How much do your know about your grandparents' juvenile escapades? What was the worst thing?

[XingMing]

My beloved grandmother, born 1910, borrowed the doctor's motorbike and rode it into a ditch; she was eight. Then she married the local horse dealer at 16. Your stories, family history?

My great great grandparents worked on barges (traveller type) there is no record of them ever being married which scandalised my grandfather and my father

I was an unmarried mum who had not one but two children out of wedlock I wonder what he really thinks of me

My gran got pg with my Mum while my grandad was in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. She never admitted who the father was (rumour has it the local bus conductor)

My grandma wanted to marry a Catholic : not allowed. She was a protestant. Apparently he was very handsome too. She ended up with my grandad instead, who was also lovely.

She used to cycle to Blackpool (about 30 miles!) with her cousin after working the morning in the mill. Danced all night with American soldiers, stayed at her old aunts house, back to East Lancs in the morning. So a 60 mile bike ride after all week in the mill.

My nanny went scrumping with her friends and the farmer caught them. She was trying to run away so jumped over a fence and into a ditch.
My great nanny ran away with the circus.

My grandfather was a Belfast hard man in his young days. He made someone fall off a bridge once (they were hanging on my their hands and he removed them). To me he was a lovely, kind man, but either he changed a lot as he got older or he had a side I never saw.

So many. My grandad, 2 years after the war found an unexploded bomb in the garden and threw it into the neighbours garden. Unimaginably luckily there was no damage. Even when he was thrown 30ft into the air with the impact. He was deaf for a year though, after it.

So many! My gran, born in 1914, had a sister sixteen years younger than her - my great Aunt Jean. Very recently, many years after their deaths, I learned that Jean was, in fact, Gran's daughter. Gran had fallen pregnant to a local lad, and was sent away somewhere before her bump started showing, and returned months later with a baby - which her mother passed off as her own, so as to avoid any local scandal.
As it happens, Jean herself was no stranger to a bit of scandal. At 16, she fell pregnant to a local (married!) factory owner, and gave birth to a son whom she raised on her own - that would've been considered the height of shame all those years ago!

My mum was illegitimate back in the 1920s

willo, that wasn't not her doing.

or even, That wasn't her doing. Being born illegitimate was beyond her control. Like being blonde.

My nan was pregnant with my mum when she married grandad. She was born 2 months later, premature, but clearly conceived pre marriage. Scandalous stuff in those days

My great grandmother emirates to North America. Came back in shame as she was pregnant and unmarried. She had the baby (my grandfather) at an un-married mothers home in Belfast, and then she was allowed to return to her parents in the North West of Ireland. My grandfather was brought up as my great-great grandparents´ son and his mother was his sister. I have often wished I could have asked her what happened in America and who he was. But she was a notoriously prickly character, so she probably wouldn't have told me anything anyway.

or even, That wasn't her doing. Being born illegitimate was beyond her control. Like being blonde.

The thread was asking about grandparents, I'm fairly sure my mother was my grandparent's daughter.

My grandad was a shepherd boy and on April 1st they were no longer allowed socks on as they had to save them. So when the cows did a no 2 he would stick his feet in it to warm them up.

His 1st wife died in childbirth and my grandmother came to be his house keeper. They married when my dad was 13 months (a scandal on those days) once my cousin was teasing grandad about this and why had he not got around to marry grandmother before the birth grandad who was a farmer replied. Well we were busy with the farm there was a harvest to get in.. ( they married in October mid way through the 3rd harvest during pregnancy and small newborn child)

When dh and I married we were the first couple in my family on both sides in 4 generations to marry without having a baby or expecting one

Btw great topic op I love learning about stuff like this

Might be outing myself here but my grandma was in hiding from the Nazis in Europe. She told me one day she'd had enough and just snapped...she took herself off to the Nazi offices and told them..."here I am, you can take me". Apparently they just laughed at her and told her to get lost. No idea if the story is true or not as she told me when she was starting to get very old and confused...but she was incredibly gutsy so I wouldn't be surprised.

My grandmother got engaged to a man under pressure from my great grandmother who thought this man was wonderful. My grandmother said she liked him but she felt that he was more like a brother.

She met my grandad by chance on a beach holiday and found out they were from the same city. She knew he was the one and broke off her engagement, infuriating my great grandmother.

My grandparents were happily married for over 50 years until my grandmother's death. She never regretted ending her other engagement even though her relationship with my great grandmother never truly recovered from it.

Great grandad left his first wife and suspiciously quickly married his second wife, with whom he had his children. However there are no divorce records for him and his first so we suspect he just didn't bother. Somewhere in the midst of it all of this there was also another woman who got pregnant, with my great grandad believed to be the father. Her parents were so ashamed of the whole situation that they shipped her off abroad to live with family, never to return to the UK.

My grandad went on to have emphysema, so would have lots of nebulisers which he'd 'smoke' with vapour everywhere and a massive grin saying "looks like an opium den in here, like the good old days" in the navy during the war.

My grandmother got married and had her first child at 16, then she had twins shortly after, so 3 children as a teenager. One of the twins died at 2 from lead poisoning (lead paint on cot bars, apparently ). Her husband was apparently an abusive drunk. She shortly after up and left, divorced him, became a single mum to 2 young children while grieving, in the early 1930s. She went on to meet my grandfather and they fell in love writing letters back and forth during the war.

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realised how remarkable all that was, to go through so much so young, and be so ballsy. Unfortunately, she died when I was 11 so I don’t know much more about her life at that time than that.

Both my grandmothers were three months pregnant on their wedding days. I think it wasn't as Shocking and Rare as we were brought up to imagine. Certainly not among the social grouping my ancestors lived in.

("we'd only done it the once. I didn't even like it that much", apparently)

My grandfather spent time in a reform school. Not entirely sure why.

My great-grandmother was in a relationship for four years and three children (one the above grandfather, possibly not coincidentally) with a married man fifteen years older who was her uncle's wife's sister's husband's cousin. (that was an exciting moment on Ancestry)

It's fascinating to read about past generations and it's making me grateful that we live in a period when society's judgements are so much less harsh.

My grandmother was German, and lived in Danzig (now Gdansk in Poland). During the war, she and her family fled from the invading Russian army. They walked for days, when they got to their destination Nanny had to have her boots cut off as her feet were so swollen. She was 15. After the war, she was a nurse in a British military hospital in Germany, where she met my Grandad, who was a British soldier. My mum was born to unwed parents in a German flat, on not sure when my grandparents got married, but must have been before they moved to England? My mum discovered she hadn't been registered at birth in either country when she tried to get a passport! Disclaimer: some of this may be untrue, Nanny refused to talk about the war, and my mum gets a bit confused about events. My mum is definitely a British citizen now though!

My dgm wad the mine owners daughter, she married one of the miners! From what my dm said of her her family realised they had to accept it or lose her, she and dgf were happily married for forty odd years