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 grandma was sent to a nunnery in France - she was considered to be very fortunate as it was an escape from very hard peasant life in Poland. Unfortunately she was sent home in disgrace and although she never explained, word got back through the church it was because of a liaison with a man. She was quickly married off but unfortunately the next part was that she along with new husband, newborn child and most of the rest of her village were shipped off to die in Siberia. Most did but this part she did tell - because they were not proud they survived off scraps, rubbish that others refused to eat and incredibly long walks to find nutrition in the woods like patches of nettles that she survived, gave birth to another baby and lived long enough to be sent back to Poland. We think there were some non surviving children in that time but mum was the next child born back in Poland...
When I knew her she was incredibly devout Catholic with very strict views on sex and marriage, which I found amusing when I found out she was sent home in disgrace for having sex!!!

My Great father went on a Youth trip to Germany in the 1930s. (It may be Scouts or church). Came back with a massive swastika flag amongst other paraphernalia enraptured with advances the Nazi party had made for Germany. (They were shown the roads and employment opportunities and youth camps etc, not the darker side).

He quickly grew up in 1938 as what Nazism actually meant became clearer, and went on to be a POW in the Far East before returning in 1946 a staunch pacifist and falling in love with my school girl Grandmother.

In 1940 my gran lied about her age & joined the ARP aged 15. She had to cycle between ARP posts delivering messages during the Manchester Blitz when bombs were dropping around her.

My Grandad left school at 13 & worked on a grocers cart where he 'borrowed' vegetables to help feed his large family. One day the truancy officer caught him & he was sent back to school until his 14th birthday.
He was homeless at age 18.
He joined the Communists who gave him free meals for beating up Fascist Blackshirts.
Then at 19 in 1933 he joined the Army.
He would be regularly promoted then demoted & imprisoned for getting in fights!!

Mararunner
DHs Grandma was Also German.
When the Russians came the girls all fled into the woods/countryside as the Russians had a terrible reputation. When DHs Grandads (English) regiment arrived they were seen as Liberators rather than invaders and Grandma ended up pg. She didn’t know when Grandad was recalled home but managed to get a letter to him and he made arrangements for her to come to England . So she turned up in rural England heavily pg just after ww2. She didn’t talk about it much but I bet it was very very hard

Great thread!
Not grandparents, but a beloved great aunt, who I speak to daily, she's now 89, and in her twenties emigrated to Australia with her husband, who she married 2 weeks after meeting, they drove across Australia in a Hilman imp and it sounds amazing (and totally dangerous) took them weeks and weeks!
Her stories amaze me how gutsy they were back in those days!

Lots of stuff from my grandpa in his war years - he was advanced engineering crew in the raf and was in India/Burma for much of it. Fascinating stuff.

Grandma went to Paris with her boyfriend in the 30s. Did not marry said boyfriend although he was the love of her life. She told me all about it which horrified dm!

Her husband (my grandfather) was a grade a shit. He had been married twice before and walked out on kids from both then had 2 with my grandma. By all accounts he doted on my mum (his only girl) but didn't want boys so left when my uncle came along and didn't see them again. My grandma came home from the maternity hospital and found another women's undergarments in her room!

Grandpa fought in the trenches in WW1 as a young man. He was gassed, had his thumb shot off and got shrapnel in his chest, but survived.
My other grandparents lied about their ages and married without parents consent as teenagers, (because they were expecting my aunt) in 1903.
That aunt was an absolute hoot - she used to sneak out of their house to go to flapper parties in the 1920’s, where she used to do contortions as a party trick. On one memorable occasion she had just wound her legs round her neck when someone made her laugh - and she copiously peed herself!

My grandmother, strict Spanish Catholic family, got pregnant at 19 by a married 37 year old protestant English man. This was 1935. They eloped, had more children and finally married in 1963.

An American airbase opened in my home town towards the end of WW2. My 14 year old Nan apparently became adept at talking herself into dances at the base and fraternising with the Airmen!

The story also goes that my Aunt bears a striking resemblance to my Granddad's best friend .....

My grandad and his siblings used to buy a stamp and stick it to the floor outside their house and see how many people going to the doctors next door tried to pick it up.

My grandmother stabbed her first husband with a pair of scissors, he was abusive and had several OW. She was 'let off' because of her mental health.
My grandfather won the whole of a prestigious racing town in a game of Poker but bet it back to the original owners and lost.
My grandfather was one of these old salty sea dogs who 12 years after his death everyone still talks about him as if he were a thing of legend.

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).

Did they die?

There is a skull chapel (is that what they are called?) of plague victims in my nonnas village. When she was a little girl in WW2 (age 6+) she used to get sent to sneak food to partisans/soldiers running away who were hiding in it.

My nonno (her husband) was an officers clerk, when the allies got to Italy and all his superior officers ran away, he wrote himself official dishcharge papers (and anyone else who wanted them) and they all went back home.

Granny was close to 6ft, lived in short skirts her first husband was a cunt, gambler, his biggest win was on the dogs and he died the next day, she brought a greengrocers with the winnings and saved to leave Ireland. Then married a West Indian and ran a pub in London.
She was also a really shit mum. But that's not an escapade

My granny is a devout Catholic ... probably hasn’t ever really done much too daring ! Granda I never really knew , and her second husband never talked about his youth much .

I come from a long, long line of Catholic Scots and Irish immigrants ... Some interesting stories of poverty and workhouses - my great x 3 gran had 5 kids to 3 men ... lost all her children eventually to either slum clearances (kids moved to the highlands) or TB .

My great Granda was in the lovat scouts as were much of his brothers, cousins etc .

As they arrived on Normandy (D-Day) their piper got off the boat, and played the bagpipes (Highland Laddie). Great Granda told us all that the Germans retreated from the piper, they thought he’d gone mad and felt sorry for him seemingly ...

Another relative (I forget who) either Boer war or WW1, found a barn full of barrels while on duty ... thought he’d struck lucky so got a few others to wheel this massive barrel out at midnight thinking they’d all have a dram ... it was water .

When great great granda was old in the 1940s, he was interviewed for a book, asked if he had any regrets .

Lying in a wheelbarrow he said, ‘should have drunk more whisky when it was cheaper...’

No one bothered marrying for several generations before my father was born in 1934. My grandmother had an affair with a musician from the West Indies, which caused quite a scandal, and resulted in DF. He was brought up by his grandmother (5 children but no husband), who was fiercely protective, but he suffered a lot of racism and abuse for being illegitimate.

As an aside, my great-grandmother was described as the “unmarried wife” on some army documents belonging to the father of 2 of her children.

No t my Grandparents ,but when my dh " Grandad " came back from the war Th Grandma had ,had two babies! One of which was dh mum

I don´t know, fedup, that was never commented on. I doubt it as he later joined the police, and I wouldn't think he would have been allowed to if he had killed someone.

I know which bridge it was and I have walked across it many times in Belfast. I think about my grandfather and what happened there when I do.

My grandad lived on the streets of London with his sister during the Blitz (nobody ever said where Great grandparents were but he mentioned the house 'going' & 'well it..went' during the blitz) and during this time she made money to support them both. The explanation was 'well men..you know' She was 11 when 'the house ...went' she also had a 'few' operations to 'keep her going..with her job' they all took place upstairs of a pub..
He said he had to 'drop a baby off for a better life' twice.

I didn't really understand what was being said until after he died.

My Nana was known as "the black angel" during WW2 on account of her beauty, her promescuity and the level of drama she left in her wake.
Noone you'd rather have next to you in a blackout. But not one to take home to your mother.
Poor Grandad. He came back from the war and they spoke no more about it.
Grandad was a carpenter and minor criminal. Always buying Nana jewelry. Lovely..portable...non tracable.. jewelry. The old romantic.

I recently found out that my grandads father Reece William was a bigamist but as my grandad died in 2003 he never found out luckily.

In total Reece had about 22 children by two different women, his new family in Salford (my grandad's) had no idea about his old family in London! Many of the children died of the effects of poverty.

Reece was also known as Battler Bill & was a bare knuckle boxer.
He was a stevedore on the Manchester docks, at times unemployed.
His one suit went in the pawn shop on a Monday & kept the family of 13 fed on one (often cold) meal a day until Friday.
He was paid on a Friday & would get the suit then get drunk & beat his wife up.

My Grandad hated Churchill as his father said that Churchill had set the troops on the striking dockers early in the 20th century.

My Gran however loved Churchill. She was from a more middle class shopkeepers family.

It was a miracle my grandparents ever met as they were from worlds apart & considering they married after only 2 dates, it was a miracle that their marriage lasted (despite affairs & alcohol problems) for nearly 60 years!!

My grandparents met on a blind date at 16yrs old. They weren’t meant to as it was supposed to be my granddads best mate going on the date, but he was ill so sent my grandad in his place! They were married for 55yrs before he passed away and he always used to say thank god for his mate being ill 😍

My grandmother was stoned by other children for the colour of her skin. Her mother was half Indian, her father was white, this was in India. She defaced her birth certificate and denied her Indian heritage. My mum only found out after she passed away.

My Granny was a woman who was the oldest of five orphaned children, and at thirteen took responsibility for all of them; she worked so bloody hard, and was proud to end up the cook for a rich family. After dragging them all up by their ears she met and fell in love with my Grandad, who was newly enrolled in the RAF and then for a long time was MIA in the Middle East.

Two weeks after he very unexpectedly got back, they married. Their first child was born seven months later. She proceeded to bring up her total five children by their ears, and occasionally by their hair if they didn’t hear her the first time.

I have no idea of the hardships they both clearly went through. They were very careful to protect us all from that, and only ever provided the most loving and full of care environments. Albeit with a hefty helping of ‘do as I say, not as I do’....

They were both the most amazing grandparents. They chose not to tell a lot about what was clearly painful, but worked so hard to provide a comfortable life for their children and grandchildren.