What are your childhood memories of your grandparents' house?

My Nanna used to give me and my brother rich tea biscuits with butter and sugar sprinkled on the top :-)

and warm milk with Sugar YIPPEEEE

Mum's side:

Having to walk up a rickety iron staircase up the side of the building to get to her flat.
The smell of her hairspray
Grandad having to smoke in his special chair in the dining room and nowhere else
The glass jar of multicoloured cotton wool in the bathroom
The picture of my uncle's coast guard cutter on the wall
The wonderful wood/leather stool which my brother and I fought over as it made a fantastic camel/elephant
Orange bedspreads with tassells
The way my grandad only referred to grandma as Memsaab and deferred to her on everything.
Proper Persian rugs on the floor with holes chewed out of them by generations of well loved dogs. One of them is on my bedroom floor and its just as soft and silky as when it was made 70 years ago.
Watching my grandma dress and make her face up beautifully every morning

Dads side:

Eating chives from the garden
The Bisto tin full of clothespegs and the half of a plastic tea set that were brought out to entertain us. The doll in handmade/knitted clothes and blue striped pushchair that DD now has.
PLaying cards at Christmas
Herbie videos
Pumice stone in the bathroom
Gristly meat and bread and butter or summer fruit pudding for dessert. Homemade cheese scones to start.
My nan-nan's home made clothes that she had made out of upholstery material (or so it felt like). I have never seen clothes like them before or since, but they suited her totally.
The white plates with naff orange and brown squares around the outside which were for special occasions. I have them now, they are still hideous but they make me smile.
Creepy owl collection that covered half of one wall that terrified me totally as a child.

Have just realised I appear to have morphed into my own children's grandmother.

Smell of polish and fresh laundry in their house. If I dig my nose right into some of the soft furnishings I inherited from them, the smell is just there still.

Roger et Gallet fern soap

Fresh rolls for breakfast with Alpine butter and forest honey. Pretzels with butter. Sugar puffs (called "Smacks" in Germany) with warm milk in an antique porcelain bowl with fish painted on it. Little porcelain cups with blue violets painted all over them.

My hugely elegant German grandmother doing silent but deadly farts at the meal table.

Going for lunch in town, stopping by the toy shop or a posh children's clothes shop and being indulged.

Being taken into Dallmayr, a Munich institution a bit like the Fortnums food hall, to look at the lobsters and live fish in tanks.

Being read stories from Richard Scarry books in German whilst sitting on my grandmother's knee.

Playing peekaboo with my grandmother. Her teaching me to embroider, buying me stickers and letting me mess about with rolls of sellotape.

My grandfather pretending to be the big bad wolf round the back of the play house, until we screamed with pleasure. Also him taking us on Alpine hikes with little backpacks and Toblerones, going up mountains for hours and hours, and getting us all dirty.

Being fed a lot of cake.

Being tucked into bed when I had eaten too much cake, and cossetted with chamomile tea.

Very fluffy goosedown duvets.

My grandmother growing sweet peas in the garden.

Playing football with my grandfather in the garden.

Pottering around the garden with a little wheelbarrow, or a bucket, pretending to garden or do washing.

Going down to the basement to see the housekeeper at work in the laundry room, and chatting for hours even though we didn't have a language in common (I didn't speak German as a kid). She's still alive and we visit her regularly, and she does all the things with my kids that she did with me, even though she is about 90 now!

Being taken swimming in lakes.

Sadly my own parents don't do any of these things for my kids - they see them for half a day at Christmas once a year - their choice.

I didn't know my Dads parents, they died before I remember and I was the last born grandchild of my Moms family, so by that time, I don't think they cared anymore.'Tis sad I have no great memories, only that we never went short of apples come Autumn (but had to watch out for the worms)!

Yes, I am 41 and I still miss my grandparents, all died in my 20s

I miss Saturday night and being allowed to watch Dallas while my Granny smoked her 20 cigarettes drinking her bayleys!

Boiled egg with a spoon of butter and well salted for breakfast with a glass of cream soda (FIZZY)! M and S sausages. Cuddles and endless love, being spolt rotten.
As a teenager - tea in bed, home made fish and chips, sneaking me cash!
I will be exactly this type of Granny!

Grandad's tattoos on his arms, proper sailors ones of swallows and garlands
Grandad carving roast beef on Sunday, and then beef sandwiches at teatime, white bread spread really thick with yellow butter
Watching crossroads and boxing - Grandma loved the boxing
My pyjamas being warmed on the aga before bedtime, and washing drying on the big wooden dryer hoisted above
Going bramble picking with Grandma and her hooking the best ones down with her walking stick for me to reach
Home made rosehip syrup - I have memories of drinking this at night time from a bottle with a teat so must have been only about 2 or 3?
Grandad on his CB radio - I had my own radio name and sometimes he would let me speak to ships out in the bay
The wind howling and screaming at night, the house was VERY spooky at night time
The 'front room' feeling special (and freezing!) as it was kept for best and we were only allowed in at Christmas!

Their house was magical, i still see it from time to time but it has lost its magic without them being there.

My mum and dad are fantastic with 5 year old DD and I hope she will be able to contribute some similar (albeit from a different era) memories in 30 years time. My dad makes mince pies with her every Xmas eve, and they have a big horses brass with a bell hanging in their dining room that he used to have to lift her up to ring. She is so pleased to be able to do it herself now! She stayed with them for a week in the school holidays and my dad and her spent one afternoon running round the garden with super squirters having water battles. Afterwards he rang me to tell me 'that's why I wanted grandchildren.'

Melika

Notyummy: I also adored to listen to my grandmothers stories about ww2 and even older ones. My maternal grandmother had great scary stories of their house being searched by the nazis (granddad was hiding in the hills with the partisans) or of a relative being beaten up by the fascists. I loved those stories.

Black and white striped sofa
Grandpa's collection of brass band LPs
Pasty making
The fact that grandpa parked his car in the garage without the handbrake on
Light brown chairs with blue plastic covers
Grandpa's shopping bag
Granny's button box and knitting

Other grandparent

Playing snakes and ladders
What Katy did and black beauty on the tv
Chocolate bars kept in unusual places for him to find with us
The organ in the front room
Carrying plates of food into the dining room to help lay up tea
Say g goodbye and being allowed one hazel nut to eat in the car on the way home
The exciting journey to and from on the only bit of dual carriageway in county, my sister and I named it "the speedway" (Cornwall was always a bit behind)

The silence in the living room, but the ticking of an old cheap clock on the mantelpiece,the smell of GDs pipe billowing tobacco smoke, the wooden elephants I wasn't allowed to touch. Sitting still on the vinyl chair, having a pink tinned salmon salad and lots of bread and butter. The blue and white striped tea set in the dresser that never came out. Strictness from GD and the disregard and indifference from GM.

A feeling of 'when can we go, Mom?'

Oh yes - the storytelling!

My grandad used to tuck me in when I stayed with them (nana had had a stroke when I was two and was confined to a wheelchair.) He would tell me stories of when he was little boy growing up in Manchester in the depression following world war one. Basically quite grim stories of a large family without enough food and the threat of violence from my great grandad if you stole bread....but I loved the stories and would always want more.

As for the other one, I've only ever been in her house once and all I remember was her washing a chicken in the sink and drying it on the tea towel, she's still alive, in an OAP home at the age of 103.

The really long stair case.
The pain from hitting the banister ornament at the end of the said stair case.
The secret stair case to the old servants area.
the unnaturally freezing cold marble bathroom.
The shed in the garden no one was allowed in.
Sugar sandwiches in the kitchen.
Finding fag ash in the homemade cakes.

I loved staying with my grandparents.

My maternal grandmother kept a huge pot full of coins I could play with.

The lovely smell of her pasta sauces, stews, peperonata, roasted potatoes etc (I could go on for days).

She allowed me to build huts with umbrellas, cushions and anything else I could find.

She'd fall asleep after lunch while doing her crosswords and snored, I loved how she snored.

I loved the smell of her 1 a day cigarette.

The smell of the stove in her countryside house.

I spent lots of time with my maternal grandmother, also because she looked after us when my mother was working full time. I loved being with her, she was (still is, though she is very old now) the most easy going, serene person I've ever met.

My paternal grandmother lived with the tv on. She lived in a small flat which I also loved to visit, mainly because she was the best storyteller in the world, and I used to pester her to tell me yet one more story.

Like my maternal grandmother, she was a fantastic cook too.

My grandmother lived in the same terraced house for 92 years.

The sound of the out of tune piano and the very tall music stool containing ancient sheet music with fabulous illustrated covers.

The outside loo next to the coal shed.

The wartime first aid tin with never-used rolls of gauze and frightening dressing pads.

The treadle sewing machine in the front window with a narrow drawer full of two shilling pieces for the meter.

A cloth to go over the television at night.

The front door that was never locked and the constant stream of relatives and friends who came through it every day and sat down at the kitchen table for a cup of tea from the pot that never seemed to empty.

mrspear - your Grandads war stories sound similar to my grandads. He was taken off in the little ships Dunkirk and then landed on Sword Beach at D Day and I know he saw some terrible things, but he never spoke about them....Only the food; eating it; nicking it (from French farmyards 'we were bloody liberating the country - a few potatoes was the least they could do...) and preparing it when on 'jankers' for nicking food from French farmyards

A big old biscuit tin full of buttons, of all colours and sizes. My sister and I used to tip them out and play with them - they were like precious jewels to us.

The cellar, where my Grandpa had all his carpentry tools and a big workbench. There was an old meat safe down there (don't remember them ever using it though). My Grandpa made me a wooden doll's caravan and my sister a little train.

I remember their kitchen so vividly. It seemed big at the time, but looking back it was tiny. They always had Radio 2 on, and they always had digestive biscuits in a tupperware box.

Their garden. There was a peach tree at the end, and I remember big white daisies, bergenias and rhubarb. We used to lay out a rug on their lawn and have dollies picnics, and do cartwheels. We used to wash our dolls' clothes in a bowl on the back doorstep and peg them out to dry. My Grandma would always make us wash our feet in the bowl on the doorstep when we'd been playing in the garden for hours. Happy days!

*meat and veg not mean

Oh, I have loads more to the ones I already listed.

DF's:

Internal doors with glass panels with swirls on.
A jigsaw my grandmother had made of Henny Penny and co.
Bedspreads and blankets, not duvets.
Those paper dolls with clothes. One of the outfits was an iceskating one.
Lots of heavy, dark wood furniture that was very different to home furniture.
Antimacassars (sp?).
Prunes with cream for breakfast, and playing "tinker tailor" with the stones.
A pond with goldfish called "Tom, Dick and Harry".
Lots of fresh fish caught by my grandfather. I don't think I actually liked it much.
Royal Doulton "lady" figurines, and various others of things like fishermen.

DM's (grandmother only as my grandfather died before I was born)

The button jar.
A mint green loo, basin and bath, with fluffy bathroom accessories.
Those trays with cushions underneath to have food on your lap. I have one of hers now.
A Siamese cat ornament, which someone she gave a Siamese kitten to gave her.
Lots of Exotic Things From Abroad, like African hunting knives and coral and shells and masks, kept in a display cupboard, along with a fan made from feathers.
Being allowed to watch what we wanted on television.
A biscuit tin with a textured lid, which I can't quite picture but would know in a second if I saw it again.

Scary wooden faces/carvings everywhere. It was like there were loads of monsters watching you there shiny blue paua shell eyes followed you everywhere! As I grew up and understood what they were I grew to love them and respect them (I now have a few here and there in my home).

Grandads tattoos...... On his face (a Maori tradition)

Hangi in the garden- Shallow hole in ground with fire in, stones go on top, when hot slap mean and veg/kumara on top cover with flax mats and soil, leave to cook........ yummmmmmmmy!! Always had one on 6th Feb (Waitangi day)

Kapa Haka group- Used to come every weds eve for practice. Loved the puipui skirts, tiaha and mere. As got older used to join in?.. really miss kapa haka.

1/2 a waka in the garden that grandad was carving.

Granny teaching us stick games and how to swing poi.

Granny and grandad telling us Maori myths and legends before bed.

Grannys greenstone necklace, I used to sit and stroke it for hours. It now belongs to me after she left it for me in her will.

I spent all the school holidays at my maternal grandparents with my cousins and only lost them 2 years back, miss them desperately .... the things I remember

Fried eggs on white "uncut" bread

The cubbyhole (cupboard under the stairs full of treats)

Being allowed to take the mattresses from the bed and make a slide down the stairs !! it was brilliant though.

Grandads whiskey jar full of coins

Chip shop chips late on a Saturday night (when they babysat) and being "allowed" to get out of bed at midnight and sneak down to share.

Grandma riding her bike up the lane, she used to take her leg over so that she was ready to stop and dismount all on one side, somehow?! More ladylike

Jamie, the springer spaniel. she would bring wet warm stones in her mouth and drop them in our knee to throw.

stripy wooden deckchairs

lots of things, and then sadly the bloody hospitals and illness at the end and their house changing to be a sad and neglected place, especially once grandma died.

Old movies on the TV

Sausage, egg, bacon and chips for dinner - god i could eat this now

Very hot living room but a freezing loo and bathroom

Very loud TV - grand dad would never wear his hearing aids

War stories - never the horror stuff just about comrades and food - by Grand dad with nan being roped in for various parts!

An overwhelming feeling of being safe and loved.

Too hard now god i miss grand dad

Notyummy, I'm jealous!

the huge apple trees in the back garden that we used to climb.
buying penny chews from the local shops.
black peas? on bonfire night!