Things that remind you of your grandparents

[RosesAndHellebores]

Mine died 20 years ago and would be 110ish now but I still miss them so much

The bolster on the bed
An old silky jacquard pink blanket that went under the eiderdown
Warm milk with a teaspoon of grated nutmeg
The sweet bowl next to the fruit bowl
Shape with jelly
Pies
Gin and Its
A kitchen that wasn't always spotless
Whiff of horse, hay and Goddard's linament and occasionally Shalimar
Complete no nonsense attitude but so so kind
Every time I look at dd: petite, blonde, blue eyed and the image of grannie (and named for her)

@YewandOak my mum still has her MIL's glass powder bowl and a tray, and various other dressing table bits. My mum is 85 and will have had them for 50 years or so!

For food - scrambled eggs with cheese, skinless sausages, Werther's originals, chips and gravy, corner beef hash! And old school Saturday night TV - Stars in their Eyes, Catchphrase, Gladiators etc. Also flowers, especially daffodils!

Lurpak on thick, white toast.
Optics (they had a bar in their living room in the 80s!)
Playing cards

I miss them

@DrIrisFenby

Bizarrely enough, it's the smells I remember most. The smell of tomato vines is my Grandad's greenhouse and the smell of minted potatoes is my Grandma's kitchen!

Came on here to say the smell of tomato vines!

I utterly adored my grandfather. He ignored his cancer so as not to worry anyone, and died 2 weeks after telling his brother In law, who was also his best friend. He walked for leisure and cycled for local transport (despite driving until he died), and was pretty straightforward. Fought in WW2, called up at 19. Married his sweetheart on leave and had 3 children. Trained as an accountant, got the train to London everyday and retired at 50, just before I was born. He instilled in me a love of the outdoors, and my need to “stretch my legs and eyes” every day. We used to walk miles round the Sussex lanes and South Downs, with a little gold coloured travel sweet tin, collecting whatever was interesting or seasonal - acorns, birds egg shells (never whole eggs!), holly berries, flint... at this time of year the first catkins on the trees remind me so much of him, although I’m old enough now that I only had him for less than half my life. A solid, stoic Edwardian fellow, with Brylcremed hair and a selection of hand knitted cable jumpers in a variety of earthy colours. There is a saying that women marry their fathers, but there is a great deal of my grandfather in DH.

Blue baslidon bond writing paper.

In 1990, I went to university. There were no phones, only pay phone you could ring out on, so we relied on getting post - big highlight.
I was always close to my dad's parents growing up- and for 3 years, every week, my gran would write. She had arthritis, so her writing was shaky. Grandpa would do the envelopes. Blue Basildon bond paper. Once a month, I got £5.
This continued until 2 weeks before I left- I found out she was really ill. She died the day before I got my degree result, she had lung cancer, but had kept it from my grandpa for ages. She was 73. Grandpa lived til 2007, he just missed his 90th birthday.

I kept those letters for 20 years, ,until I sadly got a leak in the room they were in ,and they got damaged.

(There were very dull letters, by the way- mostly full of people who had died, that that I had never met ).

My other granny is still alive (much younger, she was only 90 last year). When she goes- I think it wil be the smell of Coty L' Aimant that will remind me of her. And her knitting. She still knits.

The smell of loose leaf tea. My grandparents had a tea leaf dispenser in their kitchen & I was allowed to press it when I visited.

Indian tea masala. My gran used to grind it at home fresh every other day and used to smell of it constantly. But lately looking at DS reminds me of her too - he’s the spitting image of her.

Coalfires - my nanny's house in a valleys street.

@iklboo

The smell of loose leaf tea. My grandparents had a tea leaf dispenser in their kitchen & I was allowed to press it when I visited.

This sounds amazing!

The big blue pot of Nivea cream and the pot of Astral? Cream in a green and yellow tub.
Travel sweets in a tin.
Werther's sweets.
Hand crocheted cloths for the side tables
The biggest selection of knitting needles, yarns and gold threads

Forgot to add, grandad would only have sugar cubes in his tea, never the loose sugar.

Sterilising tablets for false teeth - my grandpa had false teeth and they used to save the Steradent tubes and fill them with any new-minted coins they got, and my sister and I would each get a tube full of shiny coins for Christmas.

Also, teas maids as they'd got one as a retirement present when my grandpa retired (in 1977). It was by their bed the rest of their lives.

@orangejuicer - it was red plastic & wall mounted. You pressed a button on the top and a teaspoon of tea would be dispensed into the pot. It was SO exciting as a four year old!

It's often the smells that remind me. The other day I bought a different pack of smoked bacon to normal and something about the smell of it was like being in a time warp.
I lost mine over 20 years ago but they're alive in my memories like I saw them yesterday.
The sight of them smiling and waving like mad at the gate when we pulled up, my grandad in his dungarees holding a spade and my grandma in her apron. My grandad digging in the garden to grow his potatoes, the smell of the tomatoes in the greenhouse, the crunch of the sandy soil and the smell of inside the coal shed and the noise it made when it rattled into the bucket as he was filling it.
The patterned carpet in their kitchen, my grandma's decorative novelty tea pot collection on the dresser, the cold dark pantry, the taste of the beef dripping chips from the chip pan.
The imperial leather soap, the pale yellow bathroom suite and the sound of the motorway through the tiny bathroom window.
Their smiles, warmth and the time they spent doing things with me like painting, blackberrying, painting pine cones, showing me the same old photos I always wanted to look at, making things out of old Christmas cards. Chasing my grandma across the beach on the north east coast and collecting shells. Then they'd stand by the gate and wave until we were out of sight and I'd be looking out of the back window of the car waving like mad at them and trying not to get upset when we left.
They really really didn't have much at all but they gave me the absolute world.
I miss them terribly. I keep my grandad's old ash tray on my coffee table, I always find myself compulsively drawn to the yellow sticker section in the supermarket because of them and because the way they were so frugal had a big impact on me. I keep a budgie because I love them and became used to one being around. The chirping takes me back for a moment to being in their house.
I'd give anything to have them back. I admire them so much. They had so little but they were very happy, content and admirable people.

@Raahh, you’re about the same age as me, and your grandparents similar ages to mine. Hiding cancer, just how brave is that? My grandad did it too. My granny wrote to me every week too. I wish I’d kept the letters. You’re right, their content was generally very dull, but then fact that they were written was so comforting.

Cigarette smoke
Horse racing
Trilby hats
UHT milk
Stories (more exaggerated on every telling)

Bike my grandpa was a terrible hypochondriac, always on his 'last legs' (and until his latter years- never ill!)- so my gran never let on because she didn't want to worry him. My dad was really embarrassed, because when they went to register gran's death, grandpa refused to accept that it was cancer , and caused a bit of a scene.
She had told him it was pleurasy.
It was comforting getting the letters- the little blue envelopes .

DK123 your post made me well up. What you said about not having much but giving you the world - I identify totally.

I keep thinking of more!
Whenever we were ill (ill enough to be in bed) my grandma would insist on sending Lucozade and a bunch of red seeded grapes. To her they would cure all ills. I hated the seeds!

Linen and lace antimacassars hanging over the tops of their armchairs. And I think they had similar arm protectors on the chairs too. I sometimes see antimacassars in charity shops and it immediately reminds me of my grandparents. I don't think anyone uses them these days.

Grandma took up sugarcraft in middle age and she was in great demand for intricately decorated celebratory cakes. If I ever see handmade sugar flowers I think of her.

Even more memories coming back - grandad used to take me rock pooling and we'd spend hours turning over rocks spying little crabs, counting winkles and hunting for sea anemones, examining cockle shells and collecting sea worn glassy tiny "stones" in blue, green, red and brown.

And grannie dressing up for night out, usually in a long floaty chiffon dress. Her hair would have been shampooed and set that day and I recall she had "evening glasses" - much posher than her usual ones and with diamanté at the top. Which reminds me of the many pairs of glasses they both had, a pair often perched on their head if they had their reading glasses on. What a bother that must have been.

Oh, and granddad's cabled cardigans with leather buttons.

But like most others here, the sheer unconditional love and time to listen and overwhelming interest. Although I recall grannie once wanting to gossip with a visitor and needing me out of the kitchen. She told me I could come back with a feral cat when I'd caught it. So I did - it took me what seemed like ages and then she was cross because my arms were very scratched :)

When I first went to work at my book place they have a noisy printer on the shop floor

When I heard it I was taken right back to Saturday afternoons where my Grandad would listen to the football scores as they came off the teleprinter (on tv)

And the music. They loved the big band swing music. My grandma particularly liked Joe Loss and Glenn Miller, I really remember her playing songs like "Pennsylvania 6-5000" "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and us jumping around to it in their house

I also keep thinking of more and am going to nominate this little haven of loveliness for Classics. Beats the made up CF stories any day of the week.

Mine also had a black and white telly but we're addicted to snooker, and yes, always knew the colours.

Tuesday was my favourite day because my Bunty comic arrived at their house, and it was also the day they bought cream cakes (which actually had synthetic (or as we called it, sympathetic) cream in)
Grandad used to give me 20p a week and on a Friday would take me into (the very small) town to spend it. I wanted a new (fluffy obvs) pencil case (bright orange or fuchsia- it was the 70s) some Platignum brand felt tips and The Horse and His Boy. I'd saved for a few weeks and was sure I had enough. I didn't, but I got them anyway because Grandad chipped in with more.
The Insurance Man called every Friday and would have a cup of tea. Gran's sister lived about 20 mile away but it was 3 buses away, and when they took me to see her it was like stepping back in time. She cooked on a range thing (she'd probably feature in some wanky design mag today) (I feel bad saying "wanky" in the same sentence as talking about Aunty Elsie) and wore a shade over her eyes. There was a "bunker" in the garden which I'm thinking was probably an old air raid shelter that are kept coal in.

There was always lots of excitement surrounding birth, death and marriage. If anyone on the street died, everyone would close their curtains until the hearse had left. They had neighbours younger than them but who enjoyed (well, the wife did, as she, in the words of my gran "has buried 3 already) ill health, and I can remember at various points them knocking on the dividing wall for my Gran and Grandad to go round and help them.

We went to Lil-down-the-street's house to watch Princess Anne's wedding in colour.
I can never hate the Royals as I always just think that my grandparents loved and respected them so much. They'd be devastated at all the hoohah.

On Christmas Day my paternal grandparents would go to their niece's house while we went to my maternal ones. On Boxing Day I then went to Dad's parents for my second load of Christmas presents. Grandad always made me and my mum up a parcel of about 30 chocolate bars each.

I once found a book at one house inscribed to "Lena" My gran was Phyllis. When I asked, she'd been in service in the south of England and the family, as was then tradition, said "all our kitchen maids are called Lena".

Favourite colours were mauve, fawn and duck egg blue.
Scents were June (came in a tiny bottle) and 4711 for one, and Norman Hartnell In Love and Houbigant Chantilly for the other.
Imperial Leather and Pears the only soap. I wanted to try Camay as I loved the advert, and my Gran said it was rubbish, and frivolous. I think she meant a bit trollopy.

When I went to university I would, at the beginning of each term, take with me a huge hamper containing such necessities as Coop 99 tea bags, lard, Vim and Brillo Pads, and Fray Bentos pies.

OP, thank you for this thread.

This thread made me cry I miss them so much.
They were 90 and died at the turn of the century.

The smell of dove soap. I've bought it for the bathroom all my adult life I couldn't bear not to.

Candlestick bedspreads worn thin. Ticking clocks and a piano arms knitting and the tv times.

A big pile of Big Comics grandad saved for me when I came to stay.

Sunday tea with dairy Lea and crisps and jelly and blamange which I can't spell. Grandma would always say 'have you had sufficient?'

Grandma wearing a smart dress with a broach at the neck with her shampoo and set she looked like the queen.

Like others the greenhouse smell of the tomato plants.

My very gentle greyhound sitting with her head on grandads knee so he could stroke her and him repeating over and over how beautiful she was. My last memory of him alive.

When my grandad died and we went to clear the house I thought it would break me but I walked in the door and the smell of their lives was already gone. They had gone and it was just a house.