Tell me about your lovely grandmothers who are no longer with us.

[Purplevioletsherbert]

I’ll start.

She was such a huge part of my childhood and I’d sleep over at hers most weekends. She taught me how to make cups of tea and cook scrambled eggs. We used to watch SMTV Live together curled up on her sofa on a Saturday morning and laugh until our faces hurt. She would send me to the chip shop across the road with a few pound coins for a bag of chips for our dinner.

She died when I was 13 and I’ll always be heartbroken my son never got to meet her.

She gave us rum butter for breakfast.

She gave us bananas when we visited as a special treat

She died last year at 102. Spent lots of my childhood with her and she always had time for us, played bingo with us, cards, dominoes, cooked with us. Gave me a glass of beer every Sunday from the age of 8 🤣.

I absolutely loved my dgm. She was the most loving person in my life. But she died when I was a teenager and I missed her lots. I could discuss absolutely anything with her, nothing was out of bounds.

My lovely granny died age 101 2 years ago and I miss her presence in my life so much.
When my mum died at 63, My granny and I became so close and would write to each other, talk on the phone like friends and I really felt that she liked me.
She could knit the most beautiful cardigans and spun her own alpaca wool. Her garden was incredibly beautiful and she was always adding to it.
She had been an art teacher and there were loads of rugs, paintings and tapestries around her house.
She always had me and my sister over the summer holidays and just made it really clear that she liked us.
I miss her so much.

Mine was amazing but also very blunt! She once said to me 'Oh well, you obviously prefer the plump look!' haha I did laugh especially as I've always been a size 12/14 when she was alive anyway.
She was very glam and valued being slim and active. Never without her lippy and beautiful clothes and jewellery right up until she died at 94. One of the last things she said to me when I visited her before she died - she held both my hands in hers and looked me in the eyes and said 'Be happy'. I was a bit taken aback and said I am but she looked like she wasn't sure. I sometimes have wondered since if she knew something I didn't?! She was a one for reading tea leaves! I do have a very happy life btw!

I was really fortunate to have my nan until I was well into my 40s. She was my biggest cheerleader when it came to job applications, my meeting a new partner and getting married (against my parents wishes!), and having a dog (also very delayed teenage rebellion)!
I could talk with her about anything and she wouldn't judge. She was a land girl in WW2 and I wish she had told us more about her youth and when she and my grandad were young.

My Granny died at age 99 back in 2010. I loved her. She was the most wrinkled person I know and there were times when her light shone right through those wrinkles, and through her eyes.

She was deeply intuitive and when I was a teenager she was the person who best understood me, and with whom I felt understood. She championed the underdog.

I vividly remember a time when I visited her in my student years. She had (was this a wartime or 1960s trick?) been cosseting a cantaloupe melon in the airing cupboard to maximal ripeness in honour of my visit. I still remember the strength of the scent.

Peace be on her and rest in peace, dear Granny.

I feel like out of fairness, I should also post about my Nan who is still with us - she’s just lovely. Weekly visits to her with my toddler got me through my adoption leave. She dotes on my son (as does my grandad) and we have our annual Summer Day Out together where we take her to a nice garden, have a picnic and play. She loves to read with my son and do crosswords with him. She can’t cook for shit but we’ll let that go 😂

My avo (nan in Portuguese) was amazing. She lived south of England and we in London so didn't get to see her all the time, but we would visit during holidays. She had 11 children, all of which had children and during the holidays her small 2 bed flat become a nursery for all the grandchildren she would look after while her kids went to work, and us cousins used to have the best time ever. She was old school, traditional and just an amazing loving grandmother. She passed when I was pregnant with my first child, I was so upset she didn't get to meet him 💔

I miss my two grandmothers, one died when I was 18 and it was the first family loss I had to deal with and I was devastated. My granny was a lost soul who had a very tough life but had lovely saying and I always remember her singing and her smell. She also used to read tea leaves and I think she passed on something to me, as I often see something happening before it does. My other granny got to meet my 2 eldest children, she was such a lovely loving woman I often wonder how the woman who gave birth to me came from the same mother. When my two granny's were together they loved the chats and a bit of fun. One granny never wore trousers always her skirts and tights. I always felt safe and loved by them both.

I had two lovely grandmas. One cuddly and soft and gentle and kind. The other prim, slim and strict but wickedly funny. Learned a lot from them both, and aspire to be cuddly and comfy but sharp and funny when I’m one!

She died 38 years ago, she was only 60, and it broke my heart. I've got her last bottle of perfume and sometimes I'll get it out to smell her again.
She used to make me trifle and apple crumble, and she was always on my side, and I still miss her.

Pure unconditional love, trust and comfort.

One of my grannies wasn’t particularly (grand-) maternal. She didn’t bake, or teach me to knit or whatever. In truth she wasn’t great with kids. She was perfectly nice but we weren’t very close when I was a child.

However. She was the first women to work as a mathematician for the British government, was one of very few women to fly a plane in WW2, and went on to lead her county council.

I was just beginning to realise how amazing this made her when she died in my teens. I really wish I’d been able to know her as an adult.

My Nana died of breast cancer when I was 14, two years after her daughter, my dad's sister, died of the same. She was a giggler, she made lovely porridge with cream when we stayed with her and my grandpa in their holiday flat on the seafront in Hove. She was a very beautiful woman with red hair and a lovely figure - she looked very young for her age and was always very elegant.

In many ways she lives on in my sister who looks very like her, aside from being a brunette rather than a redhead. Sadly none of her great-grandkids have inherited the lovely red hair from her and her daughter.

I never knew my other grandmother, she died when I was three years old and was too ill to leave Czechoslovakia during my lifetime.

She died before I was born but she was deaf and in her own world. I always wondered what it would have been like if I got to meet her. I took sign language courses in school to feel a connection. She had a really hard life.

She was a typical Nain (welsh grandma) we used to stay behind to make a big picnic to take up the fields to the men baling hay. Then we'd all sit eat and laugh, us kids would play. She would give us cups of tea and homemade bread, butter and jam, she made the best damson jam. She was great fun and full of funny advice.
When I left my abusive ex she said 'thank god, I never liked him he had shifty eyes!'
I'll always miss her but was lucky to have her in my life till I was 34.

One of my grannies died before I was born but the other granny was a Victorian lady born in the 1880s. We lived with her when I was young and she used to make me wear a Liberty Bodice, heated by the fire before I put it on. She was gentle, sweet and hilarious.

My one and only grandparent I ever met (rest had died before my birth) died when I was 11.Such fond warm memories of our visits to hers....watching Torvill and Dean ice skating on the TV whilst sucking on mint imperials from her special glass pot of them in the display unit.
Hours on end of imaginative play- her pretending to be an owl when i was bored on car journeys, moving her fingers about like a bird flying, perching on the grab handles, and making screeching sounds!
Her chocolate tin in the wardrobe where I went for a treat :)
The postcards she wrote, many of which I still have in the attic.
Christmas is the fondest, when she used to stay with us... watching me opening my Stocking on Christmas morning.
She was the epitome of traditional loving grandma....and my mum had inherited the skill, as she does a great job of being that for my girls too! (Which is lucky as my dad has passed away and we don't see DH's parents as they are toxic)

She took me into her home in my teenage years and gave me some tough love. Gave me a work ethics by encouraging me to run a lemonade stand from her garden aged 14-15, got me excited about travelling the world by taking me to Malta.
My favourite memories are playing dominos in out pj's for 2ps after a bath in a deep cast iron bath as a young child.
She used to make feasts for breakfasts and was only family member who done serve yourself meals and sat at the table all together.
When I was 15 we drove around the countryside singing 'its my life' at the loudest volume with the windows down, felt free.
When I lived alone at age 16, she paid me £50 a week to do her 'ironing' to make sure I was fed.
My life wouldn't be the same and would have taken a different direction without her in it, would have probably ended up a drug addiction or worse dead, instead I have a wonderful job, family and my DS will never have to struggle the way I did.

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Ah, Granny C! Built herself a modest property empire from being penniless after her alcoholic husband failed to return from one of his frequent benders. She was glamorous, brave and funny. She took up with a brilliant blind refugee scientist shortly after the war, and eventually married him in the 1970s. When he died, she had a string of gentleman callers right up to her death in her 80s. She taught me how to dress stylishly, drink cocktails and smoke when I was 16. She was a Cordon Bleu trained cook who could whip up a three course dinner for eight without ruffling a hair of her elegant coiffure or chipping her perfectly manicured nails. Now I’m approaching the age she was when I spent most time with her, I try to follow her shining example.

I lost my wonderful grandma when I was 21. I will be forever thankful that I found out I was pregnant very early so was able to share that with her. We lost her 4 weeks after we found out. She was the core of our extensive family and the heart at our centre. I can still taste the sherry trifle that she ( as a complete teetotaller) used to make, and wonder why our parents wouldn't let the kids eat 😂😂

I loved reading this. Grandmother love.