Ask yer Granny!

mardatha

It's totally on topic dont worry

EstherH

We used to go foraging with my gran in the countryside. Didn't know it was called foraging till I came on here btw. It was just an afternoon out and we would collect wimberrys or blackberries and she would make pies. You had to get thousands of wimberrys though.

cherrycake

My nan was always very good at keeping me entertained as a young child. My favourite things to do were making pom poms and also dolls made by wrapping wool around a piece of cardboard so you had a thick loop of wool, then tying wool around to make the head and middle and then separating the bottom part to make legs and adding a further wool loop for the arms. Finally you would snip the ends of the loops open to make the fingers and toes - does anyone else remember these?! You certainly don't need a lot of shop toys to keep children happy, just some time and creativity...

ginnyknit

My Granny was known by all and sundry as 'Granny Mac' . She was a gypsy who settled in a council house but still taught me lots of her ways but it was her eldest daughter who taught me all about crafts - sadly she died when I was young but I seem to have been born with the ability to make anything I turn my hand to so that must be genetic. My Mum has always said it will say on my grave stone ' she did it all herself' I am afraid Gran also made me totally independant which has caused me many problems over the years.

She kept rabbits and chickens for food during the war and could make a meal out of 'summat an nothing' which my Oh still marvels at when I do it. My Gran lived until I was pregnant with my Ds and when I visited her on her death bed she told me I was pregnant even though I had just lost my first baby. My Mum and I are carbon copies of her and all three of us had an amazing bond.

One thing she taught me was, if you need something special to wear make it youself and I have always done that and its gone ok except the time I found my jacket was the same fabric as my friends bathroom curtains:rotfl:

suzybloo

I am loving this thread. My granny (Mums Mum) was a fantastic baker and cook. I always remember the homemade Potted Haugh(potted meat) and home made meat paste that was in the fridge and she always melted butter over the top to keep it fresh - think thats what it was for - maybe someone can tell me? I still make the same dumpling recipe as hers, but cannot make girdle scones like hers. She always had cuttings of plants everywhere, thats where I learned to take cuttings from geraniums and fuschias - we always got a skelp round the ear when we 'popped' the flowers on the fuschias! She always wore a pinnie - the old fashioned wrap around one, with her 20 woodbine in the pocket. If there was a way to mend anything she done it. Sewing was with an old treadle singer, turning collars and sheets was done as the norm (I have to confess I turn OH collars on his checked work shirts - sshhh dont tell anyone!), Tatty peelings and dross were mixed to keep the fire going, and anything that could be made into jams preserves etc was used. 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! I think many of the fanilies in our town lived on Smedleys produce that went out the backdoor! Depending on which processing lines they were on us local kids used to hide in the trees on the perimiter of the factory and our grannies would throw things over the fence and we trundled up the road with our dollies prams full of tinned goodies! oh the memories! It kept the wolf from the door though! This granny did not have to watch the pennies as much as the other - she was a good cook, but I dont recall her doing any handicrafts. I suppose we did learn how to keep budgies and canaries as for some reason everyone had shedfulls of them!

ETA : I Remember her turning curtains too - especially the fibreglass ones from the early 70's which were a gareish gold and had big flowers on them!

EstherH

cherrycake wrote: »

My nan was always very good at keeping me entertained as a young child. My favourite things to do were making pom poms and also dolls made by wrapping wool around a piece of cardboard so you had a thick loop of wool, then tying wool around to make the head and middle and then separating the bottom part to make legs and adding a further wool loop for the arms. Finally you would snip the ends of the loops open to make the fingers and toes - does anyone else remember these?! You certainly don't need a lot of shop toys to keep children happy, just some time and creativity...

Yes, I remember making Pom poms.

Also my gran used to make a string of paper dollies by cutting shapes out of folded newspaper. Wish I could remember how to do it. And then there was randomly cutting holes into folded newspaper to make pretty patterns, Doiley kind of effect.
And we used to draw dots in lines in paper and then make squares by just joining two dots at a time and if you closed the square you put your initial in. The one with the most squares at the end won. And of course there was noughts and crosses. Would kids today play these games? Maybe they would if you taught them early enough.

Beetlemama

Latch hook rug kits - I remember my mother making those, hundreds of little weird cut "balls" of wool around the house, wrapped around the edge in paper, like school ice cream use to be.

She was terrible at them and hated making them too, I remember this pretty pink flowery circular one that she was going to make for mine and my sisters room, it ended up as a hearth run when she'd had enough half way through and quit, having made a semi-circle.

I don't have any nannies either, never did have and I wish I had a few. My husband had one and loved her and she loved him. I feel like I missed out. If anyone has a spare nanny, we could use one over here. My son doesn't have one either since both his grandmothers are bat-crazy and we don't see either of them, lol

Winchelsea

Another granny here - with 9 grandchildren. Thanks JackieO and 3v3 and everyone - you seem to live just like I do - make do and mend, stretch every penny, make everything yourself. I used to make all our clothes, quilts, rag rugs etc.

The thing that sticks in my mind that my mother used to do in the 1940s and 50s was "going wooding". We had an old fashioned (even then) kitchen range that was for cooking and was the only source of heat in the house. We did have coal delivered, but to eke it out we burnt twigs and branches that we collected in the woods nearby. I used to dread the call of "Come on, we're going wooding!" I dreaded meeting other children - it was SO embarrassing lugging ungainly bits of wood home.

The other thing was collecting sheep's wool that had caught in the hedges - Mum used to wash it, spin it with a drop spindle made from a stick and an old wooden cotton reel, then knit it up in to cushion covers etc. I guess if she'd found more it would have been jumpers.

I remember her turning the collars on my father's shirts, also cutting the good bits from a worn out shirt to make a new tail for one still in use.

All food was home cooked of course. If nothing else in the house, for dessert we would have "hasty pudding" - flour shaken into boiling milk (or milk and water) until it thickened, sweetened with a little sugar, then served with jam or stewed fruit. Puddings and our breakfast porridge were always served on dinner plates - didn't possess any bowls.

Oh, the good old days!

Thanks Mardatha for starting this.

cherrycake

EstherH wrote: »

Yes, I remember making Pom poms.

Also my gran used to make a string of paper dollies by cutting shapes out of folded newspaper. Wish I could remember how to do it. And then there was randomly cutting holes into folded newspaper to make pretty patterns, Doiley kind of effect.
And we used to draw dots in lines in paper and then make squares by just joining two dots at a time and if you closed the square you put your initial in. The one with the most squares at the end won. And of course there was noughts and crosses. Would kids today play these games? Maybe they would if you taught them early enough.

Yes, exactly the same here Esther. I still play noughts and crosses and the dot game with my children. I might have to try the string of dollies too with my daughter - I think you have to fold the paper into a fan then draw on the doll so the arms and legs go out to each side, then cut out and hopefully you have dolls holding hands and not singletons!

pws52

Such an interesting thread...and lots of shared (and useful) memories.

My Grandad's winter project was always to make hooked rug. He would save or scrounge a clean sack or two, open them out to form the 'canvas'. He used whatever was available to provide the templates for a pattern. I well remember him drawing around the wooden copper lid for a circle with petals inside.
It was the women's job to cut worn out woollies into continuous 1'' strips which were wound into a ball. He used a hookie...which I still have....to hook the wool through the sacking to make loops. He didn't knot or cut so progress was quick. I can't understand why the loops didn't undo but they didn't!
They were a work of art and lasted years.

Another piece of advice from my Grandparents...never refuse. If someone offers you something always accept otherwise they won't offer again. This is so true especially when you lived in the country and folks offered garden surplus.