Ask yer Granny!

WeegieWumman

Both Grandfathers died before I was born. One Grandmother died I was 5 and the other when I was 11. Neither of tham lived in Scotland. Went on holiday to one grandmother once and the other three times.

Pooky

My maternal grandmother was amazing, we lived in the top of my grandparents house which was grat as I had my "nanny" on tap! She taught me how to play ping pong with Tupperware lids (a skil when she gave me the floppy lids!!) she taught me how to hide her can of best bitter in the back of the cupboard and take a crafty sip but only if I'd done something to help in the kitchen.....hiding it was a great game. She made the most amazing double fried chips and sauces out of seemingly nothing.

I remember coming home with my first weeks wage packet at the age of 16 having brought a very pleated, drop waist skirt that was in a very fine, almost silk fabric. My mother had a fit and refused to wash or iron it, she said shed never had anything so expensive go through her laundry pile and wasn't about to ruin it for me....my dear old Nan showed me how to roll it in a towel, wash gently and then hang on the line with each pleat pegged into place.....where did she learn that from???

Sadly my lovely Nan passed away when my DD1 was just 8months old, but I do have a lovely photo of her holding DD, I remember her joking about how DD had more hair than her (she was undergoing chemo), very sad that she didn't get to see Dd2, she'd have loved her.

She did leave me her carving knife and fork, she was a left handed like me and said shed had the knife made for her and it still cuts like a dream, ive never sharpened it but 16 years on its still as good as the day she gave it to me and the only knife I can cut properly with.

Hobsons_Choice

My gran lived with us after she was bombed out during the war. She was always the buffer between my parents rows and was there for me when mom left to live with someone else when I was eight. She taught me so many things and was the most wonderful nan, so I didn't miss my mom too much. Sadly, she died when I was ten and my aunt moved into care for me and dad, then she got married and I was on my own with dad from the age of thirteen.I cooked and cleaned for the two of us from then until I got married at 22. Certainly makes you grow up quickly and be independent (something that's lasted me all my life). I recently went to nan and grandad's grave and had a memorial plate made for them both - the cemetery is closed to further burials.
What would I have done without her? #sniff#.

WeegieWumman

Hobson,
I'm aware that circumstances have made you independent, but it's sad when a child doesn't have an ordinary childhood without added responsibilities. Bless those who stuck by you. x

meritaten

I think I am almost storied out now about my grandparents - except for one (you all knew that was coming didnt you?).
my grancher - the driver for an abbatoir, had a deep love of animals (I know, I could never reconcile his job with his love for all animals) also, was a steward for an agricultural show. In granchers time it was an important event in the 'show jumping' calendar. My aunt says her one claim to fame is that at one show, she was with her dad and Sir Harry LLewelyn was competing with his famous horse 'Foxhunter'. she says that her dad and Sir Harry exchanged a bit of banter - my grancher telling Sir Harry he would give him a fiver for 'Foxhunter' and Sir Harry laughed then said 'Towser, (Granchers nickname) would Gwen like a ride on him?' So Aunt Gwen got to ride the famous 'Foxhunter' around the field while Granch and Sir Harry chatted and laughed!
I was dead jealous of this, as the pair were still famous when I was a kid! Aunt Gwen isnt that much older than me! Granch also knew all the other famous showjumpers like Pat Smythe and her horses. he would tell me stuff about them - but I have forgotten most of it. Just that I got the impression he didnt give a stuff about the fame of a person - he just connected with them on a personal level. I know Nan got letters from some of them when Granch died - but, they were probably binned, as they dont seem to have been kept.

mardatha

Does anybody else think that in the old days, people in some ways mixed more freely ? ie were less snobby and conscious of rank etc? In the country, it does still go on but its getting rarer. People in new snooty developments wouldnt be seen dead inviting their plumber round to xmas drinks or sharing a pint with their gardener, but it happened back then, more than people realise.

meritaten

Yes Mardatha, I think in some ways they did. more than now. perhaps because communities were smaller and less transient. The 'nobs' actually knew the 'lower orders' on a fairly close basis. after all, they mostly saw them every day, or they were part of a church where everyone mixed in. or we worked for them in some capacity. or they used our services. or in Granchers case he had some official capacity in a sport where a common interest brough everyone together!and you couldnt really expect to kowtow down to someone who you had seen getting bladdered in the local the night before!
I also think that marraige between the classes was more common - and less frowned upon than we think.

oldtractor

well said meritaten and mardatha I agree 100%

Hobsons_Choice

Also, in the towns there were proper communities then. Most of the working class were struggling, but people pulled together and neighbours were always ready to help out. My family were all raised in back-to-backs in Brum, they demolished the slums and put families into high rise flats. The community was broken up and never regained that closeness. Now, I realise no-one would want to live in a "slum" with a shared privie and communal washhouses, but they could have built small houses in their place and it wouldn't have used up any more land than the high-rises. They learned their mistakes eventually, but by then it was too late. Neighbourhoods were broken up and never went back to their old ways.
HC x

meritaten

Mardatha - I think that the upper classes and the working class have always been much closer than people nowadays think. After all, they had so much in common - The land, Hunting Shooting and Fishing (tho in slightly different ways lol The rich man owned the land, the poor man worked it - and the poor man did all his hunting shooting and fishing on the rich mans land, albeit clandestinely usually). Its said that one thing the aristocracy and the working class have in common is a lack of manners and a complete disregard for the 'Middle Class'!
but, the middle class have expanded enormously over the last fifty years and probably outnumber both the aristocracy and the working class! and if any class made up and stuck to social ettiquette and division between the classes it was the Middle class! so the new middle class are much more 'rigid' than either of the working or upper class. if that makes sense!