Tell me about your grandmas houses if your gran lived through the war(s)

[Kellogschocrolls]

My gran was 4-8yrs old in WW1 & 31-35 in WW2 for context. She spent her whole life living in a northern Victorian terrace. Thinking about it this morning, I realised there was nothing soft or feminine about the house at all. No pretty curtains or feminine touches anywhere. Just a utilitarian interior. I'm wondering if others had grannies who liked pretty things in their home or whether it was a product of a life lived through two wars?

For example, my grans house interior woodwork was all painted mid-brown, no lace doilies or 'displayed' dressing table area. Burgundy & brown stripe flocked wallpaper in the front room. No pictures up. Nothing to soften the interior at all. Outside she had a small totally concreted rear yard. At the front she had a tiny garden with only a privet hedge, no flowers ever.

I'm just curious as I can't imagine having a wartime gran who ever wore flowery dresses or had a pretty tablecloth/nice pictures on the wall, vases of flowers etc. What was your gran like?

Mine was in her late teens at the start of ww2 and setup home after the war. She lived in the same house (a prefab council house) till she died. She was a total magpie and her house was full sparkly objects, ornaments and photographs. She loved sparkly jewellery although her clothes themselves were plain.

It was a normal house. But the thing I find remarkable now is that they didn't trust the banks (obviously lived through the Great Depression - and this was in the US). They had so much money hidden around the house. There was an envelope in the back right and left corner of ever drawer in their bedroom and under the right and left side of every mattress in the house. I mean a lot of money. $20-50 notes. A stack of them in each envelope. When they died, I think we found several thousand hidden around the house.

My maternal granny was born in 1892, grew up on and then lived on a farm. The farmhouse was an abomination of chintz. Doilies everywhere, tea dress and small heels to milk the cows.

I absolutely loved that house.

both my grandmother's were in their 20's in ww2 born in ww2.
Grandma 1 had a house with with impressive gardens lots of flowers in formal garden( house was a wedding present built for her on family land). The house had pictures ornaments , pets , flowery cushions and curtains.
Grandma 2 lived in house attached to family shop up to retiring but they had a chalet type house after selling the business. They loved gardens so that was always well planted. House had flowers on wallpaper, curtains etc but yes some utility furniture. Ornaments were around and Grandma liked making to things so hand embroidered table clothes etc. Both home definitely feminine but both grandma's were rather dominant character s so granddad's would not be picking interior.

My nanna was in her 20's. She still lived in the same house at the time of her death when I was in my 20's and it had never really been changed, apart from the fridge the kitchen was the same (no washing machine) and she had the same oak table they hid under during air raids! Rented their whole lives. Decor was lots of collected bits (not worth anything but curiosities), photos of grandkids etc. She was never a flowery dresses Nanna though

I've found the Victorian corner house which has been converted from the Grocer's store my Nan Rita lived in during ww2 in Salford on Rightmove!!
She sheltered from bombs in the cellar which was damp & half filled with water - this left her with a lifetime of chest infections. I wonder if they still have damp in the cellar!!
She was 14 in 1939.
I don't know how the house was decorated or furnished.

My g grandad Charles was the Grocer until his early death in Dec 1940 then my g grandma Lily took over the shop until she sold it & trained as an asylum nurse; so they weren't badly off for food.
They had a pet cat who survived on scones!! As pet food wasn't available.
Her 6 year old neighbour burned to death hiding from bombs under the stairs with her parents- I saw on Rightmove that 2 newish houses stand where her home would have been.

My Nan was in the ARP aged 15 delivering messages on a bicycle during air raids between ARP posts.
She worked as a telephonist and remembered walking to work over broken glass from destroyed buildings.
She also studied needlework and kept that hobby all her life.
She met my Grandad Bill, a 28 yr old soldier, in 1942. His sister Doris was engaged to her younger brother Stan!

My Grandad came from the Salford slums.
His street is still there by the Ship Canal but the houses are long gone. They were back to back 2 up 2 down rented houses.
The toilets were an outside block serving the whole street.
2 parents & 11 children lived in the house.
There would have been no nice decor or furniture as anything 'extra' even spare clothing was always on pawn.
The children had no shoes.
The boys went to Salford Lads Club who took them to Morecombe Bay for their first ever beach trip.
My g grandad Reece was a violent alcoholic bare knuckle boxer & stevedore on the docks. He drank any spare cash.
His wife Elizabeth was often beaten.

He had married Elizabeth bigamously - he already had a wife & up to 11 children he had abandoned in Marylebone London!!

Anyway Reece & Elizabeth had died by the time Grandad left school at 14, so the older kids just cared for & worked to pay for the younger ones.
Grandad was homeless for a year at 19 as he lost his job, so he worked as hired muscle for the Communist Party for free meals, breaking up Fascist Blackshirt meetings.
Then joined the Army... and met Gran in 1942 just before being sent to fight in Burma.

They married in 1945 on his return aged 20 & 31 after meeting in person just twice!!!
It sounds shocking today. They were so different & im amazed they stayed together.

Their first home was a couple of rooms in a large Victorian terrace house in Lancaster, where my Uncle Bill was born in 1946.
Again I found the house on Rightmove!

Both my grans were young brides during WWII.
One was very poor, other quite well off.

Both had nice things, but tended to mend (one well, one not so well) and hand make things.
One collected Toby Jugs and what she called "dinky" things. The other had more art work and smarter things.

Both liked flowers in the garden and in the house. Both tended to keep things that might be useful. Both grew vegetables and fruit.

my nan would have been in her early 20s in WW2

they were very working class poor, my grandad was a brickie and she worked as a cleaner in pubs and down at the docks. She suffered dreadfully from skin conditions because of the bleach used for cleaning and no protective clothing.
When I was growing up they lived in a tiny terraced house which was eventually cleared as a slum. Door straight into the living room, the only other room downstairs was the kitchen. Small yard at the back with the outside toilet and tin bath hanging on a nail.
They had no indoor loo or bathroom until 1985, they bathed once a week in the tin bath in front of the coal fire, the rest of the time it was the sink in the kitchen.
Not much room or money for fripperies. No garden but she always loved flowers and usually had a plant or we would get her flowers as presents. She wore what we would call tea dresses with a pinny.

She was always knitting, and she loved to read, not great works of fiction, very mills and boon, Jean Plaidy, Barbara Cartland.
She liked a 10p bet on the horses and the wrestling on a Saturday.

She spent the last 10 years or so before going into a home in flats which were much more comfortable but which she hated.
Her dream would have been a garden which she never had.

My nana (93) was 11-17 during WWII. Her house is lovely. She decorates it room by room on what appears to be an ongoing cycle. She currently has crushed velvet curtains in her living room loves flowers. Always has fresh cut flowers. Doilies and lace things. That she still irons! Cushions and throws. Florals and nice patterns. A million photos of us all everywhere.

My grandparents were in their 20s during WW11 with both grandfathers in the army and both grandmothers worked in munitions' factories.

What I remember of their houses in the 80s and 90s was that they were sparkling clean but pretty basic. They had coal fires. Beds were covered with lots of sheets and blankets - no duvets. No freezers, microwaves, or modern conveniences, etc. One grandmother didn't have a washing machine and washed clothes by hand in the sink. She didn't have a vacuum cleaner either and the carpets were cleaned with a sweeper. They grew their own veg in the garden and there were certainly lots of flowers like roses in the gardens.

I am sure they liked pretty things but they were working class and pretty poor. One grandfather lost his job in the 80s and never worked again. I don't think their décor was as a result of their wartime experience but their severely limited incomes.

My paternal grandma was about 4 when WW1 broke out - her father was killed at Passchendaele. Once married (in the 1930s) she moved into Northern redbrick house in a terrace of three with a ginnel through the middle one which was theirs. It was mortgaged for some impossibly-low-sounding amount like £500. They lived there the rest of their lives.

I don't think the decor was ever radically changed - there were three bedrooms all good sized (the smallest sat over the ginnel but was much bigger than a modern 3rd bedroom) an upstairs loo, two rooms downstairs with a kitchen that was more the size of a cupboard.

It wasn't especially feminine in decor but my grandma collected pottery ornaments, plates etc - some now regarded as classic, such as Clarice Cliff so these things were around the house. Before marriage she'd been a seamstress so made her own cushion covers and things. The front room was the best room and they lived in the back room, which also held the dining table.

She was fond of plants and gardening so the house was full of pot plants - including that Victorian classic, an aspidistra.

The house was sold about 20 years ago after their death. My sister recently spotted it on sale again on Rightmove - it was barely recognisable inside, as it had been completely remodelled to include an open-plan kitchen.

My other grandparents moved house (going up the ladder as we'd say now) numerous times - the house they were living in when I was a child was quite posh - a large, detached house in a scenic country location. That grandma was a great knitter so the house was embellished with all sorts of knitted and crocheted things. Sadly, she died when I was 10.

My Nana was as a young mum in North East London. She commutes to work in the East End during the blitz and had a couple of near misses. Her family were business owners so probably LMC. All the time I knew her she was very parsimonious about things like ironing wrapping paper, squeezing soap scraps together and saving string. However she was very fond of a flounces and ruching and a nice floral print, often matching curtains to wallpaper in the bedrooms. Valances, tablecloths, marble fittings, ornaments - all of that.

My other Gran was a teen during the war and similarly imprinted by rationing. She was less frilly in her tastes though.

The thing they had in common that I remembered this week was really colourful but threadbare tea towels and hand towels.

I miss them both.

My gran was born in Europe, and was just a young teen when Nazis invaded. They were Jews, and managed to leave with her grandmother, mother and siblings. Her father stayed behind and was later killed along with all remaining family members. Those who made it to London, lived with family in the East End and had several of their homes destroyed by the Blitz. I know they were a wealthy family before the war and managed to bring a few things with them like jewellery and the family silver but much of it was sold.

Her home was gorgeous, small terrace in Notting Hill, well before it was a desirable place to live. She had a thing about colour coordination and each room was one colour. Complete Magpie, loved a charity shop find. She would also dress solely in one colour for each outfit, always with matching hat. Always very well turned out with beautiful make up. I don't think the war made her tone it down, more crank it all up!

My grandparents were just adults in WW2 (Grandad fought in Burma in the RAF). Their house wasn’t that different to a modern house except for the typically 80s-90s patterned carpets and curtains and a green bathroom suite.

Oh and she has a China cabinet in the dining room with nice things in.

My gran was born in 1907 - so she was 7 - 11 during WW1. She left school aged 13 in 1920 and went into service as a maid in a posh house.

She then married a steelworker and had 6 kids. 1 died as a baby. She lived in the same terraced house in a Northern town all her married life - but they had a big, long back garden that my grandad grew veg in. It still had the Anderson shelter in the back garden from WW2 and they used it as a coal shed.

They had an outdoor toilet, no central heating (just a coal fire) and everything (in the 1970/80s) had not changed really from the early 1930s when they'd got married. The things they had on the mantlepiece - a clock, a perpetual calendar and a couple of photo frames were cheap late Art Deco style and I imagine they had been wedding presents.

My granny always wore a dress, cardigan and a pinny over it, with tights and lace up shoes. I never saw her in a pair of trousers. She was bright and lively and intellligent (but uneducated). Two of her children passed the 11+ and went on to university and she was incredibly proud of them. She never had a job once she married, she wasn't particularly domestic and I suspect she was bored with how limited her life was.

She never learned to drive and they never went on holiday, except for a day out to the seaside.

One born turn of the century, one born 20s. Both had decorative bits around, my experience of lace doilies, florals and pretty china was all from their "best room" and never used, except on high days and holidays, such a shame really. Pretty things kept for best in glass fronted cabinets. I try to use all my lovely things now rather than keep for "best".

I've just remembered that both sets of grandparents had one of those clocks that sits in a glass dome with revolving balls underneath as a pendulum - I think they are called 'anniversary clocks'. In both cases it sat in pride of place on the mantelpiece - probably the only thing they had in common as they generally had widely different tastes.

I don't think that was anything to do with when she was born and everything to do with her as an individual.
My Grandmothers were born in 1898 and 1901.
Both of them had things that were decorative and things that were "for best". Both had flowers in their garden. One was a keen collector or any sort of china celebrating royal events and had a whole dresser full (intermingled with photos of her Grandchildren).

@MadMadMadamMim

My gran was born in 1907 - so she was 7 - 11 during WW1. She left school aged 13 in 1920 and went into service as a maid in a posh house.

She then married a steelworker and had 6 kids. 1 died as a baby. She lived in the same terraced house in a Northern town all her married life - but they had a big, long back garden that my grandad grew veg in. It still had the Anderson shelter in the back garden from WW2 and they used it as a coal shed.

They had an outdoor toilet, no central heating (just a coal fire) and everything (in the 1970/80s) had not changed really from the early 1930s when they'd got married. The things they had on the mantlepiece - a clock, a perpetual calendar and a couple of photo frames were cheap late Art Deco style and I imagine they had been wedding presents.

My granny always wore a dress, cardigan and a pinny over it, with tights and lace up shoes. I never saw her in a pair of trousers. She was bright and lively and intellligent (but uneducated). Two of her children passed the 11+ and went on to university and she was incredibly proud of them. She never had a job once she married, she wasn't particularly domestic and I suspect she was bored with how limited her life was.

She never learned to drive and they never went on holiday, except for a day out to the seaside.

This could be my grandma albeit southerners in a semi, everything happened in the same house from 30s til their deaths in the 90s. Flowers in front garden veg in back, in the back door never the front, front room never used. She left school early teens, left work on marriage.

My nanna must have been in her early 40s in the war. Her house was a lovely spacious semi just round the corner from ours, quite chintzy, huge Welsh dresser covered in china jugs that I was not allowed to breathe next to. I remember massive old dark wood wardrobes, a boxroom with an airing cupboard that always smelt of lemon, a small kitchen that smelt vaguely of gas and dripping, and a Front Room that was strictly For Best. She used to hide under the kitchen table if there was thunder because it brought back memories of the Blitz, and the minute a storm started one of us (usually my dad) would have to go round and keep her company until it had passed.

My grandparents were definitely not like that. Grandma was doilies, baking, pretty dresses with some creme puff powder and scent. House was so cosy and warm. Full of nicknacks, horse brasses and love.

My maternal grandparents were both working class East Enders, and my grandfather was a skilled man, a glassblower, as was his father and grandfather before him.
They had six children and lived in Hackney in a three and a half storey terraced townhouse in a good street which they had rented for a few years before buying it for the princely sum of (I think) £800 in the 1940s. It's worth a bit more these days!
I think my Nan had things like lace doilies for trays and nice linens, a few ornaments and pictures etc. As the children grew up they all went out to work but lived at home and contributed to the household expenses, until the two sons were called up in the war. So the family lived quite well.
The house had five bedrooms but no bathroom! Two loos, a 'kitchen' where Nana cooked on a range , and the family ate, and a scullery where food was stored and she did the preparation and washing up.
It had a coal cellar where coal was shot in through a manhole in the street outside. A nice garden with fruit bushes and trees, and an Anderson shelter. They kept rabbits during the war to supplement the meat ration.
Sadly Grandad lost his job when glassblowing became mechanised in the 50s and became a night watchman at a local factory. I don't think my Nan worked, well with six kids at home it would have been difficult but i think she might have had a market stall at some stage.

My Grandma passed the eleven plus equivalent a year early, but her family couldn’t afford to send her to grammar school.
She left school at 14 and got a job in the local brick works.
With her natural intelligence she soon became a fore woman.
She supported her trades union and looked out for her colleagues.
Fortunately for her the Second World War started and she moved to work in ammunitions.
She quickly rose through the ranks and ran her section.
She was always proud that men “worked under” her.
She seemed to be able to get jobs for all her relatives, and she managed to get her favourite younger sister a good job which enabled her to get a very good job in the civil service after the war.
My Gran was proud that she ensured good working conditions for her section, that they produced excellent ammunitions and that they promoted the war effort.
Women like her are the unsung heroes of WW2.

My grandparents were around the same age as yours. Working/lm class, married while pregnant in 1931, both living in 3-bedroom suburban interwar semis by the time I knew them.

The furniture was brown tending to black but the upholstery wasn't. One granny had a green settee. I remember several very bright candlewick bedspreads (orange, rich pink). One of those doll pyjama cases. Lots of embroidered antimacassars and traycloths. Mugs with flowers on. Plates with flowers on (still got my eye on a pair with a black background but suspect I may have to fight for them). Gold cushions. A multi-coloured plastic floor covering in the kitchen. Flowers in the garden (one in particular was very into bedding plants).

Granny P had a black-framed mirror and clock which sounds all gothic but really wasn't and some sort of ornament involving white and black scottie dogs (quite possibly something to do with a brand of whisky). She also had little pink wall plates with Pastoral Romantic scenes. Granny W had lots of ornaments including wooden deer, a shepherdess figurine and a spanish dancer with a bright red/orange dress (a present from someone's holiday).

Both of them wore flowery dresses, most of the time according to my possibly-inaccurate recollections.