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

I didn't know any of my grandparents, but my dad (who was 50 when I was born, so almost grandparent territory ) worked at DuPont with Joseph Shivers to develop Lycra in the 50s.

My maternal Great Grandparents ran a theatrical boarding house.
My Grandad was a navigator during WW2 and crewed Lancaster bombers. He flew over the DAY landings and always said it was the most moving thing he had ever seen.

My Grandad was very good with babies and had a knack of getting them to sleep.

My great great grandfather dressed royalty

My Grandmother played the piano during the silent movie era. She was so engrossed in the films she forgot to play.

She also never cooked again when the first chip shop opened in the village.

Great idea for a thread.

My grandad was a speaker on speakers corner :)

In the 60's Grandma and Grandad took my mum to France and they also took their car with them on the plane! Drove it on there, drove it off again once they'd arrived in France.

Grandad was born with a caul. 5 years fighting in WW2, he would only tell me and my brother about the food they ate and the people he knew - never what he actually saw. He apparently once told my mum when he was drunk but that was the only time.

My Grandpa lied about his age to get into the army (second time of trying) and was shipped off to Afghanistan at the age of 14. I now have a 14 year old and can’t imagine how tough and resourceful he must have been.

My grandma was the first girl in the whole of the Rotherham area to have her hair cut in an Eton crop.

My Grandma worked at the Cadbury's factory in Birmingham.

Not strictly speaking Granddad but my great uncle was shot down during the war over iceland and wrote " send cigs " rather than SOS in the snow - it is apparently in a book - I would love to know if anyone recognises it

My German Grandmother was a Communist spy. She didn’t like talking about it.

My grandad cheated death 3 times, once during WW2 when the RAF plane he was supposed to be on was shot down, no one survived. He'd been sent to collect supplies and the truck broke down or he would have been back in time to be on board.

Then he was in a car accident which both he and his friend walked away from unscathed, no one could understand how as the car was absolutely mangled.

Then he became suddenly ill one Christmas when I was a teenager, he was diagnosed with gangrene in his bowel and we were told he would die within a few days. But he didn't, he got steadily stronger and was discharged two weeks later, doctor said there was no medical explanation for his recovery and that he was not the first 'Christmas miracle' she'd seen! He died 3 years ago aged 98, I miss him so much

My great-grandad was on the Jarrow March, and prior to that had been shipped off to WW1 in chains, due to being drunk and disorderly. Whilst there he saved several wounded men by going back into No Man's Land for them - one of their sons later tracked down his family (he was long gone by then) to say thank you, as had he not done so he would not exist!

In spite of - or perhaps because of it, he suffered terribly from shellshock, or PTSD as we now know it - he was not a very kind or gentle husband or father. My grandma was the only one of 5 children to stand up to him. She once laced his rum with salt to try and stop him drinking, and would put herself between him and her mother when he went for her.

My grandma was a natural redhead, and when my grandad asked for permission to marry her, he was told "you're a braver man than I am, if you're going to marry the ginger-haired bugger."

Grandad had taken one look at my Grandma, in church one Sunday, and decided to marry her - if only, he claimed, so he could see what the beautiful red hair looked like when not covered with a scarf. As part of his courtship, he took himself off to ballroom dancing lessons, so he'd be able to ask her to dance. He was a six foot bricklayer with a boxer's build (he was also an illegal prize fighter), but for the next 50 years or so they moved together with incredible grace on the dancefloor.

My grandfather was a communist- went over and fought against Franco in Spain. When he was call d up for the war, he refused as a conscientious objector because he believed if Britain had got involved earlier, racism in Germany would t have happened. Spent the war locked up, abused and spat at as a coward, yet had multiple medals from his time in Spain.

My paternal grandfather was tighter than Scrooge. My Dad used to meet him every Wednesday for lunch. At the end of lunch Grandpa would say "I can't remember who paid last time, I think it might be your turn." And Dad would agree that it was his turn and pay. After Grandpa died, my Dad found his old diaries. Every Wednesday there was an entry 'Lunch with paid.' (Grandpa's estate when he died was over IR£1 million, just in case anyone kindly thinks that he was embarrassed about being too poor to pay for lunch He enjoyed the challenge of saving money.)

My grandmother was young nurse during the war, and worked in a sort of a postnatal unit that had had to relocate. She once told me she used to sort-of-secretly sneak into the baby room at night to cuddle all the lovely babies, especially if they were fussing. Apparently they all had that lovely baby smell, and she was super-broody, but unmarried. (She did go on to have her own babies after the war, of course, or she wouldn't be my grandmother!)

My jewish Grandmother was evacuated during the war to a lovely Christian family who she remained in touch with throughout their lives. I met them as a child and remember her evacuee 'parent' as a great aunt.

She used to go to church with them and help with the bellows on the pipe organ. Which led to her once telling me, perfectly straight faced "it's not every good jewish girl who's blown as organ you know" 😁

My maternal Gran is a distant cousin of Esther Williams, who was a synchronised swimmer/actress.
When her husband was dying of stomach cancer. she nursed him at home and went to see if there was any assistance she could get from the council. They offered her a blanket and she told them to stick it up their arse.
My Dad's mum was a gypsy.

My grandmother was Bertrand Russell’s housekeeper.

My grandfather was in the 8th Arny Desert Rats and learned to drive in a tank.

My grandmother became pregnant in Dublin by a married man in the 1930s and gave birth in a workhouse for unmarried mothers. My father spent years looking for her and she’d had three other children by then, two of which she’d tried to give to her sister. Her sister also had a child out of wedlock and was sent to the nuns and had her baby taken away.

I had a grandfather on each side in WWI.

I think my grandfather was involved in a notorious sectarian murder.

My grandfather was a conscientious objector in WW2. He joined the volunteer fire watch and spent most of the London blitz on rooftops spotting fires and physically dealing with live incendiary devices. He was threatened with imprisonment despite this and, as it turned out, being in a reserved occupation. It was a significant social stigma that neither he nor my grandmother ever really spoke about.