What are your childhood memories of your grandparents' house?

My parents and the ILs work full time. And it's just a different set of memories. DD adores going into their places of work. MIL's office has a swivelly chair and a box of elastic bands which she plays with, my Dad is a fishmonger and he teaches her about the different fish (and chases her with fish heads!), my Mum lets her help cut out fabric (seamstress) and play with the button box etc and they all show her off to their colleagues and give her 'jobs' to do. And at the weekends they still do all the gardening, baking, memory making stuff I did.

In fact dd's great grandad has his own business building houses. Having free run of the shell of a house is something I remember from our house being built.

I was awake last night too thinking about my grandma's front room.

goingon64 I was thinking something similar in bed last night (crazy, this thread stayed with me until I finally fell asleep with more and more memories sharpening into focus)

It occured to me that Nan was only 40 when I was born (egads, I'm almost 38...

DD is very fortunate to have 2 grandmas, 2 grandads, 4 great grandmas, 1 great grandad and 1 great, great grandma, all of whom she is v close to. If she has memories of strictly it'll be standing on grandad's feet and twirling around to the music.

In all seriousness, I didn't think I could face a 2nd child after a tough time with dd and it took my Mum being diagnosed with cancer for me to realise how important it was for any dc I have to experience my Mum as a Grandma. 9 months later, ds was born. He's 9wo and asleep on my chest and this thread has made me excited for him. He's got some cracking grandparents and dd already has her own rituals established with each of them.

All MN-ers on this thread: I really hope that all our DCs have such fond memories of all our parents, and that their DCs remember us in the same way. I fear that a lot of the rituals and traditions we all loved will have fallen by the wayside by the time we have grandkids. I hope their memories won't all be 'sitting round the telly watching Strictly and going shopping in Ikea'.

Maternal grandmother:

• The air raid shelter in the garden (being used as a compost bin) that freaked the shit out of me
• The outside loo that ALWAYS had the most enormous spider lurking in or around it
• 70s wallpaper
• Huge bag of slightly faded and very well used lego
• Muppets annual c1973
• Mum's possessions with her maiden name written on them
• Using her antique (and probably supposedly decorative) toasting fork to make toast on the gas fire
• AMAZING fish and chips
• Chasing my sister around with the antique (and probably supposedly decorative) bed warming pan pretending it was a crocodile

Paternal grandfather:

• Concrete blocks with my handprints in on the patio
• YELLING everything because he was deaf as a post
• His handmade gadgets for coping with his deafness (lightbulb over his bed that flashed when the postman came through the garden gate in the morning, phone belt that vibrated when the phone rang)
• Corned beef rissoles (the only thing he seemed to know how to cook)
• Handmade toys
• Origami crocodiles
• Walking on the garage roof (house was on a slope with the garage cut into the side of the hill, you could just walk onto it from the garden. Didn't make mum happy about it)
• EVIL border collie called Billy
• The Secret Passageway: the loft was in the eves of the house with a door in each bedroom and you could creep from one to another

Love this post.
Being allowed to eat sugar cubes, picnics in the snow, dancing around with the music on so loud we couldn't hear the door bell and DG, me and my sister all sleeping in the one bed, my gran getting up for a cup of tea during the night (it was actually gin, she had a bit of an issue.)

Other GP's the smell of damp and parsley in the badly built extension, my Gdad's shed with jars of screws etc he found in the street, hunting in the shed for toys left from when my dad and his many brothers and sisters were kids.

TalcAndTurnips I want to be like that when I get old. She sounds amazing. And how beautifully written, too. Lovely.

A larder. A proper, stocked to the ceiling with goodies, chilly old larder.

My paternal grandparents: Writing with chalk on my grandparent's steps. Swinging on their porch swing in the dark. My brother running up and down the stairs with the threadbare shag carpeting...we didn't have stairs in our house at the time and thought they were just fabulous. :o My grandma making homemade sausage pizza. We thought it was great because it was rectangular and therefore different and special. My grandpa has been gone for a long time, but my grandmother is only in her 70's. I will call her tomorrow. :)

My maternal grandparents: My grandmother's antiques and knick knacks on every available surface. Her old hats and gloves that she let me dress up in. The cold brick of their kitchen floor. My grandfather...oh, I miss him. I had him for a decade longer than my grandmother, and I loved him so much. He died a little over five years ago. He used to send me buckeyes (are they the same as conkers?) because they were considered good luck in his state. When DH and DS and I moved into our new house, the yard was full of them. We have a tree in the front yard, the only time I've ever seen them here. Whenever I'm raking them up in the fall I think of him.

A rambling great house that was mostly empty - Granny only lived in a few rooms.

She mooned about in an elaborate kaftan and a plastic golf visor, smoking the occasional secret Kensitas cigarette - there was a huge stash of them in the bureau and she was convinced that nobody knew.

She wrote to politicians, endlessly. Many wrote back regularly - she considered them friends. There were piles and piles of yellowing letters in the drawing room, on the end of the sofa, which was festooned with layer-upon-layer of throws, shawls and blankets.

In her youth, she was a protester for many human rights causes - including equal suffrage rights for women when she was a student during WWI. Again, piles of books, notebooks, correspondence - spilling out of cabinets, stuffed under old leather chairs. The smell of fusty paper.

I remember her battered old piano. When she died, I was given her Mozart Sonata albums. On her favourite pieces, the bottom right-hand corners of the pages still have a slightly grubby, thumbed appearance, from all the page turns. Her grubby marks - sort of part of her, still there in the music.

Crazy wallpaper on the fireplace wall that hypnotised me

Home made apple sponge served with cold milk

Watching Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks on a Saturday afternoon

Mums younger sisters ignoring me as they painted their nails before going out

A nice low living room window where I could watch the world go by

Being spooked by the unused bedrooms upstairs

A manky old flea-ridden caravan that lay outside unused for years as after Gran paid £50 for it without seeing it

When my Grandma was in Bretby hospital "having me knees done", she was in a high-ceilinged ward with wooden floors, wrought iron beds and a stern, unforgiving matron made entirely out of starch. A kind young nurse snuck us in (no children allowed) and my Grandma was so proud of her grandchildren, showing us off to the other patients and beaming. She whispered tales to us of the cursed tree in the hospital grounds and we were enthralled. She moved on to tales of how her and my Grandad had courted there aged 16 and innocent, until the war broke out and everything changed. I honest to God can close my eyes and I'm still perched on that bed, my eyes watering from the smell of disinfectant and I can hear my Grandma's voice whispering about when she was a girl. Ohhhh.

But her actual house?

Strange felt on the table instead of a tablecloth. It made your insides twist if your rubbed it the wrong way. Weird stuff.

Glass plates and matching glass mugs with bobbled edges and textured middles.

Homemade icecream sandwiched between cheap wafers.

The smell of the cheap kitchen lino and how the back door squeaked across it.

The bannister rail which had been repainted every 5 years and had about 10 layers of cheap paint plastered upon it so that it felt spongy under your hand as you wound your way up to bed.

The pictures of plates cut from the back pages of terrible womens magazines stuck on the spare bedroom wall. I'd sleep in there and Grandma told me they were portals to other worlds. I wanted to go through the portal of the meadow, not the Coronation and how I wished for it every night.

The smell of sausages waking you up.

Visiting at Christmas, jumping in the car on the last day of term, the sky already darkening and proudly telling Grandma 3 hours later, exhausted but excited how many Christmas trees you'd counted on the way.

The memories are just so, so vivid. The smells, textures, colours. I could walk that house blindfolded.

She's very old now, dependent on my Dad for almost everything and since my Grandad died she's quietly withdrawn in increments. The day she moved out of that house, I wept.

Love this thread, but it has really made me blub!!

Izal toilet paper
Euthymol toothpaste
Fried bananas with our cooked breakfast
The best fish and chips known to man with homemade pickled beetroot
The smell of the larder
Homegrown goosegogs and peas
Rhubarb dipped in sugar
Chanel no 5
Wearing grandpa's old shirts as "wee willie winkie" nightshirts
Vegetable soup with pasta letters in
Drinking asti out of silver goblets at Christmas time
Tea in our own individual cups and saucers
Irn bru out of melamine cups
The cabinet of miniatures
A tuppeny wash and brush up
Mince n tatties with far too much butter
The smell of the compost heap
The swing

notanotter - you mentioned " chillo" ice cream. I was in an advert for that when I was a child!

Yes this thread is very heartwarming.

I remember my grandma's delicious scrambled eggs. I used to call them grandma cissie eggs and to this day I have never managed to recreate them. I remember her soft blue eyeshadow and pink and white china ( each meal was served on best china) and her fantastically large cupboard where food was stored even though she lived in a small suburban flat.

I remember my camp bed in her lounge and going to sleep hearing the trains rumble by.

And going to the hairdresser to watch her have her hair set each saturday . The hairdresser was called Mrs Mathie and used to give me a chocolate!

I loved her so much and still miss her terribly today. She has been gone for 14 years.

I also remember my other grandparents who lived in teh country. I remember my grandma taking me to see the lambs who lived in a field at teh bottom of her road. I used to think my grandma was much like the lambs as she had such a soft and bleaty type voice. I remmber my grandpa always reading the times and playing the piano.

I feel very sad and nostalgic now

Going to bed in my grandad's office, on a little, narrow pull-down bed that he hid behind some silky curtains with tie-backs that he'd made himself. Listening to the noise of cars on the distant Bypass. It was always The Bypass - I didn't know there were any others!

There was a huge, shiny radiogram in that room that worried me slightly. I didn't know how it worked and couldn't quite believe that it was just for playing the radio.

Grandad's oil-paintings, all from 1960's magazines teaching you how to paint certain set-pieces. I thought they were all unique until I started seeing them in jumble sales!

My brother slept in my uncle's old room and it was full of his batchelor odds and sods.

Meddling with my grandma's little cut-glass dishes and whatnot on her dressing table, and once breaking an expensive bottle of her perfume. My grandad told me 'You should be horse-whipped!' and I was so shocked that he'd say that. (He didn't.)

The strange modular bookcase/display cabinet in the living room, with all their Readers' Digest books and the atlas. The ugly gilt convex mirror on the hall wall. The carved wooden animals and masks on the curtain pelmet, brought back from Kenya.

Playing my mother's old musical box from Switzerland. And her old, chipped clay figures from Disney films. The Aristocats. Lady and the Tramp.

This is all maternal gps. I don't know why I don't have better memories of my other gps, because we stayed with them for a month every summer.

My paternal grandparents house;

Lighting the fire in the morning. God, how I loved slotting the bits of paper and bits of wood in and watching the fire get going . The coal man used to delivery the coal every week.

Gran watching Coronation Street. Grandad listening to cricket (usually banished to the bedroom for that).

Walking the dog with Grandad.

Cramming the leftover meat into the mincer (that was clamped to the table) and churning it all though, and usually scoffing a fair bit of it as I went along.

Being totally impressed that Gran could bake without weighing things and could look at a measure of flour / butter / sugar and know it was right.

Grandad used to stop the car and pick up horse manure whenever we drove past some on the road, he kept a shovel and few bags in the boot of his car for this purpose. His roses were pretty damn good though.

I didn't get to spend much time at my maternal Grandpa's house as he worked (university lecturer IIRC) although we saw him quite a lot. Nanny was always in a psychiatric hospital, I never saw her in her house, she did come to our house on high days and holidays. I do have fond memories of the hospital though, there was always loads of room to run around .

The last one died in 2005. I hate not having living Grandparents anymore .

What a truly lovely thread. I'm feeling very sad that I never knew any of my Grandparents as they were all gone before I was born.

I can already see how special it is for my children when they are with their grandparents so hope that they will have many memories.

And a little crocheted thing with beads on to cover the milk jug.
And a butter dish.

The one time my nan ever swore was when my brother gave her a Monster Munch and she said "Oh ManPerp, you do eat some shite". I thought the world was about to end!

Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Love, love this thread. Mine have been gone far too long.

Antimacassars and brylcream
The bar on the corner full of little glasses collected from all over the uk
Nanas pile of womans own and womans realm
Making the trip to the paper shop to buy the red tops then coming back and filling in the bingo cards with grandad (about 100 of them)
elevenses and supper - 2 meals that didn't exist at home and almost always involved custard creams, kitkats and apple pies (and a shandy at supper when i got older)
Nanas fabulous jewellery box
Watching pot black and come dancing on a black and white tv
Oil of ulay
Grandads shaving brush
Singing and dancing
Flowery silk headscarves and Small plastic packages that unfolded into waterproof headscarves
Sunday best clothes
Compacts
Bedtime: electric blankets, prayers and a small glass music box with 2 little butterflies that plays edelweiss. Which now makes me either smile or cry every time i play it

Donkey stoning the back yard endlessly, not because it needed it, just for pleasure, and my Nan saying "Ooh, I think you've gone right through to the last layer there!" and me believing her!
The smell of baking bread and Zoflora.
Playing school with a coffee table and a buffet as a desk.
Being taught countless crafts like embroidery, knitting and quilling, many of which I have now forgotten
My Grandad (confided to a wheelchair through MS) telling me stories and showing me his photo albums of the war and his and my Nan's youth.
Feeling totally, totally safe and loved in a way I never did at home. :)

My nan passed away last year and we've done the house up beautifully for my brother and sil. It's stunning, everything's top of the range, but it's never going to be the same :(

Oh man. Shouldn't have started this.

How amazing are Grandparents.

Homemade gooseberry fool for pudding

watching Wonder Woman on a B&W tv (and snooker late at night!)

playing wist (whist?) and betting with matchstalks

my grandad whistling

tea in a white china cup, painted with pink roses

long life milk, open on a shelf in the larder

house shoes, house coats, best butter and rounds of bread

trifle

enormously high beds with squishy mattresses, and layers of flannel sheets, with a long string above which dangled from the big light

plastic Virgin Marys filled with Holy Water from Lourdes

a sideboard containing condiments, a biscuit tin, a box of beads, old cards and photos, lined with ends of wallpaper

little Hummel figures around the fireplace

music boxes

reckoning up

White plastic Christmas trees with coloured fairy lights, each with their own (spikey) coloured plastic shade (which never matched the colour of the bulb) - no other lights on except the tv while watching the Royal Variety Performance

'noggin time' instead of 'wine o'clock'

false teeth and the gummy smile once removed

trips on the bus to the shops or seaside with bags of pennies saved for slot machines

apples pies, custard pies, fairy cakes, lemon meringues

nylon dresses in size 18 and 20, shoes in size 3 and 4

horn rimmed specs, the smell of hair setting lotion

loose baggy skin covered in liver spots which didn't spring back when fiddled with but felt softer than soft to the touch

a leather bowling bag with three gold initials

endless, endless smiles and cuddles that conveyed a very particular kind of love that no-one else will or could ever feel for you for the rest of your life

Maternal:
The illicit thrill of getting up onto the very high guest bed (where my mother slept) and bumfing around on the puffy satin eiderdown filled with feathers.

The fantastic 50's wallpaper in the downstairs cloakroom, with little vignettes of Chinese characters and landscapes. And the blue and white tiles in there that were probably 30's.

My grandad's lovingly-made 50's kitchen units and shelves. He used to make things and they were ever-so-slightly crap. So he'd have made a sort of pelmet for a shelf in the kitchen from some left-over wallpaper, and it was all curly with the steam.

Grandad putting out bacon rind and bits of cheese for the blackbirds on his ricketty old birdtable, and making 'pwtch pwtch' noises at the birds.

The bitter smell when I stuck my nose in his Toby jug of pipecleaners in the sunroom.

Going through my grandmother's drawers in the spare room, where she kept all her sewing things and bits of material.

Listening to their two clocks striking at night, and feeling safe in bed.

The three, flaking and crumbly gnomes at the bottom of the garden, half-buried in pine needles. They were not for playing with.

Sneaking into my grandad's office and looking at his Masonic regalia. Very Secret. (Dunno why I'm blushing, it was him, not me!)

Drinking my milk from a Bovril mug that they'd sent off for.

Paternal:

Scaring ourselves silly about going downstairs into the cellar, where I once saw a cockroach.

Finding a pistol AND a little cardboard box of bullets in the safe inside the hall cupboard, that never locked properly.

Going through the top drawer in the sideboard and playing with all the little trinkets that'd come out of the Bolo Rei (Portuguese Christmas cake) over the years.

Playing prisoners with my brother - letting down a basket on a string out of our bedroom window, which had bars on it.

Having to eat our meals staring at a huge reproduction of Picasso's Guernica. Gave me nightmares.

Pootle - my Mum does the water in the microwave thing. It's so that if it gets switched on by accident it has something inside it - meant to be damaging to turn one on while empty.

One set of grandparents lived next door to my parents when I was growing up. Was lovely to be able to pop round and see them every day. I still miss them sometimes even though it is over 20 years since they died. I remember the trivial bits from popping in for a few minutes here and there, and also the big family gatherings at theirs one evening over the Christmas period every year. I see their house over the fence from my parents' now and wonder what it's like inside, but not sure I want to go and look really. Don't want to intrude and also don't want to spoil those memories. Maybe in another 20 years?