Tell me one interesting fact about one of your grandparents

[listsandbudgets]

Because I'm bored and nosey.

My nan could speak Italian but only in the imperative because she and my grand dad had Italian prisoners of war on their farm during world war 2

My grandad was at Dunkirk. He tried to get a place for his injured friend but it was standing room only and his friend couldn't stand. His friend died at Dunkirk and my grandad cried about it in the week before he died.

He was good with a rifle - farmers boy- he was left alone in a ditch and told to shoot the driver of German transport that was coming round the corner. He was told he'd only have time for one shot and the lives of his troop depended on him making it and they wouldn't be able to come back for him. He made it.

He is also grew the best tomatoes known to man.

One of my grandfathers was born in the 1880s, I’m in my 40s. He was a very late starter on the family front!

One of my grandmothers served alongside the now Queen during WW2 for a while.

My other grandad served in WW2 and like PPs he never talked about it.

Actually something which comes out here strongly is how many grandparents had PTSD from the wars - I found some shrapnel which belonged to my great grandfather and although I didn't know him I recognised it had meant something to him which I wouldn't be able to understand, and didn't want to throw it out.

So yeah I have shrapnel in a corner somewhere. I'll have to get rid of it eventually but it feels a bit like trampling on someone else's life and experiences.

A cousin researched the family history and found out that my Grandad , his mother and siblings had all spent some time in a workhouse because his dad had deserted them. It wasn't for long, a few months, but he never mentioned it to anyone. Explains a lot about him

My grandmother had 4 children and gave 1 of the middle ones up for 'adoption' basically handed her over to a very religious woman who lived in the street behind, adopted child had no idea. She only found out 5 years ago and it devastated her. I don't feel much love for that grandmother.

My nan could remember narrowly escaping an air raid being carried out by a zeppelin as a little girl in ww1. Even 80 years later she could describe the sight of this massive balloon appearing in the sky. My grandad helped make spitfires in ww2.

Not as interesting as other peoples but my Nanna went to university at age 46 to train to be a social worker. Graduated at 50 and retired at 54.
She only done it to prove to herself she could.

My grandparents aren't awfully interesting however my great uncle played football for England and is Arsenals 3rd highest goal scorer of all time. (this doesn't impress by spurs fan DH).

In WW2 my great grandmother made parachutes. She also had a pet goat that acted as the local air raid siren as it would go mad at the sound of anything flying long before any people could hear or see it coming. Later in life she had a pet Canadian goose, I loved him as a child.

My granny raised 12 children in a two bedroomed terrace, in Belfast at the height of the troubles. She then went back to work as a children’s nurse until she retired 25 years later. She was a phenomenal gardener and could grow absolutely anything (first in tubs in the back entry, then later when she moved and got a garden). She could bake like a demon too, and never measured anything, just did it all by eye. When she was wee her grandmother had a shop. My granny was the first person in her small country town to taste an Aero bar, because the salesman liked her curls and gave her one to try.

My GF was a musician who played in a brass band and an orchestra.

My other Granda was a merchant seaman before becoming land-bound. He retired at 60 and planned to tour the world, but died of cancer within 6 months. When my mum was wee he came home from sea for her birthday, but hid until she went to school. When she got back he had filled the living room with red balloons for her to play with. I suspect he was a fascinating man, and I’m sorry I never got to know him well.
His wife, my other GM, is still alive, much good may it do her. She believes she is Scarlet O’Hara.
She isn’t.

Archbishop!

My grandmother worked at Bletchley Park during the war. She was very bright.

My grandad was illegitimate and this caused him immense shame- he never told my DGran or and of his children, as if that would have mattered one jot.

My DGran (mums side) lied about her age when she got married, she pretended she was younger than she was.

My other grandad's mum was actually his grandmother. His 'sister' got into 'trouble' so to save face she was sent away and then was overlay besotted with her new baby brother

My grandad was in the IRA and set warehouses on fire in Liverpool during the war of independence.

My maternal grandfather was expected to die of malaria during ww1.

My maternal GM always carved the Sunday joint, because her father taught her how - he was a surgeon.

I'm finding it odd hearing about your grandparents as I think they'd be the same age as my parents! My dad was youngest of 8(15 years from start to finish)and I'm the youngest of 6 (18 years start to finish). When I hear you talk of ww2 - I think that was my dad!

But kind of another grandparents story... When my dad was called up in ww2, my grandma wrote to the army begging them not to take her baby as they'd got all her other boys (5 others). He was so embarrassed and to ribbed for years..

My grandad sold his stamp collection to raise the money to bring his wife and two children to England. It must have been an awesome collection!

He came to England knowing no one and knocked on the door of the local RC priest who helped him find lodgings. When my grandma made the 6 week journey several months later and she didn't recognise him due to weight loss!

When I think of that journey it makes doing anything on my own with the DC look like a doddle. 6 weeks on a boat with a 4yr old and an 8yo .

And thousands of families did this. It always amazes me how brave they were to up root their family for a better life half way round the world.

My grandparents saved all their money for retirement. They retired in their early fifties, went to university and studied art / art history for 3years. Once finished, they travelled all over the world during the summer buying postcards (!) & spending time drawing and painting during the winter months. (Using their postcards for inspiration.)
They are now in their 80's & still going strong, minus the travelling abrod.

Maternal grandfather was a barber on the Santa Fe Railroad between Chicago and Los Angeles in the early 1900s. Got off the train in a small town in California in 1912 for a coffee and decided he liked the place, went back and got Grandma, pulled up stakes and moved to that little town and opened a barber shop. He was known as the 'Whistling Barber'.

Paternal grandparents emigrated with their parents from Cornwall in the late 1800s to work in the gold mines in the Mother Lode. Grandfather contracted 'miner's phthisis' and moved to Southern California and bought a citrus ranch.

My Grandad was also in Burma and was a parachutist as when he enlisted he went for the role that paid the most (guessing as a private).

He was dropped in the jungle, got malaria, lost all his teeth because of it and someone stole his rations and boots as they thought he was dead/dying. Somehow made it out and never allowed spam in the house again. According to my mum he never spoke about his time in Burma but his hate of spam.

I never met my other grandad, he was in the army in ww2 & my dad said that as a small boy he found some gruesome photos of the atrocities that his dad had come across in Yugoslavia, not sure who committed them could've been the Germans or could've been the Croatian Paramilitaries.

The photos affected my dad badly so god knows how actually seeing those things affected my grandad.

My mums dad drove a tank in ww2 Burma; he saved a man from a burning plane & got mentioned in dispatches.
But he also ran over an attacking Japanese soldier in his tank which haunted him in later years.
After he died we found Japanese money, photos & a diary which must have come from a dead Japanese soldier. Why did he take them? As a trophy or as curiosity?

My grandad was an ostler in the pit. ( looked after the pit ponies)

My grandma had a baby at 15, it bought shame on the family. But not on her because she was angry at being told she should be ashamed so she had another one.
My grandad had a rough life, he was poor and neglected. He was the best grandad ever, he was kind man that would do anything for his family. He would wait at the bus stop when I finished school and take me to the shop and make me whatever I wanted for tea - how did he know to do that when no one ever did that for him?
Ahhh I am crying now

All of my grandparents died before I was 13 which I'm really sad about. Some of them died before I was born. My mum's mum was the one I knew the most. She was a lovely person. She used to take me and my sister to the little sweet shop on the road she lived on when we went to visit, and we'd go to different parks for days out with her and my mum. I liked it around there (stoke on trent).

My mum's dad was a coal miner.

My lovely old gran on my mums side used to take my mum to pick up lost coal on the railway tracks to heat their room and kitchen with. I only ever remember when I was young that she looked like the queens mother and was very proper and correct, it wasn’t
Till I was an adult my mum told me how poor they had been, relaying on the church and the pawn shop, a life I can never imagine. I love and miss them both.