!

salome

My mum had to be very careful with her pennies when my brother and I were youngsters. They didn't have very much, and dad didn't get better pay until I was about 11-12. We had to eat what was grown, and all cakes were homemade, it was considered a treat to have a shop bought one lol. We had sweets once a week. After church, we would go into a newsagent, the only retailer allowed to be open on a Sunday back then, and then only until 12pm. I always chose Smarties, as there were a lot of them, and lasted longer if I ate them one at a time. They cost sixpence (two and a half pence in todays money) and I was allowed them after my dinner. Sunday dinner was always a roast (we went to church early, 8am service, so we were home by 12pm.) Much of the dinner mum would put on before we went, and then do the veggies when we got home. Can't remember what we had for pudding, when I was older it was either a Birds Triffle, or a fuit flan, and cream, but when I was younger it wouldn't have been. Mum couldn't have afforded cream then. Maybe we didn't have one ???? Afternoon tea would be a tin of fruit salad, with evaporated milk (yuk. Couldn't stand evaporated milk) bread and butter (real bread. A baker would come to our door with a basket of bread. Smelt wonderful :-) No sliced bread until I was older). Mondays dinner would be cold meat from the Sunday roast, bubble and squeak, or chips and baked beans. Still have no memory of desserts after dinner. In the Autumn we would have plums, because we had plum trees in our garden, and apple crumbles, because there were cooking apple trees as well. Sometimes mum made a jelly, or rice pudding, and sometimes, we had ice cream :-) I think desserts were there if possible, if not, then we went without. If my brother and I were really hungry and needed a snack, then mum did us bread and milk. I loved it :-) My brother wasn't impressed, so he'd have sugar sandwiches. Much frowned on today I should think lol. The only 'convienient' foods were fish fingers and sausages. Burgers came a long a little more later, and when I did home ec. at school, we were taught "when you're really rushed for time, use tinned meat for your meat pie, but, only when you really have to." :-) No freezers, apart from the little one at the top of a fridge. Cooking ahead was making double the pastry, using one half for a pie, and the other half for a jam tart the next day. Mum would make a stew that would make two nights dinners, and a soupy lunch on the third day. lol.
I never felt I went without though. Most of my friends were in the same boat, and we basically ate to live, and not live to eat, in fact eating inbetween meals was never thought of. It was a good hearty breakfast, lunch, then dinner. I can't remember ever being hungry.
We were sent out to play, never bored, wouldn't dare, or mum would find us something to do, and we didn't want that lol. Not much tele back then, so no lounging around in front of the box, and what there was mum limited, as she prefered us to find our own amusment, which we did.
She has lost all those early coping skills now, or at least put them one side. As money got more plenty, she enjoyed the lack of pressure to cook from scratch, and by the time I was a teenager, she was buying in more, rather than baking. Though, today she has treated herself to a slow cooker, I have to go over later and show her how to work it :-) and she is enjoying baking again, and has been making cakes more lately than she has for a while, bless her. She'll be 80 in Feb. She has one of my sons living with her, so I think it's bringing out the 'mum' in her again lol, :-)

x

mrsmortenharket

I love this thread. I have sent a link to my auntie as I want to get some information from her. I can remember my gran & grandad. My great gran died when I was very young & my grumpy grampy when I was about 12, I think. I only have 1 memory of my grandmas mum & that was seeing her in a bedroom in Norwich when I was very young. She had alziemers. She kept giving money everytime we went in the room "to pay for the journey"

My grandma was very good with money. I think my grandad was a bit naughty & didn't give her much housekeeping. She worked.

I'll come back with more memories later. I love reading all of yours.

Lisa x

mrsmortenharket

Grandad's Mum was born in Birmingham! her family was very poor and Florence (Florrie) and her sister (not sure how many siblings) would go to the butchers and ask for bones for the dog ( they didn't have a dog) then went around the back of the Greengrocer's (when they had closed) to pick through the wilted bruised or off-cut bits of veg for the stew pot. Grandad told me that one time when we were visiting him while he was battling the Cancer. <<< My auntie told me that.
Amazing how people survived back then.

If I remember this right, my grandmas mum would have to go to the pub to get the money from her father before he drank it all. No idea where her mother was.

Lisa

mama67

suzybloo wrote: »

My other granny worked in a food factory called Smedleys - I think they were the first canning factory - and everyone would make a concealed pocket in their big rubber pinnies and we lived on beans, tinned peas,tinned tatties, tinned berries and the worst thing of all - dont know if anyone remembers these - tinned sausage rolls!

My dad used to work for Smedleys and yes I remember the tinned sausage rolls. His factory was a frozen veg one though, so we used to get lots of peas.

My late nan (mum's mum) was a child during WW1 and a wife and mother during WW2 so knew alot of things, she taught me to knit, Nan did all the knitting and mum the sewing. My late mum was a child during WW2 so again knew how to make things stretch and along with my late dad also a child of WW2 grew most of our veggies etc whilst I was a child. Both nan and mum taught me to bake.

I was pregnant with DS1 when my dad died but I didn't know it, apparantley my godfather told me afterwards dad had said "everythings ok for Maisie now" a couple of days before he went. He also weirdly hung on until the same time of day that my mum had died. mum at 6.15pm , Dad at 6.14pm

mama67

mardatha wrote: »

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?

I'm named after my Aunty Maisie who died from meningitus at 6 months old this was during the 1930s. Nan & Granddad couldn't get her to the hospital as they had no transport.

VJsmum

One of my aunties got meningitis as a 6 month old in the 1940's. She survived but it left her brain damaged, she is 65 now but is very childlike in her ways. Thinking about it i haven't ever seen anybody else with the issues she has. It is like she is 12 or 13, she can look after herself physically (washing etc) but couldn't be trusted to live alone in terms of food. She holds fairly rational conversations but in a childlike manner.

It is a shame.