Visiting the grandparents


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Havent been on here lately but this forum stirred up some memories of my grandparents. my brother and I used to spend our summer holidays with my maternal grandparents in Barrow in Furness ( Lanc

Quite right, Jill.  I don't talk much about birthdays anymore.  This last one was #75.  Never thought I would ever reach such an age.   As well as me dog treats some folks at church bought me a really

Saturday evenings as a kid were often spent at my grandma and grandad's house playing cards for pennies with other uncles and aunts and cousins. The eldest of the grandkids were sent up to the lo

Lucy Saunt, my great grandmother gave birth to 12 live children. 6 of them died before their second birthday, one died at 14 of a brain tumour and one was obliterated by a German shell during the Great War. This does not include any stillbirths she may have had.

 

By her early 70s, her mental state had deteriorated to such an extent that she had to be institutionalized.

 

Her son's generation had to fight in the Great War and their children were caught up in WW2 so, yes, the children of the 40s 50s and early 60s have been looked upon kindly. I wouldn't want to change places.

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My Maternal Grandparents moved from Highbury Vale to the Old Bestwood Estate in the 30s with their very large family,.....and when i was growing up (born there in 45) i remember nothing but happiness and kindness from all my Aunts and Uncles who were then mainly in there late teens and early 20s,.......the house was always busy and never recall any proper arguments...........Grandma always cooking Grandad and Uncles in and getting ready for work or home on leave from the Army...........but the best was my Mam and her Sisters getting ready for their nights out...........even remember em painting their legs brown or drawing a Seam down the back of em,and they were always singing....Beverley sisters,Kay sisters,Alma Cogan or Ruby Murray songs.

                          Then remember the younger ones bringing their boy/girl friends home and introducing them to all the others,they really were a happy crowd...........and will be forever thankful for growing up with such lovely people......still see them all in my dreams on occasions............

            

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Visits to my grandparents always meant fresh baked cakes and scones for tea, if we happened to go at dinner time there would be homemade pie or  full dinner with Yorkshire puddings usually the size of a tea plate.  My grandfathers family were mainly miners very down to earth being an only child sometimes felt very overwhelmed at the amount of relatives i had.  Never met my grandmothers  family as they said she married beneath her, she was expected to marry a man in "business" same as her father.   My great great grandmother was born in 1870 and died when i was 3, i have a photo of myself sitting on her knee at her front door, she was wearing a black dress white apron and smoking a clay pipe, she always wore the white apron as she acted as midwife for those who could not afford a doctor.

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My father's parents lived in Humber Road, Beeston when I was a child as Chapel Street had gone by then. There always seemed to be an atmosphere between them which I later discovered dated back to Ted Sparrow's philandering in the early years of their marriage for which Kate never forgave him. As a result, Ted did most things around the house while Kate relaxed in a comfy chair! This was his penance and he just got on with it. No one who wasn't tired of living wanted to upset Kate! She had little time for people but loved animals....hmm, sounds very familiar!

 

The Sparrow side of my family rarely showed any affection and the only way of establishing how much they liked anyone was the number of insults they bestowed upon you. My father and his mother usually traded defamatory remarks as though they were going out of fashion. It was always said that dad was her favourite child, so perhaps that was why! Judging from his reaction when Kate died in 1982, my father loved her very much but it would have been physically impossible for him to say so.

 

Strange family, the Sparrows but from a genealogical point of view, an interesting bunch!

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Not sure if this should be in the limericks forum, but being about Jill's grandma I thought I would post it here.

 

Don't mess with Jill's grandma Kate.

 

You'll suffer a terrible fate.

 

If you try to thwart her,

 

She'll give you no quarter.

 

For she ne'er found a man she di'nt 'ate.

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#56

 

Love it, Loppy and so would she! Very true.  ;)

 

Apparently, the worst time to get on the wrong side of Kate was when she'd been to the cinema in Beeston to see Errol Flynn in one of his swashbuckling movies. She took it all rather too seriously, would come home, pick up the carving knife and dance round the kitchen threatening to "run you through" with it!  Long before my time but I still have the knife. It's a family heirloom!

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  • 4 months later...

She certainly gave Grandad a tough time.......she would sit in that armchair and told everyone what she thought of em.......no holds barred,........loved her drink.........but she kept the family together........in her later years she'd spend days or weeks with one of her Daughters....must admit the sisters used to argue a bit over who's turn it was.........but our lovely Aunt Gwen had her more than anyone,she lived with Harold her husband on Bulwell lane Basford,the Pear Tree being their local and sometimes 'Catchums'.......Grandma ended her days there............not catchums.........Gwen and Harold's house..........lol.

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I would visit my grandparents quite often usually sleep over from Friday until Sunday i was about 10 or 12 years old at the time spent many hours gardening or creosoting the garden shed.Sometimes go shopping down notts with grandma they lived on Temple dr. Nuthall and grandad and i would cycle to Meadow Lane to watch Notts County.Sunday morning we would get up have full english breakfast help grandad clean his car a1954 austin A30 while grandma prepared the famous Sunday dinner roast beef ,yorkshire pudding,baked potatoes and veggies fresh from the garden.Grandad would go with the man next door to the Broxtowe Inn for a drink and then come home for dinner.After dinner we usually relaxed listening to the  radio Billy Cotton,Meet the Huggets and Life with the Lions.After tea they would drive me home i lived in Nuthall on Spencer dr. just before you entered Watnall.

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12 hours ago, IAN FINN said:

I would visit my grandparents quite often usually sleep over from Friday until Sunday

 

That's something I don't remember ever doing. I never slept at either grandparent's house, even though we visited them both quite often.

 

The house in Lenton was three storey; two bedrooms and a bathroom on the 'normal upstairs', and then another staircase up to the next floor which had a further two small bedrooms and a box room (walk-in cupboard which you could stand in). I always found it a bit spooky because it was so quiet up there.

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I have an extremely vague memory of going to spend a night with Kate and Ted Sparrow at their house in Humber Road, Beeston.  My older sister was always wanting to stay the night with friends or relatives and it was probably her doing, I just got dragged along as I usually did when she went anywhere.  I would have been very young and the only thing I remember is that my sister and I had to share a bed and I screamed to go home.  I can't remember whether, in the end, Kate rang my father and he came to fetch us.

 

I have asked my sister about this but she can't remember anything about it whatsoever.

 

The Humber Road house was very old and demolished years ago.

 

As for my maternal grandparents, my grandmother died 10 years before I was born and my grandfather lived with us until his demise in 1965.

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My paternal grandparents lived on Bonnington Crescent in Sherwood. I have many happy memories of being there. Except for the vicious ginger Tom that used to attack me (I can assure you I never did anything to him, he was a monster all teeth and claws), being pecked by the chickens when feeding them with my gran and being chased by her gander with his couple of ladies with my gran shouting “stop running and he will leave you alone”. 
After my grandad died my eldest cousin and I would stay with my gran for the odd weekend. The house was very freaky and made a lot of noise especially at night. My cousin and I used to share a bed and we used to lay there convinced it was my grandad making the noise. When I eventually told my mum, as I didn’t really want to stay overnight, she said “your grandad would not hurt you in life so why should he hurt you now”. She explained it was just the house settling which at the time I didn’t understand. We did stay there overnight after that, glad my cousin was with me wouldn’t have liked to have been on my own. 
My gran made the best fruit loaf I have ever tasted, she taught me to dunk biscuits and bread and butter in my tea much to my mums horror. She used to stand a loaf of bread on its end, butter it and then cut across the top, I have never ever seen anyone cut bread like that I certainly would never have done it that way. She could cut it as thick or thin as you wanted. 
After the cat died she had dogs, all of which were absolutely bonkers in the nicest possible way but that is another story.

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34 minutes ago, Stavertongirl said:

She used to stand a loaf of bread on its end, butter it and then cut across the top, I have never ever seen anyone cut bread like that I certainly would never have done it that way.

 

My grandma did this and I still do occasionally. If the bread is really fresh or the slices too thin it will tear if the butter is quite firm. Buttering before slicing stops that happening...

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My grandma would hold the loaf with one arm around it, up against her pinny, butter it then slice it. My mam cut vegetables in her hands, even slice potatoes into chips in her hands. I do the same, very rarely use a chopping board. My mam never had one.

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Saturday evenings as a kid were often spent at my grandma and grandad's house playing cards for pennies with other uncles and aunts and cousins.

The eldest of the grandkids were sent up to the local off licence to fetch bottles of Nut Brown, a jug of Shipstones, lemonade for the kids for very weak shandy or port and lemon. Bags of crisps, peanuts and my favourite Nibbits.

We played Sevens, Russian Patience and always ended with a game of Newmarket and as the kings were withdrawn at the end of the game much excitement as the pot on the last king grew and disappointment if you did not win it. A win set you up for a fine addition to your pocket money for the week. Great memories.

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Visiting my maternal grandparents was always a special holiday. We lived in Nottingham and they lived in Barrow in Furness. Their house was bombed during the war and they ended up living in a flat above some offices. Being there meant visits to the coast, beach combing, collecting winkles and cockles, searching rock pools for baby crabs, always being careful to watch for the incoming tide. My grandfather was called Gary by all his grandchildren, don't know why maybe it was a name for grand dad in those parts. He used to go crabbing and bring all sizes of crabs back in a sack and empty them onto the kitchen floor. Then a mad scramble to get them into the boiling pot. Nana used to take me to a little herbalist on the main road to drink a glass of sass ( sasparella). On market days she would take me to the fish area and buy me a pint of shrimps which she always did when I was small and if I didn't get them would scream until they were placed in my hands. As I grew and was able to travel on my own and spend the school holidays with them Iwould visit everyone I remembered. My 2 aunties were the usual ones I visited. Irene because she had 4 boys and they were great company , Gwennie because she had a budgie who talked and how he could talk. " here comes the vicar, here comes the vicar, here comes the vicar" when he got no response he'd say 

" bu**er the vicar. He often used to escape but was always found mostly on Peel Island where the lighthouse keeper knew exactly who he belonged to.

They were very poor but they gave me the most delicious breakfasts of broken biscuits for me pure luxury.

Gary worked at the steel works and when the 12 o'clock buzzer sounded for lunch I'd never seen so many bikes all in one place. There were also the bikes belonging to the shipyard employees. From where they lived I could see the high level bridge being raised to let the ships through.

If my parents took us , my brother and I, we would come back the coast road way and pick up some flukes. Don't ask what they are called but to us they were always flukes. Huge flat fish, bottom dwellers that when cleaned their gills were full of tiny pink shells. I loved this fish

Many happy memories, but on revisiting Barrow with my husband quite a few years ago, it didn't seem the same. The butchers shop where my Uncle Tom worked was no longer there, the sass shop had gone too. I left there feeling quite sad as if I'd lost a little of my life.

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9 hours ago, Oztalgian said:

We played Sevens, Russian Patience and always ended with a game of Newmarket and as the kings were withdrawn at the end of the game much excitement as the pot on the last king grew and disappointment if you did not win it. 

 

We used to play Newmarket when we visited my grandparents at Radford, and that's the first time I've seen a reference to the game since back in the 60s. We played for small amounts of money, and coming home with an extra 6d or 1/- was a big deal.

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My mother often spoke of visits to her maternal grandparents, Sam and Lizzie Ward who lived in Suez Street, Basford.

 

Occasionally, she would stay overnight. Lizzie would draw off a small bowl of hot water from the boiler at the side of the cast iron range and with a bar of Palmolive soap, my mum washed her hands and face.

Rice pudding baked in the range oven was the best mum ever tasted and she also loved the toast and dripping Lizzie gave her.

 

Mum often played cards at Sam and Lizzie's but never on Sundays as it wasn't permitted. Lizzie taught my mother an extraordinary number of card tricks.

 

By the time mum stayed there, only Sam, Lizzie and their unmarried daughter, Minnie Cordelia, remained in the house. The other children were married and had left. Sam and Lizzie slept in a four poster bed which had come from Crimea Farm in Lambley where Lizzie was born. There was no electricity in the house at all.

 

I remember the house when only great auntie Minnie remained there. After she died in 1962, we no longer went there until I took mum back to have a look in the early 80s. She was quite upset to find the house had been demolished, although much of the street remained intact.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Something else I recently remembered about visiting grandparents.

 

When we went to my grandma’s house at Lenton, it wasn’t unusual to go wandering off upstairs and poking around in the bedrooms. In my grandma’s room on her bedside cabinet she always had a packet of polo mints, something we didn’t have at home. It made them seem slightly exotic, so I’d always go back downstairs and ask if i could have one of the polos.

 

How many kids today would get excited about having a polo mint ?

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You must have had liberal grandparents, CT. I wasn't allowed to go wandering around. I longed to explore the Garden Street house and did occasionally manage to sneak upstairs when the adults were engaged in tea and gossip. One place I always wanted to  see was the cellar but I was never allowed down there. The house had originally been a pub and the cellar was quite large, apparently. It served as an air raid shelter during the war. Despite my pleas, Emily refused her permission for me to explore it.

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