Ask yer Granny!

ALIBOBSY

EstherH wrote: »

Aren't there twenty posts to everyone's page?

The thing I really remember about my gran was that she came round to help my mum a lot so we saw her most weekdays and she always had lots of time to play with us. I think that now that mums and Grans have to work because the cost of living is so high and expectations are so much higher, that special relationship between grandma and grandchild will suffer. I don't mean they won't love them as much but that 'all the time in the world' time isn't there the same. Life is so much more rushed for everyone. Kids have so many activities too these days. And of course lots of families live far from each other. Sorry if this is all off topic. Just got me thinking. Esther x

I love that our kids get to see both their grans on a regular basis. Sometimes my mum drives me mad lol-but they do love her and she them-nice sometimes as I am a SAHM that I can go around for lunch with either the youngest 1 or 2 (depends if its preschool day or not) or all 4 during holidays.
Ali x

imogen-p

Winchelsea wrote: »

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.

Going wooding reminds me of being a kid (admittedly for me that's the 80's) Me and my mum used to take a battered old pram and a hand saw and hatchet, and would take anything that had fallen across the footpath out in the wood at the back of the houses.
Although we had a gas cooker, the small backboiler in the kitchen was, along with a fireplace in the frontroom, the only heating in the house.

beemuzed

Since reading the start of this yesterday I've been remembering so much about my Nan - who died more than 40 years ago npw. She and Grandad ran a boarding house on the south coast, taking in summer visitors. I remember that they grew loads of veg and fruit in their large garden, thus contibuting to the meals. Bread was sliced wafer thin, I remember. Nan cooked everything from scratch so I remember her best in her kitchen. My Mum used to help out with cleaning all the rooms - but I think the sheets went to the laundry - I remember them being checked off in the book on their return! It was a large house on three floors with eight bedrooms. The family lived on the attic level in the summer. There was no-one else employed to cook or clean so lots of hard work! I remember being able to help clean the brass and silver. Nan was also very involved with her church and Women's Own and I remember her organising a cook book to raise money for the church extension - must look that out as I'm sure I have a copy somewhere. She also found time to sew, knit and darn - I can never remember her sitting down unless she was working on something. Don't think there was a great deal of money - in fact I'm sure there wasn't, but she always had something in the cake tin for when we were there! Wish I'd paid more attention to how she managed everything. Definitely OS!! Thanks for starting this thread Madartha - it's been lovely visiting memory lane!

exlibris

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Does anyone remember those Redicut rugs you could buy in a kit? I'm almost certain that they were made by knotting lengths of cut wool with a latch-hook. We had those rugs in nearly every room when I was little. Mum used to make them sitting by the fire when she wasn't sewing or knitting.

T.

I made our stair carpet from furnishing wool bought in the hank and then cut to length. This was in the 70's I think - about the time of the postal strike 'cos I had problems getting some wool deliveries!

It was very rewarding and also kept my legs warm whislt doing it!

Lazy_Liz

lovely to read people's memories of their Grannies and hear from Grannies. My Grannie is 99 years old and still going strong, she lives on her own in a flat is always busy and often goes away on coach holidays, she is very active in her church and still bakes regularly. She keeps note book with every penny she spends listed, thats a really useful tip if money is short, it can be shocking to see where the money goes. She is an excellent cook and the cake tin was always full. She tought me how to make pastry and jam tarts when I was probably less than five.
I don't remeber her ever buying things like bird food but there was always a saucer onthe windowsill which she collected things like bacon rind, cheese rind and all the crumbs from the work top and the cake tins and bread bin, these were then put out every morning on the bird table. She loved to watch the birds and told me when I was very young how to tell the differnece between starlings and blackbirds, starlings walk and blackbirds hop.
She made bramble jelly from blackberries we went to an old airfield to pick and made other jars and marmalade.
My Grandma who died more than 20 years ago was also and excellent cook and very good at knitting and sewing. She could turn her hand to many things, my mum still has a plate she painted at adult education class and there used to be cushions she made in class too. I still have her recipe for Parkin but I have not made it for a long time as it makes a big tinful. My sister often makes it for her brood. It uses lard as there was always lard in the ration rather than butter and you can't tell. I still make pastry with all lard as that is how I was taught by both Grannie and Grandma, needs must with rationing in those days and I like it now as it makes great pastry, nice and crisp.

3v3

Beetlemama wrote: »

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.

Oh the kits were atrocious!!! :rotfl: And soooo, "same-y"!! I think Hobby craft still sell those "ReadiCut Wool Kits"

But, latch hook rugs can be made from wool, fabric scraps and even ... "bag for life" carrier bags Only... *you* have to do the cutting (I recall my thumb having a semi-permanent indent from all that cutting! Thank heavens for modern day rotary cuttings and self healing mats - makes the task a darn site easier!)

pws52 wrote: »

.....
It was the women's job to cut worn out woollies into continuous 1'' strips which were wound into a ball...

:eek: Sacrilege!!!!
Worn out woolies were unpicked, washed and re-wound back into balls of wool to make the next project with!!!! Cutting them into 1" strips was pure wastage Oh, how my little arms *ached* holding them at a 90 degree angle so Mum could wind the lengths into well-behaved balls

ALIBOBSY

Loving this thread brought back so many memories.

I was lucky that both of my grans were quite long lived, lost one grandad when I was a baby (long story about how he left just after WW2 then came back home to die).

The other grandad only died when I was 14-considering he smoked like a chimmney, ate ten ton of fatty food, and drank several pints in the working mens club its amazing he lasted till his late 70's really.
He'd do anything to save a penny on a pint, watched him scale a hugely steep hill with his walking stick 3 times when on a holiday to get to a pub at the top of hill rather than the fancier family style pub just down the road (the family running joke was he wouldn't pay to see any stage shows as "I've already seen em do a turn at the club" and he was always loosing his false teeth.

Creepily at the end he seemed to know he was going. The day before he died we had visited and at one point he took my dad aside and told him what a good SIL he had been and to make sure he always looked after "his girls" ie mum me and my sis.
The day he died as he sat in his armchair watching tv he suddenly turned to my gran, held her hand and said he had loved her since the minute he set eyes on her and still loved her (my grandad was an ex steel worker from the north-hard as nails he never said stuff like this and sadly they were only about a month off the 50 wedding anniversery). She told him she loved him, and not to be so daft then went to answer the phone that rang in the other room. When she came back 10 mins later he had gone-massive heart attack .

My dad is older than my mum by 9 yrs but my grans were both 60 in the year I was born. My dads mum died when I was about 21 so sadly never got to see my kids but she was great fun and her and my great aunt showed me how to make fab pastry (but its full of lard so hits the stomach about 30 mins after you eat lol), taught me to love lentils and pea and ham soup and cooked everything from scratch lol.
Sadly also inherited the hording gene from her she always said "it'll come in handy sometime". What joy and tears we had cleaning out her flat-purses hid all over and money shoved down the back of the boiler-tins that were 20 yrs old. The year my grandad died we went to my dads mums for crimbo as mums mum and her family were in bits-he died about a week before christmas. It really helped all having a laugh at my auntie,mum, and both grans trying to make a trifle with 10 yr old jelly and literally ancient custard powder-so old no use by date on it.

Finally my mums mum only died about 8 yrs ago-she did that spooky thing another poster said about and knew I was pregnant before I did both times (sadly she died when I was about 6 months preg with DD1) she loved DS and they had a weird almost physic connection.
Again (and don't know how I manage this lol) I had decided to visit the day before she died.

We went to my aunties first and my son (about 4) was playing with his cousin and decided he didn't want to go to the nursing home. Off we went without him and about 10 mins into our visit my great aunt turns up with him. He apparently suddenly got really upset and said he needed to see mim (long story family nickname) today. He and she had a lovely cuddle and as I said she died early the following morning in her sleep.

She taught me to make yorkshire puddings (she was from middlesborough) and said at home they would have yorkie puds for starters with gravy followed by the meaty mains to fill you up as meat was stretching a long way, she said the leftovers were pudding either with just a bit of sugar or if you were really really lucky ice cream. She had us making pastry and cake as soon as you could stand and she had 2 massive glass jars in the cupboard (old sweety jars I think) one blue topped for self raising, red top for plain.

My grandad used to give her housekeeping all their life. He gave her half his pay and she would have to run the house and pay for everything out of her half, he would take his down the club . She managed to pay a mortgage and end up with a bungalow fully paid for and all taken back by the council at the end :mad:. She did extra jobs aorund the kids-dentist receptionist in the day (one of the skills neede was strength to help hold patients down when doing extractions :eek:.
Also did collections door to door with the kids in tow if not in the daytime.

In her 80s some fool in manchester mad the mistake of trying to mug her only to get a smack over the head with a very heavy walking stick. and the police got him later from her and witnesses description :T.

She was a little bit deaf and a little bit mad and was utterly straight talking. She once went over to a woman in a hospital waiting room and gave her a pound "to buy some soap so you can have a wash love, BO is not nice".

Remember all the newspaper stuff from being a kid, but also did hats/boats and palm trees lol. My Dad made us some games that were paper type games as he was a draftsman and had use of a photocopier at work-this was pre home computers etc and only engineers and big companies etc had copiers for the blueprints etc. I remember battleship, noughts and crosses etc etc. Have done most of these with the kids and they get just as much pleasure from simply things as we did.

I am utterly disallusioned with all the "buy it now,throw it away after a couple of years,keep up with the jones, your house is an investment not a home and should be like a minimulist mangolia box" and the more I and all of us-both on here and as a nation reject it the better.

Ali x

mishmogs

What I remember is blackening the range in the back room and stoking (not sure on spelling!) the fire and being taught how to light the fire, get it going, keep it going and using the slag to slow it down and throw out heat. How about using the donkey stone to clean the front steps, haven't seen this in years. The coal being delivered either in the coal hole in the hole in front of the front door step (my nans) or through the hole in the wall (my mums) into the coal bunker.

Nan making meat pies for our teas for a treat with jelly and blancmange. Apples from the back garden for pies which were cooked on the range and going to the outside lavvi. Gawd it was cold in the winter and taking the lamp to the loo with newspaper squares hung on string. I also remember my sunday school teachers' house (we would go for xmas party) and her loo was an earth closet.

Watching Dixon of Dock Green with a bowl of stew and a door step of bread, still do this, so somethings haven't changed. Darning socks and mending string vests. (who can remember grandad getting sunburnt with a string vest pattern? and a knotted hanky on the head). Gran mending her thick stockings. This week I have just darned two pairs of patterned tights which have laddered round the toe areas and at £6 per pair, they are getting mended, so at least I have carried on this tradition.

I also remember nan making rag rugs which seemed to last forever and using the mangle to squeeze water out of the washing.

ALIBOBSY

mishmogs wrote: »

Darning socks and mending string vests. (who can remember grandad getting sunburnt with a string vest pattern? and a knotted hanky on the head). Gran mending her thick stockings. This week I have just darned two pairs of patterned tights which have laddered round the toe areas and at £6 per pair, they are getting mended, so at least I have carried on this tradition.

I also remember nan making rag rugs which seemed to last forever and using the mangle to squeeze water out of the washing.

My grandad loved his string vest and always had a knotted hankie on at the seaside lol.
My gran used to take a "picnic" to the seaside, but made everything fresh when she got there-she got everything out on a folding table-hot water in a flask to make proper tea in a teapot served in proper tea cups, spreading butter on the bread and adding meat and salad fresh and served up on proper plates rofl. She loved a paddle but always left her tights on.

Oh the memories coming back.
Ali x

3v3

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

....
The other grandad only died when I was 14-...
Creepily at the end he seemed to know he was going. The day before he died we had visited and at one point he took my dad aside and told him what a good SIL he had been and to make sure he always looked after "his girls" ie mum me and my sis.
The day he died as he sat in his armchair watching tv he suddenly turned to my gran, held her hand and said he had loved her since the minute he set eyes on her and still loved her (my grandad was an ex steel worker from the north-hard as nails he never said stuff like this and sadly they were only about a month off the 50 wedding anniversery). She told him she loved him, and not to be so daft then went to answer the phone that rang in the other room. When she came back 10 mins later he had gone-massive heart attack . ....

OMG! I am just sooooo moved by this part of your post!!! *wibble* What a great guy!