It is five years today since my Grandad, my last surviving grandparent, died. He would have been 100 now and, were he still alive, would probably still be as fiercely independent as he always was. I still remember the morning I drove to work past my grandparents' house, only to see Grandad at the top of a set of 6-foot ladders that were placed at the edge of the road, cutting the back of his garden hedge...he was 90 at the time! Needless to say I didn't peep my horn as I went past.
My grandparents were always a huge part of my life as I grew up and for the last few years of my paternal grandparents' lives they lived nextdoor to us, so I saw them on a daily basis. Whenever our dog, Ben, went missing, we knew Grandad had stolen him and was secretly feeding him biscuits or toffees! He always swore blind that he hadn't, but Ben trying to get toffee unstuck from round his teeth usually gave the game away.
Before we moved more locally to our grandparents, we used to visit them at weekends. I have fond memories of staying with my paternal grandparents on Saturday nights and having Sunday lunch cooked by Nanny (we never let her forget the time she forgot to make the Yorkshire puddings), and then going a few miles up the road to see my maternal grandparents. My Nana used to spoil us rotten and I used to love rooting through a suitcase in which she stored lots of old toys and random bits and bobs from my Mum's and Auntie's childhood. Grandad often took us walking and in September we always went blackberry-picking with him.
Nanny used to babysit us a lot when we were young and my brother and I loved her reading stories to us at bedtime. We were mean though. We used to make her read the first chapter of Roald Dahl's 'George's Marvellous Medicine' just so she had to read the line, "She had pale brown teeth and a small, puckered-up mouth like a dog’s bottom"- we were children, we thought it was funny hearing that coming from our Nanny's mouth! She also hated the story of the Teeny Tiny Woman which appeared in my Richard Scarry Storybook so we used to get her to read that too. It was a really boring story that went on and on and on- again, we were children and we thought it was funny because Nanny hated it! Years later I got my comeuppance though when a child brought a book to me and asked me to read them a story...and guess what the story was?!
In recent years I have done some research with my parents into our family history and have managed to trace back quite a few generations on both sides of the family. I first started to chart our family tree whilst my paternal grandad was still alive; he developed dementia in the last few years of his life and whilst his short-term memory was pretty non-existent, his long-term memory was still fairly good and he would talk for hours about members of his family that I never knew...drawing up a family tree was the only way of keeping track of who he was talking about! It was fascinating learning about my ancestors, especially as both my Nanny and Grandad had unusual starts to their lives...my Nanny was orphaned at 8 years old and my Grandad was brought up by his grandparents from the age of 8 after his father died.
My grandparents were always a huge part of my life as I grew up and for the last few years of my paternal grandparents' lives they lived nextdoor to us, so I saw them on a daily basis. Whenever our dog, Ben, went missing, we knew Grandad had stolen him and was secretly feeding him biscuits or toffees! He always swore blind that he hadn't, but Ben trying to get toffee unstuck from round his teeth usually gave the game away.
Before we moved more locally to our grandparents, we used to visit them at weekends. I have fond memories of staying with my paternal grandparents on Saturday nights and having Sunday lunch cooked by Nanny (we never let her forget the time she forgot to make the Yorkshire puddings), and then going a few miles up the road to see my maternal grandparents. My Nana used to spoil us rotten and I used to love rooting through a suitcase in which she stored lots of old toys and random bits and bobs from my Mum's and Auntie's childhood. Grandad often took us walking and in September we always went blackberry-picking with him.
Nanny used to babysit us a lot when we were young and my brother and I loved her reading stories to us at bedtime. We were mean though. We used to make her read the first chapter of Roald Dahl's 'George's Marvellous Medicine' just so she had to read the line, "She had pale brown teeth and a small, puckered-up mouth like a dog’s bottom"- we were children, we thought it was funny hearing that coming from our Nanny's mouth! She also hated the story of the Teeny Tiny Woman which appeared in my Richard Scarry Storybook so we used to get her to read that too. It was a really boring story that went on and on and on- again, we were children and we thought it was funny because Nanny hated it! Years later I got my comeuppance though when a child brought a book to me and asked me to read them a story...and guess what the story was?!
In recent years I have done some research with my parents into our family history and have managed to trace back quite a few generations on both sides of the family. I first started to chart our family tree whilst my paternal grandad was still alive; he developed dementia in the last few years of his life and whilst his short-term memory was pretty non-existent, his long-term memory was still fairly good and he would talk for hours about members of his family that I never knew...drawing up a family tree was the only way of keeping track of who he was talking about! It was fascinating learning about my ancestors, especially as both my Nanny and Grandad had unusual starts to their lives...my Nanny was orphaned at 8 years old and my Grandad was brought up by his grandparents from the age of 8 after his father died.
I loved spending time with my grandparents, though as I got older and life got busier I didn't see as much of them as I did as a child, and that I regret. I miss them very much and one thing that makes me sad is that were I ever to get married or have children (the likelihood of either is getting increasingly slim) they won't be there.
Nana and Grandad with my mum, 1948
Nanny and Grandad, c.1938
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