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 dear GM, who is like a mum to me, lost her husband 26 years ago. He was the love of her life and he had saved her from an abusive marriage to husbannd number 2 and before that marriage she was abused by husband number 1.

She cries whenever she hears his favourite song. She is an absolute treasure.

When my mum's mum was 87 and losing her sight, she could still do the Times crossword in her head if you read out the clues.

My grandfather had a wooden leg. I never knew him, but this was family folklore. None of us kids (me, DB and my cousins) ever thought to ask how he had lost his leg and none of my older relations even realised he had a wooden leg, although they all remember him limping! I am trying to find out what happened, but so far my search has led nowhere.

My other grandfather died in his early 50s of a heart attack and his brother, also in his early 50s, died 3 weeks later, also of a heart attack.

Great-grandfathers on both sides of the family were born illegitimately in 1871 and the mother of one of them was only 14!

I'm German and my paternal grandfather never learned to drive a car but still had a license.
He had learned how to ride a motorbike and to drive a lorry during the war, so after the war the authorities thought that good enough for him to have a driving license for cars as well.
Not sure, they were correct, he always drove like he owned the road and it was a very happy day when he finally handed over the keys to us and gave up driving.

My paternal grandmother was convinced by her then three year old granddaughter to pour herself a glass of wine while babysitting, and while she looked out of the window to check if my granddad was coming, I drank the whole glass. She was shocked and felt quite guilty but rumour has it, that I slept very, very well that night.

My other grandfather was diagnosed with cancer in October 1978 and given six months, they didn't tell my mum as she was pregnant with me and they didn't want to trigger early labour.
He was consistently given six months until he died in July 2001. In the meantime he had also had five heart attacks, all of which he survived and recovered from very well.

This grandfather was also tasked to "steal" from the department store my grandmother worked in, to see if their security worked.

He was actually a very lovely man, just completely dominated and hen pecked by my grandmother, who was not a nice person.

My grandfather told the family he had been in the merchant navy for many years we discovered after he died that he’d actually been in prison for th attempted murder of his first wife we no one knew existed 😱

My great grandfather worked as a fireman during ww2 and his wife my Great Gran had a relationship before him where she got pregnant out of wedlock (talking around 1915 ) and was forced to give the baby up. Apparently this caused quite a scandal in her local area. She lived till the age of 94 and died when i was 13

My maternal granny always regretted not becoming a nun. She was the only girl in her family and her mother died when she was very young. She was the woman of the house and when she told her father that she wanted to go into the convent he refused to pay the dowry. He wanted her to stay at home to look after him and her brothers.
She raised 8 children and had 35 grandchildren but she would often talk about how she would have loved to have been a nun.

My other granny was an alcoholic, she had 8 babies by at least 3 different men, (that we know of) all while married to my granddad. Eventually they divorced and she remarried but when her second husband died, tragically, granddad moved back in to take care of her and stayed till she died.

My maternal grandparents met aged 17 and were married 66 years.
My paternal GF drove ambulances in the war with an American called Granville. My DF was given this name as his middle name in his memory. My DF hated it all his life.

She went to Florence nightingales funeral

My grandfather was away in the war (and for a time after), leaving my granny at home with two young children. At the end of the war, my Granny employed a former member of the Polish free army to help her with gardening and odd jobs around the home (let's call him Mr P). Meanwhile, my Great Aunt (Granny's sister) was volunteering at a Red Cross camp in East Africa. The sisters wrote regularly, and in the course of the correspondence worked out that Mr P's wife, Mrs P was in that camp. They worked hard to get Mrs P over to the UK to be reunited. I met Mrs P at Granny's funeral, and she was still grateful for the help. Mr and Mrs P went on to have four children, and they all went on to be wildly successful in life (a consultant surgeon, General Counsel at a major multinational etc).

For those that don't know, when the Russians "liberated" Poland, thousands of Poles were taken to parts of the Soviet Union and placed in camps. Mrs P had been one of those, and she escaped, travelling on foot from the Ukraine, through Iran and Iraq until she got into British territory. (I can't remember how she ended up in E.Africa - I wish I'd had a dictaphone running when Mrs P was telling me this story).

My grandfather was the child of a rubber tycoon in Malaysia and his third wife (rubber tycoon was a polygamist). First wife was very jealous of third wife and tried to poison her, so when third wife tragically died of TB, her last wish on her death bed was for her children to go to her sister. During the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, my grandfather was made to carry bombs as a 11 year old.

His father lost all his money later on.

My nan got pregnant out of wedlock and got sent to a home, run by nuns in Leicester. My grandad went and got her out of there and they got married. The baby wasn't even his.

@Bluntness100

My paternal grandfather came over from Italy at the age of 19. He spoke no English, as he was not schooled here, he was one of nine, the eldest, and stayed behind to close up and sell the farm. He was horribly bullied by scottish people, particularly soldiers, who deeply abused him, normally in the method of shouting abuse in the street or coming into the shop to do it.

They became very affluent through owning a number of fish and chip shops. He never forgot and sadly he never forgave the abuse he took as a young immigrant. He was shouted at, beaten, men, namely soldiers, would come into thr shop and try to drag him over the counter to beat him. All because he was a perceived as a lowly immigrant. Nothing more.

What's more sad, is they lived in the gorbals in Glasgow when they landed. And they were noted as the family who made the big bowls of pasta and fed the neighbours due to the extreme poverty, they were loved and respected.. But they were deeply abused due to their immigrant status outwith.

Forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years later, all anyone saw was affuent and polite people, well dressed in a beautiful house, their accents all but gone, respected within their communities.Their immigration status long forgotten. No one asked any more.My grandmother got past it but my grandfather never did. A proud man who was deeply hurt by the abuse he received.

Sometimes I look at immigrants today, how they are treated, the ones who work hard, who in fifty, sixty, seventy years will be part of our landscape and no longer perceived as immigrants and will likely be affluent and respected, and realise, sometimes, just sometimes, we don't change as a people.

You seldom hear the phase " dirty Iti"any more. Being Italian heritage is something I'm proud of, that people think is cool, no one has ever called me a dirty iti, but let's be honest, we hear similar about other nationalities. It's actually very sad.

I appreciate this is 2 years after this post, but...

Made me think of my Great Grandmother who arrived on a troop ship from Malta in WW2, with her 2 young daughters. Didn't speak English.
Landed in Glasgow. Can you imagine the culture shock?
(I hope she didn't get abuse). Brave brave woman
She slowly worked her way south and lived in Kent for many years, but returned home to Malta and died there 20 years ago, tiny, wizened, mahogany brown and really salty to the end.

I remember her as a fairly fearsome matriarch clad in black.
But she gave all her grandchildren (but one, whom she didn't like, rightly so imo) the money for a deposit for the first house, despite being so poor upon arrival that she went to the greengrocers stall in the market at the end of the day to haggle for the fruit and veg being thrown out. Hard working and persistent she helped her kids always.
She also, despite being a staunch Catholic and my being born 'on the wrong side of the blanket' included me in her will the same as all her other great grandchildren. It wasn't much money, but it meant the world to me.
It is interesting what you write @Bluntness100
I have always thought the Scots less racist than the English but sadly all nations are prone to 'othering' others I think?

My Grampy was one of the first people to enter Bergen-Belsen camp as part of its liberation.

I firmly believe that the things he saw turned him to drink and over the following 30 years he drank himself to death.

My gramma got pregnant at sixteen and grampa was twenty six. They had seven kids an were uber Roman Catholic.

My Granny absolutely belived that the Queen Mother was a second cousin( from what had been the poor side of the family) because she had a very old sampler done by an Elizabeth Bowe and some distant relatives from N E England ( she was a lowland Scot).
I could find absolutely no corroborating evidence after her death.

My Paternal Grandmother was runner up in the North West Annual Cotton Queen competition (a beauty type contest for female mill workers). She won the local heat of the competition (Salford) and went on to place 2nd in the final. I can't remember what year it was but it would have been in the late 30's. We have an old, yellowed letter filed away in a drawer full of sentimental stuff.

Article attached for more information about the competition, there's no mention of any runner up's names: www.boltonrevisited.org.uk/s-cotton-queens.html

My Maternal Grandma was a Silver Service waitress at Manchester Town Hall. Whilst working there she served lots of famous folk and royalty. Nanna particularly liked Princess Margaret and thought Princess Michael of Kent was beautiful.

@Animum2

My great grandfather worked as a fireman during ww2 and his wife my Great Gran had a relationship before him where she got pregnant out of wedlock (talking around 1915 ) and was forced to give the baby up. Apparently this caused quite a scandal in her local area. She lived till the age of 94 and died when i was 13

Aww, was your Great Gran ever reunited with her child? Bless her.

@Hoppinggreen

My Grandad fought in Burma wpand was captured by a The Japanese. He spent a horrific time in a POW camp where he saw people beheaded and disembowelled. He was sent to work on the Railway ( Bridge over The River Kwai) and expected to die there but while they were on the way the war ended and the Japanese ran away, leaving them locked in the railway carriages to die. They broke out and after a couple of days with no food or water The Americans arrived and saved the few of them still alive He never forgave and when he was offered compensation he refused to take it. He literally couldn’t look at a South East Asian man without having a breakdown. Also, while he was in the POW camp my Gran thought he was dead and “moved on” so when get did eventually get home there was a bit of a surprise waiting for him - my Mum! We still aren’t exactly sure who her father ( my real Grandad) was, my Gran would never tell, if she even knew

From what I know this could be my gramps exact story from the war. 🤣 you aren't Scottish are you?

My grandfather sentenced the last man to hang in Ireland.

@Hoppinggreen

Just scrolling through old threads and found this about your grandad. I genuinely had to look to see if I'd wrote it. Word for word it could be my grandad except for the baby was my uncle and not my mum. The rest of though, POW in Burma, worked on the bridge over the Kwai, the American rescue the lot

One grandfather has a street named after him. My grandmother was still alive when it was built, had only moved about five miles away, but was never asked if she approved or wanted to cut a tape or something. My grandmother found out via a friend's Christmas card.

My grandfather was the first man in the history of our family to get the vote. Like the majority of men that fought in the trenches of WW1 he never got it until the 1918 election. I never realised this until I was helping my daughter do research of a school project on the Pankhurst's.

My granddad was in the merchant navy, the boat he was on was sunk by a german uboat during ww2, he survived!

Met my wife a few years ago, she is Austrian, we went over to visit her family, i got talking to her granddad who spoke great English, i knew he was a ww2 veteran in the german navy, i hadnt realised he was an officer aboard a uboat, then it dawned on me, he could of been on the uboat that sunk my granddads ship!

He was a great man, we used to go visit them a lot and i would stay up very late drinking whiskey with him and he would tell me all the storys from the war, he was very successful after the war, became a lawyer and then went on to be a professor and taught at uni!

He died last year, and to my surprise he left me his medals, which included the knights cross, i was so humbled by this, i had a lovely medal cabinet made for them, and his hung up in our home!