Did your grandparents ever mention unexpectedly famous people they had known?

[2catsandhappy]

As a young girl, whenever the WW2 came on tv, my late Nan would tell us that she knew Violette Szabo from when Violette was in London.
It meant nothing to me then, only in later years did the name mean anything.
No idea if Violette was a child or an adult. I presume adult as Nan was an adult in London. I have the vaguest idea they were sometime neighbours.
Anybody else had an unexpected name crop up in conversation with grandparents?

My Gran cleaned for George McDonald Fraser who wrote the Flashman books. My Dad said some of the stories she told GMF were in the books.

No, never. My late FIL was friends with someone quite famous - but my family don't know anyone famous. We are very boring working class folk.

My mum had the Kray twins for neighbours. Infamous rather than famous.

One of my grandparents was a childhood friend of Rupert Murdoch.

Pinner country grammar?

My dad heard me listening to Jimmy Armfield (much missed) on Radio 5 and casually said oh, is that JA, I used to be at school with him”

same turned out to be true of Peter Purvis, when I asked if he’d been at school with anyone else famous!

My mother casually threw into conversation a couple of years before she died, that when she visited my father, then her boyfriend, at his Cambridge 'digs', a 'funny quiet little man' was often there. His name was David Attenborough.
We were all 'huh?! Why have you never mentioned this!!' She just kept saying how quiet he was 😃

Relative knew the painter Denis Peploe. I often wonder if any of his paintings or sketches where of her.

My grandparents knew Ewan McColl (of ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ and ‘Dirty Old Town’ fame) in his younger days. Apparently he was called Jimmy Miller then.

When I was about 10 he stayed with us, with his wife, Peggy Seeger, and we spent the evening singing songs.

Queen Victoria gave my granny a penny when she was a tiny girl on the Isle of Wight where QV had a home.

You're not going to believe this coincidence, but DH's grandmother knew Violette Szabo at school in London.

JRR Tolkiens son was my friends school chaplain.

No where near as famous as the PP,s but my 86 year old dad was longtime , childhood friends with Max Griggs ( Dr Martens Boots and Rushden and Diamonds FC) , a lovely man by all accounts…they last met at their local Drs a couple of years before Max died and had a good old catch up….x

Indeed!

Although she always referred to it as Pinner County, I never even knew it was a grammar school.

(An absolute aside, but I never saw her as that bright. Teenage arrogance on my part, or being trapped in a marriage with someone who put her down intellectually, plus lack of opportunity to shine both as a married woman in the 70s/80s and a working class girl in the 60s? I've been mulling over it quite a bit in recent years).

My grandparents were friends with Jack Judge who wrote and first performed "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" (he ran the fish stall on Oldbury market when not in the music halls)

I remember Nan taking me when I was a small child to put flowers on his grave and patting the headstone saying "there you go, Jack".

I used to work with someone who, in turn, used to work with a man who had shaken hands with Lenin.

Although not a blood relative, she had been a best friend of my grandmother, my 'aunt' during a discussion, casually spoke about a conversation she had with Jimmy Hendrix, blew my mind.

He briefly delivered milk (from a horse-drawn cart) to a friend of my mum's.

Not grandparents but my dad was friends with Alan Rickman - very odd popping to their house and he was there.

My dad knows quite a few famous people.

My great aunt was friends with Queen Mother. The stories of drinks parties at the castle of Mey were extraordinary— lots of young subalterns in tow!

My grandad was on the same RAF / army base as Lawrence of Arabia.

My gran was friends with Jilly Cooper.

My great uncle (now dead) was in Bond film with Sean Connery. He lived in Monte Carlo and ran a huge drama am dram society having retired out there very wealthy in the 1970/1980s. He was on a yacht in a party etc and an extra in some scenes etc him in a white DJ on and part of various scenes in the background. Sean Connery apparently was very nice and they had made pleasant chats and spent chill time together, he was very high up in MC society apparently (my uncle) he was just my lovely uncle to me.

Not my grandparents but my mum's friend from school was a bond girl in Octopussy and was a member of pans people.

My granda was apparently a friend of Harry Corry and claimed that Dec from Ant and Dec's mother worked in his shirt factory.