What did your grandparents do for a living?

[bobsmum]

Just been pondering about the skills etc my grandparents had. And wondering how to keep some of them alive or at least be a bit more clued up about my past IYSWIM

On my dad's side:
Grandpa was a cooper, played the saxophone and clarinet in the army band and kept bees.
Gran was a dinner lady in later life, but need to find out what she did before children. Made fab mice pies and steak pie. They lived in a prefab for years after the war.

On my mum's side:
Papa worked in the thread mills, was in the navy and made jam. Was an amazing handyman - made me a dolls house and my brother a ride on steam train.
Gran was a nurse, a mad keen knitter and had a hostess trolley fully stocked with cakes on all tiers every time we visited. She loved decorating.

Anyone else?

both grandmas did noit have much education, neither went past primary school. both SAHM with loads of help though so i doubt they did much cleaning and tidying.

My Mum's dad was a postman but before that he was a naval cadet until he got invalided out with a metal plate in his arm.

My Mum's mum worked work for Rowntrees packaging fruit pastilles. Not surprisingly she had not teeth by the age of 45! A lot of the time she was a SAHM.

My Dad's dad was a builder/labourer but also served in WWI and was disabled as a result of a gas attack so I don't think he worked much.

My Dad's mum was a SAHM as far as I know but she had 7 children so it wasn't surprising reall

My mums parents
Nan packed chocolates at Rowntrees for years and years and when she came home she smelt of chocolate
She tap danced aswell.
Grandad played the saxophone, baratone and clarinet for the army band in the war and then carried on in his leisure time but he worked as a plumber/handyman for Rowntrees.
Oh and also fighting the fat cats of Rowntrees for them to get rid of asbestos in the factory.

My dads side.
Nan didnt work at all but grandad was a plumber handyman with my other grandad.

headteacher
sahm/bipolar disorder sufferer
engineer in a power station
dressmaker with a break to make tank shells during ww2

Both of my Grandfathers ran a power plant together and both of my Grandmothers were homemakers

mums side:
Father:gentleman farmer and full time career in the dept of agriculture. mum remembers going to visit tennent farmers in hovels with him in the 1940's to inspect potatoes.
her mum was later a farmer's wife with a vast vegetable garden, and earlier a nurse during the Great War( age 16 ) and also the 2nd world war.(aged about 40)
They were the first people in the their town with a tv set which they bought in 1953 for The Coronation.Over 100 people came to watch it !
They had to postpone their wedding because it snowed so heavily that they couldn't get down the lane to the church.They were eventually married a month later.
Dads side:
Father: an auctioneer & valuer all his
life. died in his sleep aged 80
Mother: a housewife whose Jewish parents fled Eastern Europe between the Wars.
Died two days after her husband 'of a broken heart'

My Dads, Dad was a cranemaker and my Mums, Dad was a postmaster. Both fought in the 1st World war
My Dad fought in the 2nd World War and interestingly enough my Dad was a baker , who was the British champian maker of Hovis bread for many years.

Mum's mum - homemaker - except for shortbreak in WWII to help with the Enigma code thing(!)
Mum's dad - Crazy nuclear scientist for the Americans

Dad's dad - Head of Covent Garden fruit & veg market
Dad's Mum - Hat maker for Harrods

That sounds quite fancy I think!! I'm not..

Wow! I love this thread! Never imagined it would spark so many fab replies!

oma - seamstress making dolls clothes
opa - died in the war

grandma - nurse
grandad - nurse

apparently we're desended from the spanish royal family, from my mum's side...

[preen]

On my dad's side -My grandfather wasa chemist in South Africa. he died just before my dad was born, although they had I think moved back to Scotland by that point.
My granny didn't work.

On my mum's side, my Grandad was in (Ithink, the East Sussex) and fought at El Alameina nd in Africa under the command of Monty. When he got demobbed he became first a conductor and then a driver on the London buses. When mum and dad got married her mum and dad moved to scotland as well, where he became a postie.
My granny was in the Women's Army during the war, not sure what she did. Then she had my mum, and worked 3 days a week in a shop in peckham where they lived. She died in accident when she was just 54

Saltire that's interesting. My grandfather was a chemist in South Africa too. He was in Johannesburg and owned Franks Pharmacy.

My granny was an housewife.

On my mother's side, my grandfather owned a department store that originally started in Manchester but he was based in Birmingham. It is no more. BHS bought them back in the late 60s.

My maternal granny was also an housewife.

This is a fab thread...

My mum's side: Mother was a private nurse (people paid her to look after their relatives at home, usually with terminal illnesses), and then matron of a nursery (for tiny babies when their mums went to work). Father was a psychiatric nurse (found a book of rules for his hospital a few years ago. Amazing rules such as "patients heads are not to be kept under water for any reason"!!!)...

My dad's side: good question actually. I know that his dad was an olympic ice hockey player, and worked for his father, but I don't know what as/what they did... my grandmother was a mother, and as far as I can tell sat at her escritoire writing letters, or played the piano. She didn't know one end of the kitchen from another when they came over as refugees in the war without servants. Soon learnt I would imagine. Her husband stayed and was a resistant worker. Died in a concentration camp.

My maternal granddad was a pilot in the RAF during ww2 and served in Burma, after the war he became a docker. He was full of amazing stories including about teaching children in the jungle how to make jam butties. (He did make amazing jam butties) My Nana had 3 cleaning jobs, looked after her 7 children, elderly parents and poorly older sister!!

Both my paternal grandparents worked in a biscuit factory - lots of miss shaped Club biscuit bars, Yum!

My father was flew planes for the RAF in World War 11 - that dates me! (He was 50 years old when I was born, though)

He also flew Tigermoths before the war, hence my name