Ask yer Granny!

Fruball

Absolutely loving this thread - well done Mardatha.

Sadly I grew up with only one Nana and she passed away long before I had any interest in anything OS... My Grandpa passed away when my Dad was a teenager and the other grandparents lived abroad and I only got to meet one of them once so this thread is really lovely for me as I can imagine what life would have been like for them all those years ago.

Can someone please tell me what 'tartan legs' are?

mhagster

tartan legs are also known as corned beef legs, when someone sat too close to a fire & their legs would be mottled & marked with the heat!

Fruball

mhagster wrote: »

tartan legs are also known as corned beef legs, when someone sat too close to a fire & their legs would be mottled & marked with the heat!

ahhh yes! I know corned beef legs :rotfl:

thanks

WeegieWumman

prepareathome: I once worked in Cochrane's for the longest two whole days of my (then) young life! LOL
Mardatha: I well remember Finnan Haddies. Tasted a couple of times. They're were Haddock which were smoked in Findon (pronounced Finnan) in Aberdeen. Re: Shettleston Road. I was in a couple of 'wee shops' there a few days ago.

WeegieWumman

Corned beef legs!!!! hahahaha. I've never never heard them called THAT before. Only knew them as 'fireside tartan'

shelley_crow

Another memory I've just had is watching my grandad shave. He didn't believe in disposable razors and wouldn't use them. He had a leather strap and set of cut throat razors that his mother had bought him when he got married. I used to watch in awe as he shaved, he didn't even look at what he was doing! I used to hate talking to him when he was shaving, he'd look at me and not in the mirror! Of course he never cut himself badly, that's what 50 odd years of practice does for you. His leather strap and flat cap used to be hung up on the back of the pantry door. They hung there for 12 years until my nan passed away. Everytime I used to open the pantry door, it made me remember him fondly.

RAS

wmf wrote: »

mardatha wrote "I remember every time you flitted it was with everything in tea chests."

When I visited my sister in Norway a few years ago i saw a van and on the side was written flyttyn dor til dor. Near enough like that - ha - the language travels. I think hospital was seekhoosie (now, not spelt that way!)
Loving this thread and people's memories of their grannies.
W

Depends on the country but either sykhus or sykehus - literally sick house.

If you are a northerner andf know any dialect, you will find words in Norwegian or Swedish that make sense - from the basic dal = dale to barn = bairn = child.

mardatha

Kirke is the same and hus yes, didn't know about bairn. My dad was very broad Fife and my mum broad Glasgow, I love accents and dialects.
I've always wanted to see Norway, used to have penpals there. Love the knitting!! And Shetland, always wanted to go there too. The RV used to say to the kids "everybody else on the planet wants to go to Florida, but your mother wants to go to Shetland" ...LOL
I want to know how your legs went tartan, and did it ever go away if you stopped sitting so close to the fire? Everybody's mums and grannies had that when I was wee.

RAS

mardatha wrote: »

Kirke is the same and hus yes, didn't know about bairn. My dad was very broad Fife and my mum broad Glasgow, I love accents and dialects.
I've always wanted to see Norway, used to have penpals there. Love the knitting!! And Shetland, always wanted to go there too. The RV used to say to the kids "everybody else on the planet wants to go to Florida, but your mother wants to go to Shetland" ...LOL
I want to know how your legs went tartan, and did it ever go away if you stopped sitting so close to the fire? Everybody's mums and grannies had that when I was wee.

Well if you can understand Doric!! Phew. Once spent a whole week with a work party and it was only at the end that I discovered that most of the other participants really struggled with our Fifer.

Do try and go to Shetland, mar. It is wonderful, although I think Orkney tops it for me. I was so amazed by Papa Westray; the way people share jobs (they run a co-operative shop, hostel and B&B and make sure everyone gets some income) and by the timelessness of the place. Right next to the ruined church there is a pre-historic house that older than anything else in northern Europe http://www.papawestray.co.uk/papay/pw_official8.html , sitting next to an iron Age midden that is just washing into the sea.

prepareathome

mardatha wrote: »

Does anybody else remember Finnan Haddies?
l:

Oh I remember them, the small yellow things you can buy in England are not a patch on them, loved them.

I remember always when we went to Aberdeen by train, usually going to stay in Findocty(spl) not far from MacDuff ( parents used to rent a house right on the harbour every year for a couple of month - now I think about it I wonder where the money came from I guess they must have known the owner or something but sadly dad died in July, and mum 4 years ago, so no one to ask any more, but we certainly didn't have much money yet we always had these wonderful holidays, for mum couldn't have been much of one as she worked as she did at home, cooking, cleaning washing but for us it was wonderful, especially when the fishermen took us out with them - cannot see that being allowed nowadays - and greeting them in the morning when they arrived back and off loaded the boxes of fish, the first thing that would greet us was the smell of fish, we knew we were on holiday then. I remember my brother and I used to walk round the shore to MacDuff - it involved some cliff climbing and if mum had ever found out we would have been skelped, but we always got there and back safely.

I have so far never made it to Orkney or Shetland, my parents went there on their honeymoon, and I still have their photos. We used to take the children to the Black Isle for many a holiday, but never really got over to the west to Ullapool but I still live in hope we will get there one day.

All these memories have reminded me of so much I had forgotten - a friends Nan lived in a small cottage in a village about an hour away by blue train and small boat over the river and we used to go and stay with her at weekends - water from the well, oil lamps, she slept downstairs in the bed recess and we climbed a single ladder to a cosy bed in the loft, she grew all her vegetables and kept a pig, chicken and a cow. She cooked over a fire in a big black pot. There was a big flat stone that jutted out from the side of the chimney that was over the fire and the kettle was kept on it full of water all day. If I remember rightly she had brought up about 8 children in that place. For me it was an adventure. To me she looked like an old woman but most likely was not out of her 40's and she died when I was about 14. One thing I do remember that even on the coldest days that cottage was a warm snug place, but how it must have been when she was raising her family I don't know.