What are your childhood memories of your grandparents' house?

[ChaosTrulyReigns]

I was schrunching some foil today and it reminded me of the Vitalite tub of milk bottle tops for the Guide Dogs (always a concept I struggled to undersand) at my DGP's house.

And the whoosh hit of tomato smell in the greenhouse.

And the tea caddy of buttom at the other DGP's house.

And the duoble loo roll holder for soft paper (guests) and Izal (unfortunate family).

And rice pudding with skin on.

And a shiny 5p coin for whomever had the smallest new potato on their plate at Sunday lunch.

Good times. Bittersweet memories.

lovely thread - one day some of us will be GPs and hopefully we'll realise what huge potential there is for us to provide loving, fun environments that will fill our gcs with funny little detailed quirky memories. oooo I can't wait.

I can also remember watching the Morecambe and Wise Christmas special with them - and the famous McEnroe/Borg wimbledon final!

Ah did someone mention blankets with satin ribbon on the edges. I love those! Nan used to tuck me in really tight on the sofa bed with them when I stayed. I loved the weighty feeling of the blankets and the feel of the ribbon bit.

I stayed with her after an operation when I was about 20 and she tucked me in exactly the same as she used to do when I was a kid.

I still have a sneaking cheek rub with that ribbon trim whenever I find some. :)

Too many to mention, It was a wonderful house ( listed 15 century 'mansion' ) Had been a working farm ( so tons of farm equipt and barns and things to play in) Horses, lakes. Fields and fields.
And the aga, and the gas cooker standing right next to it :) And the massive formica topped kitchen table with the meat hook hanging from the beams above it.
The kitchen cupboards filled with royal tea cups, watching my grandmother in the kitchen when i should have been in bed, by looking in the mirror on the spiral stairs that reflected up by my door.
Breakfast with the postman.
The open fire in the living room and feeling like you couldnt breathe when it got too hot.
The joy of walking down the drive with either grandparents to collect the paper/look for duck eggs/collect conkers/pine cones.
The fear of needing a wee and having to use the downstairs loo in dec ( hallway was full of hanging turkeys)
Christmas around the huge ( 20 seater) table. The best christmas's i shall ever have.
ah - i miss them alot. I wish my grandmother was still around.

We have those blankets nomorewine! Inherited from my Nana/Grandad. Green with ribbon - and very warm. Only get ocasional use because mainly duvets now.

Very vauge memories of GRandad sneaking me to the shop to buy a lion bar.

Nana staring into space, she never got over losing her baby.

Cold damp squaler, nana spent most of her time at ouR house tbh, her house was unfit but it was where she lost her boy so she insisted on going home to sleep.

Duchess

My own DC don't have anything like what I had but my future DGC - well. They will have the world on a plate as will yours

home made soup no matter what time of the day or night we arrived

Coal fire

trips to Whitley Bay to play on the slot machines

Being alllowed to play with my grandma's jewellry box

Mint imperials

Rag and Bone man

Watching wrestling every Sat afternoon with my grandma

White bread and Penguin biscuits, which we were never allowed at home for one set.

Coldest loo in the world and picking broad beans for the other. And my grandfather carrying on shooting (game, not people!) from his bedroom window, with the bed pushed up next to the window once he was too frail to get up much.

oh gosh have got teary reading other people's- let's see if I can do mine without just dissolving or something

our nanna's:

fire
smell of windfall apples
smell of Grandad's whisky
smell of facepowder
never ending toast plate
6 million jars of homemade jam
fresh bread on Sundays from Jewish baker's. With onions, and seeds on and everything (impossibly exotic to us)
Nanna playing her only party piece- Lullaby of the Leaves- AT FULL VOLUME
N&G whistling completely different songs in the same room at the same time
everything involving shrieking. Lots of it
beautiful lovely magical enchanted garden you could hide in
the bunch of keys for "the Labour 'All"
tobacco tins full of nails

Granny's

fresh paint (can smell stairs up to the flat she moved out of about 35+ years ago
pipe smoke
wine
gravy (they were the High Livers)
the feel of the artexy stuff in the hall
the pattern in the kitchen lino
the noise the boiler made in the bathroom- and the alarming WHOOOSH of flame
Ajax/vim
Granny off to listen "to my jazz" in the kitchen (obv too frivolous for Grandpa )
singing. Lots of singing. And scalding hot tea you could trot a mouse on. For seven year olds

my grandparents were my favourite people in the world

thanks fro the thread

the huge apple trees in the back garden that we used to climb.
buying penny chews from the local shops.
black peas? on bonfire night!

Notyummy, I'm jealous!

Old movies on the TV

Sausage, egg, bacon and chips for dinner - god i could eat this now

Very hot living room but a freezing loo and bathroom

Very loud TV - grand dad would never wear his hearing aids

War stories - never the horror stuff just about comrades and food - by Grand dad with nan being roped in for various parts!

An overwhelming feeling of being safe and loved.

Too hard now god i miss grand dad

I spent all the school holidays at my maternal grandparents with my cousins and only lost them 2 years back, miss them desperately .... the things I remember

Fried eggs on white "uncut" bread

The cubbyhole (cupboard under the stairs full of treats)

Being allowed to take the mattresses from the bed and make a slide down the stairs !! it was brilliant though.

Grandads whiskey jar full of coins

Chip shop chips late on a Saturday night (when they babysat) and being "allowed" to get out of bed at midnight and sneak down to share.

Grandma riding her bike up the lane, she used to take her leg over so that she was ready to stop and dismount all on one side, somehow?! More ladylike

Jamie, the springer spaniel. she would bring wet warm stones in her mouth and drop them in our knee to throw.

stripy wooden deckchairs

lots of things, and then sadly the bloody hospitals and illness at the end and their house changing to be a sad and neglected place, especially once grandma died.

Scary wooden faces/carvings everywhere. It was like there were loads of monsters watching you there shiny blue paua shell eyes followed you everywhere! As I grew up and understood what they were I grew to love them and respect them (I now have a few here and there in my home).

Grandads tattoos...... On his face (a Maori tradition)

Hangi in the garden- Shallow hole in ground with fire in, stones go on top, when hot slap mean and veg/kumara on top cover with flax mats and soil, leave to cook........ yummmmmmmmy!! Always had one on 6th Feb (Waitangi day)

Kapa Haka group- Used to come every weds eve for practice. Loved the puipui skirts, tiaha and mere. As got older used to join in?.. really miss kapa haka.

1/2 a waka in the garden that grandad was carving.

Granny teaching us stick games and how to swing poi.

Granny and grandad telling us Maori myths and legends before bed.

Grannys greenstone necklace, I used to sit and stroke it for hours. It now belongs to me after she left it for me in her will.

Oh, I have loads more to the ones I already listed.

DF's:

Internal doors with glass panels with swirls on.
A jigsaw my grandmother had made of Henny Penny and co.
Bedspreads and blankets, not duvets.
Those paper dolls with clothes. One of the outfits was an iceskating one.
Lots of heavy, dark wood furniture that was very different to home furniture.
Antimacassars (sp?).
Prunes with cream for breakfast, and playing "tinker tailor" with the stones.
A pond with goldfish called "Tom, Dick and Harry".
Lots of fresh fish caught by my grandfather. I don't think I actually liked it much.
Royal Doulton "lady" figurines, and various others of things like fishermen.

DM's (grandmother only as my grandfather died before I was born)

The button jar.
A mint green loo, basin and bath, with fluffy bathroom accessories.
Those trays with cushions underneath to have food on your lap. I have one of hers now.
A Siamese cat ornament, which someone she gave a Siamese kitten to gave her.
Lots of Exotic Things From Abroad, like African hunting knives and coral and shells and masks, kept in a display cupboard, along with a fan made from feathers.
Being allowed to watch what we wanted on television.
A biscuit tin with a textured lid, which I can't quite picture but would know in a second if I saw it again.

*meat and veg not mean

A big old biscuit tin full of buttons, of all colours and sizes. My sister and I used to tip them out and play with them - they were like precious jewels to us.

The cellar, where my Grandpa had all his carpentry tools and a big workbench. There was an old meat safe down there (don't remember them ever using it though). My Grandpa made me a wooden doll's caravan and my sister a little train.

I remember their kitchen so vividly. It seemed big at the time, but looking back it was tiny. They always had Radio 2 on, and they always had digestive biscuits in a tupperware box.

Their garden. There was a peach tree at the end, and I remember big white daisies, bergenias and rhubarb. We used to lay out a rug on their lawn and have dollies picnics, and do cartwheels. We used to wash our dolls' clothes in a bowl on the back doorstep and peg them out to dry. My Grandma would always make us wash our feet in the bowl on the doorstep when we'd been playing in the garden for hours. Happy days!

mrspear - your Grandads war stories sound similar to my grandads. He was taken off in the little ships Dunkirk and then landed on Sword Beach at D Day and I know he saw some terrible things, but he never spoke about them....Only the food; eating it; nicking it (from French farmyards 'we were bloody liberating the country - a few potatoes was the least they could do...) and preparing it when on 'jankers' for nicking food from French farmyards

My grandmother lived in the same terraced house for 92 years.

The sound of the out of tune piano and the very tall music stool containing ancient sheet music with fabulous illustrated covers.

The outside loo next to the coal shed.

The wartime first aid tin with never-used rolls of gauze and frightening dressing pads.

The treadle sewing machine in the front window with a narrow drawer full of two shilling pieces for the meter.

A cloth to go over the television at night.

The front door that was never locked and the constant stream of relatives and friends who came through it every day and sat down at the kitchen table for a cup of tea from the pot that never seemed to empty.

I loved staying with my grandparents.

My maternal grandmother kept a huge pot full of coins I could play with.

The lovely smell of her pasta sauces, stews, peperonata, roasted potatoes etc (I could go on for days).

She allowed me to build huts with umbrellas, cushions and anything else I could find.

She'd fall asleep after lunch while doing her crosswords and snored, I loved how she snored.

I loved the smell of her 1 a day cigarette.

The smell of the stove in her countryside house.

I spent lots of time with my maternal grandmother, also because she looked after us when my mother was working full time. I loved being with her, she was (still is, though she is very old now) the most easy going, serene person I've ever met.

My paternal grandmother lived with the tv on. She lived in a small flat which I also loved to visit, mainly because she was the best storyteller in the world, and I used to pester her to tell me yet one more story.

Like my maternal grandmother, she was a fantastic cook too.

The really long stair case.
The pain from hitting the banister ornament at the end of the said stair case.
The secret stair case to the old servants area.
the unnaturally freezing cold marble bathroom.
The shed in the garden no one was allowed in.
Sugar sandwiches in the kitchen.
Finding fag ash in the homemade cakes.

As for the other one, I've only ever been in her house once and all I remember was her washing a chicken in the sink and drying it on the tea towel, she's still alive, in an OAP home at the age of 103.

Oh yes - the storytelling!

My grandad used to tuck me in when I stayed with them (nana had had a stroke when I was two and was confined to a wheelchair.) He would tell me stories of when he was little boy growing up in Manchester in the depression following world war one. Basically quite grim stories of a large family without enough food and the threat of violence from my great grandad if you stole bread....but I loved the stories and would always want more.

The silence in the living room, but the ticking of an old cheap clock on the mantelpiece,the smell of GDs pipe billowing tobacco smoke, the wooden elephants I wasn't allowed to touch. Sitting still on the vinyl chair, having a pink tinned salmon salad and lots of bread and butter. The blue and white striped tea set in the dresser that never came out. Strictness from GD and the disregard and indifference from GM.

A feeling of 'when can we go, Mom?'