In My Grandmother's House.

[LastGoldenDaysOfSummer]

My Welsh grandparents lived in a large terraced house on a steep hill. The houses were built around the turn of the century. There was a front parlour, a sitting room, a kitchen and a scullery downstairs and an outside toilet. Two huge bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.

I was describing it to OH and a memory suddenly came back. There was a power cut over the Christmas period when I was very small and my grandfather lit the gas mantles that I hadn't know existed until then. I hadn't realised that houses were lit by gas until electricity became widely available.

They gave off a lovely glow and, at my request, we used them often, even after the power was restored.

My grandfather was the organist at the church and there was a baby grand piano that nearly filled the parlour. All his children learned to play the piano on that. And we used to sing carols around it at Christmas time.

When my grandfather retired he had the house rewired and the gas mantles taken away.

Any other memories of grandparents' homes.

Maternal Gran's house - smelt of rich tea biscuits, she moved into a ground floor flat when I was very young but I remember her making a rabbit pie at the old house (caught by the local poacher) and it was lovely. She used to make meat and tattie pie (more potatoes than meat) and rice pudding in an enamel dish (which I still have). I remember my dad winding her clock every sunday evening after dropping her back from lunch. That clock is now in my house.

Paternal Grandparents - Flat in a converted 1930's house, every door had stained glass in it and they had different coloured lightbulbs in every bedroom, I used to sleep in the room where they stored their apples from the back garden which backed onto a railway line. Avocado bathroom suite which I thought was very posh. You could see the sea from their dining room window. Grandma used to keep her fur coat on the back of the sofa and it had faded from the sun. Because it was the 1970's ALL the furniture was orange. I still have their (orange handled) fish slice and the dresser from their dining room (the internal shelves are still lined with offcuts from their animal print orange and black carpet).

Braised steak and onions as soon as I walked through the door every Friday afternoon ( was my favourite tea!)

Grandad cooking toast on the fire.

The Sunday roast cooking and spitting in the gas oven on a Saturday afternoon and the windows steamed up.

The church bells ringing on a Sunday morning whilst I was still in bed and far away gun shots off the local farmers on their weekly game shoot.

My gran had a glass fronted china cabinet. She used to let me and my sister take everything out. We would ‘clean’ the shelves ( they weren’t ever dirty) and rearrange her crockery and knick knacks.
She had a gas copper in the kitchen which she did the washing in before putting it through the mangle. She had a stick with a piece of brass on to agitate the washing, it’s called a posser.
All the water from the copper was thrown into the yard and we’d sweep it clean.
In summer she would buy fresh peas and we’d shell them.

My grandma lived in a terraced Tyneside flat, with dodgy back lane and outside toilet. The bricks in the yard were black with soot. She used to put disinfectant rings in the toilet with a little hanger - I can still remember the clean smell now.
She used to make me ‘goldfish’ - smoked cod and bread and butter. And lemon sole fried in breadcrumbs.
Had one of those bowls with the mouse in and the cat climbing up the side. And a gramophone with 78/33 records - I used to play ‘chirpy chirpy cheep cheep’ and ‘ob la di ob la da’ on.
Plastic kitchen chairs with tears in them that cut your leg. Blue Formica table.
She used to say ‘warm your coat agin the fire’ and hold the inside of my coat to the heat.

My grandmother's house didn't have an indoor plumbed toilet or bath.
Until we were about 5, the kitchen sink was used to clean the small children because it was enormous and easier to fill/ empty that getting the huge tin tub from the loft area and having to wait for ages for kettles of water to heat up and you had to share bathwater with siblings/ cousins. If you needed the loo, there was the privy, which was basically just 4 walls with a roof and a hole at the back for ease of emptying a bucket into a covered drainage trench behind everything
My cousin and I used the hole to deposit nettles in to the bucket my uncle was lowering himself onto one day. We got our bums walloped for that one.
The house was always filled with warmth and love, even though she was very poor. There were always visitors.
I was nearly 6 when she died.

This is a lovely thread

My DGM on my dad's side always made us a Sunday supper at her house. It was amazing, big slices of toasted crusty bread with butter is my main memory. And one year the turkey leg falling off and out of the oven at Christmas and nearly landing on the Yorkshire terrier who wasn't much bigger

My other DGM was an incredible cook and baker too so there was always something just cooked or cooking and her house had a garden with a jungle bit at the bottom we pretended to look for elephants in.

My gran lived in a tiny terrace in Belfast. We used to go for 2 weeks every summer. She had a real fire and I used to get up and sit in the chair while she lit it and no one else was up, and she'd give me home made wheaten bread with marmalade.
My sister had a single bed and I shared the double with gran. She wore a girdle and we watched her get dressed in absolute fascination 😊
She had a downstairs bathroom with Pears soap.
I could go on for hours, I loved that house ❤️

@Coffeecak3 my gran had a cabinet like that too! We loved it. We both inherited some of the little china figures after she died!

Just read the first post & will be saving the rest to read later.
What a lovely idea, I will enjoy reading these through the days to come.
I'll add my own too.

My granny used to let us stuff our faces until we were sick. I remember once being there when the Eurovision song contest was on and spending most of the night sitting on their mustard coloured, square toilet.

@Knittingnanny

The button tin, loved tipping it out and sorting, lining them up etc. Not one of my 3 children and 9 grandchildren have ever shown the tiniest bit of interest in my button tin!

Oh Knittingnanny that was my most hated job and I now have a phobia about buttons. None of my clothes have buttons as a result and I loathe white/cream buttons as I associate them with disgust.

my grandfathers and sg house smelt old, not nice old. The carpets were briwn with orange swirls, sg collected Thimbles and the were everywhere!!
My DG kept birds, he had so many from race pigeons to big parrots, he had a dog and that always smelt too haha

This is a beautiful thread. So evocative.

I must have something in my eye....

My grandma was a tailoress and made all our clothes including our coats and hats, She had a massive button box that I absolutely loved to go through. All the buttons were cut off outgrown clothes and kept.Until I was 6 we lived in a large Victorian house divided into flats with my grandparents living downstairs and us upstairs. I loved them to death. He died when I was 21 and grandma died when I was 28 so I had them for a long time and she saw my daughter born and loved her as well.

The 'lean to' at the back of the house with rocking chairs, potted plants and a mangle.
If I close my eyes I can still smell those geraniums sitting on the windowsill in the sunshine.

I loved my grandmas house...it was beautifully decorated in neutral, pinky colours...gorgeous, elegant, light coloured furniture. Always a glass bowl of sweets, a huge hidden stash of Belgian chocolates she'd buy on her trips abroad! Food was the main theme!

My grandpa in the 80's still lived in an area near clydebank in the back gardens some still had the air raid shelters from the war this used to fascinate me no end

My other GP always had golden retrievers. Me and my DB used to hide in the cupboard under the stairs where they kept the coats, dog leads and dog biscuits. We used to eat them!
My GM, my last remaining GP died when I was 44. I still drive past the old house and think of her.

My Grandparents used to live on the first floor over a shop and I used to be sent down to get the shopping. My Grandfather had rigged up a washing line on a pulley system so my Grandmother could hang the washing out from the kitchen window .

They had a sofa by the table we sat on and a dresser with a pull down bit with chains on either side to stop it going to far and a great collection of spotty mugs. In my Grandfather’s study there was a pencil sharpener where you turned the handle and at the top of the stairs were the scales that used to be in their shop which I have now.

my Nan lived in a static caravan with honeysuckle over the door. when we were small, she used to get a ‘cough candy’ sweet and break it in two on the outside step so me and my sister could share it.

she had pinned butterflies in blue glass holders on the walls, and the ornament of a big glass with a little mouse in it and the cat slinking along the top edge.

i remember sitting in the front room watching Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. we used to get Rise and Shine powdered orange juice in the mornings.

our favourite thing of all was Mince and Noodles, a giant one-pan meal of minced beef, baked beans, tinned peas and carrots slow-cooked for hours. one of us would be allowed to snap the spaghetti in, and my god it was delicious.

i taught myself through years of trial and error to make it, and it’s still one of my favourite comfort foods.

my Nan was a proper Bow Bells cockney and her main piece of advice to her granddaughters was to “keep yer ‘and on yer hapenny”

i miss her.

I have my Nain's glass cabinet. It went to Mum and then to me. Inside are bits of her precious china and my Mum's plus some from my other grandmother. Particularly precious are 2 "Gaudy Welsh" plates and a jug which were in use before my grandmother was born in 1892.

www.pinterest.co.uk/anwenk/gaudy-welsh-china/

Granny had stairs, which was a novelty to us, as we lived in a bungalow. My sister and I used to slide down them feet first on our fronts and get carpet burns on our tummies. She died when I was 6, so I don't remember a lot else.

Mine lived in a post-war council house. It had no central heating but the gas fire was on full-blast in the living room in the winter. The rest of the house was freezing, especially the toilet seat!
But it was cosy. They had a beige suite & a fake fur rug in front of the fire. The ancient tabby cat was allowed to eat in front of the fire & made a mess, so sometimes I unwittingly put my hand in a lump of kit-e-kat. We did drawing in front of the fire on paper bought from John Menzies.
On Saturday nights if we stayed over we watched TV together (The Generation Game), & we had crisps in a bowl to share, wine gums, & R Whites lemonade in glasses kept "for the grandchildren".

When we were tiny we got sat on the draining board & had a wash in the kitchen sink with palmolive soap. The kitchen was ridiculously small, with a pantry.

She'd put a hot water bottle in the bed & I'd lie there reading the Enid Blyton fairy stories she bought for 10p from the bargain box at the library. In the mornings I'd wake to the sound of Grandad singing Frank Sinatra songs, & the rattle of tea cups as he brought her a cuppa up.

They were fantastic grandparents, they made their little house a home. We had many cosy nights, & fun family parties there. I miss them dreadfully.

My grandma had a large saucepan in a cupboard in her kitchen with empty face cream pots, spools and other bits and bobs in. It was kept there for any child visiting the house- from her oldest grandchild who was born when her youngest child (my dad) was 4 to my son who was around the same age when she died. I have vivid memories of the fun I got from such simple things. My son carried it to the altar as part of her funeral.

my nana lived in a block of flats ,i hated going up in the lift as we once got stuck, and once you were out it seemed like an endless long dark corridor (no windows) till you got to her door ,once in her flat i always remember the smell of gingerbread loaf /talc ,and her tea set with the blue rim ,and playing /sorting of her button tin