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?

Thinking about it, it's entirely possible that my grandfather met some famous people, or at any rate doffed his cap to them in passing. He was a gardener who worked at a Scottish castle in the 1920s and 1930s. The Duchess who owned it was connected by marriage to the Royal Family of Monaco and they used to visit. Long before the days of Grace Kelly, though!

My grandad was caretaker for flats that housed Jimmy Young and Eamonn Andrews. Jimmy sent my nan flowers when she was poorly once.
My mum used to say good morning, most days, to Richard O'Sullivan.

Mussolini

My grandfather was also friends with Nye Bevan and I have several photos of them together. Same grandparents very good friends with Elaine Morgan, the writer, she bought me a teddy when I was born.
A good friend of mine was close friends with Trotsky's grandson.

Prepare to be dazzled - Matthew Corbett lived until very recently near me. And my grandma used to babysit Big Daddy 😶.

My grandad was in the RAF and worked quite a lot with Douglas Bader, the famous pilot. Safe to say he wasn’t much of a fan!

Not grandparents but at my aunt’s funeral a couple of very famous people attended. I knew she knew one of them but not the other one.

My grandmother was a typist for Eisenhower during the planning for D-Day.

I like this very tenuos 😂

Midge was Jim/James

My mum's stepfather and his workmate were coalmen to Sir Winston Churchill back in the late 1950s and managed to diddle him out of two sacks of coal!

He'd ordered a ton of coal, which came in 20 sacks. They humped the sacks one by one on their shoulders into Chartwell...but each had one empty coalsack tucked away beneath their aprons. As they delivered their contents into the coal-cellar, Churchill told them to leave the emptied sacks in a tidy heap on the floor and he kept careful count of them.

After they'd done 14 sacks, Churchill was asked to take an urgent phone call in his office. He ordered the two coalmen to stop work and wait where they were until he came back to resume. In his absence they each whipped out their hidden empty sack and added them to the pile.

Churchill returned, they dumped out four more sacks and declared they'd now delivered 20. Churchill insisted he made it 18. They innocently invited him to count the empty sacks on the floor. He did, and of course there were 20. He apologised very decently to them, assuming he'd lost count when he was called away to the phone.

Bill and Norman accepted his apology graciously and drove off with two sacks of coal still stashed away in the lorry - one hundredweight of coal each for their own families' comfort!

My late grandfather didn’t mention he had worked as a code breaker at Bletchley Park. A well-meaning friend popped over one day and said “Your name is mentioned in this book!”. He’d obviously not been able to speak about it and I’d always wondered why he skipped the subject when I’d asked him what he did in the war. He’d say “Oh nothing important. I just pushed papers around”.

But he couldn’t help boasting that he’d once played charades with Field Marshall Montgomery.

My mother worked at Bletchley Park during the war too! She met Alan Turing.

My parents were friends with Tony Hancock, the comedian, and his wife. They used to come to the house for dinner and playing cards.

I knew someone who had been invited to audition for the role of 'Montys Double'

My nana worked with Lord Mischcon as legal secretary/office manager and met Ruth Ellis before she was hung (he defended her). Nana said she was very glamourous in furs.

She also used to tell us with grim relish as kids she’d lived round the corner from Reginald Christie’s house in Ladbroke Grove and my mum had to hiss at her/tell her to be quiet! So we never knew the details until later.

She also knew Johnny Pelluet who may have been in the newspaper, son of her friend Norman. Johnny apparently died in a small plane accident in 50s/60s over river Thames.

My mum taught Brian Ferry (Roxy Music) in primary school.

My nan used to babysit Henry Cooper the boxer and his twin brother & Tommy Steele used to deliver her bread or milk. Dad was friends with Spike Milligan who scared me a bit as he was somewhat manic. I know he had bi polar or something, so I understand now why he was like this.

We were going though Dad's letters a few years ago and when he was staying in the South of France in the 1950s as a car salesman, he mentions a Billy Fury who was staying in the same block of flats as him. Dad was still alive then, in his 90s, so we tried to verify this even though his dementia had got over the hill by that point, if you know what I mean. I showed him a picture of the famous English pop star and he confirmed it was him, but I have never really been able to confirm that Fury was in the South of France around that time.

Why bother posting then

I came onto this thread to say that my grandad bought Guy Gibson a pint after the Dambusters raid in WW2. He realised who he was when his coat fell open and my grandad saw the medal ribbons on his uniform!!

DH’s auntie went out on a few dates with Johnny Ball.

My grandparents didn't move in famous circles but they used to talk about Mandy Rice Davies, who was involved in the Profumo affair. I think she went to the same school as my aunt and they knew her family. They used to talk about how "loose" she was and "no better than she should be". She was 16 when she started being groomed by older men! They didn't see it that way at the time though.

Think this might be my favourite story so far!

My wider family were involved in racing studs and stables. I used to work in high-end hotels. We all met an awful lot of people. It’s those you didn’t like that stick in the mind more.

Ooh saw this and had to post. My grandad gave Lawrence a ‘backie’ on his motorbike when he got lost and needed to get back to base.

A few years ago my dad casually dropped into conversation that he had recently been out for a drink with 'Rob' . It transpired that the Rob in question was Robert Plant. Apparently they'd been friends for years, he'd just never got round to telling me. All those years I blasted out Led Zeppelin and not a word from my dad