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?

I've put mine on further down but wanted to add Dh's.
His paternal grandmother was a cleaner.
His paternal grandfather was a herdsman - as is FIL and dh but not all on the same farm.
His maternal grandmother knitted clothes for a shop.
His paternal grandfather was a miner.

I think that it is really interesting to see some jobs that you hardly ever hear of any more.

My paternal grandfather was a Major in the army and had a farm in what was then Rhodesia where my dad grew up.
Paternal grandmother was a lady of leisure (to call her a housewife or sahm would be stretching the truth, they had staff and nannies )

Maternal grandparents where Polish refugees who worked in Factories in London after the war, before becoming refugees they where Polish aristocracy from what my mum could find out, they lost everything. My mum was born in a refugee camp in India of all places, before they where moved to the uk.

Maternal grandfather was a docker, and liked a flutter on the horses
Maternal grandmother was a nun (!) -the convent proved too bitchy for her (imagine, all those women living under one roof) so she left, married and was a SAHM of 3 and then a SAHGM to me

Paternal grandmother was a very busy mother of 11 kids, renowned for her resourcefulness.
Paternal grandpa was a toolmaker and rode a motorbike

All the answers are fascinating. History is incredible really isnt it. What will the youth of 2057 think of our occupations?

nan- school caretaker (had to go in at 6 with the ids and light all the classroom fires etc)

Grandad- aircraft mechanic in te RAF, then plant fitter (worked on the motorways and power stations)

Paternal Nan- looked after 16 kids until she took to her bed 30 years before she died and left it to ger daughters to cope

paternal grandfather - kiln firer at the brickworks and local alcoholic

Grandma - lifelong critic and uber-baker

Grandad - Customs and Excise (you have NO idea how much Malt of the Barley with Cod Liver Oil we had for 'medicinal' purposes - the devil got it free, it was FOISTED on us

They both died this year, within three months of each other, and I wish to God I could tell you more about what they did.

Watchmaker and seamstress. Sounds quite 'olde worlde'.

GrapefruitMoon - not as far as I am aware. The ancestor was the court doctor in the 17th century to King Charles. We can trace that line fo the family back to the early 1500s (I have a very distinctive surname which makes it relatively easy).

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My mums parents are still doing the markets. They used to do macclesfield, widnes and northwich six days a week up until a few years ago, and now they do northwich market. They have a pet stall. Hard as nails they are.

My dads dad had a taxi firm i believe and I think my gran worked in a factory.

My dad's parents -

Grandfather - worked for the "gas board" as was then, also a church deacon for CoS.
Grandmother - was a shop girl before marrying then SAHM to 7, did a lot of volunteering at church though.

My mum's parents -

Grandfather - during WW2 was batman for one of the Hunters (as in Swann Hunter shipyards.) Then a maitre'd on the first class dining carriage on the railways - I have one of the buttons from his uniform.
Grandmother - witch, no kidding, she was a SAHM to 5 and never had a paying job.

More interesting is ex-dh's maternal grandfather who worked in the mines, he fell into one of those huge machines and was literally shredded to death. Which ex-dh's mother used as an excuse to turn to drink.

mum's mum - textile worker (hosiery)
mum's dad - ditto but a highly skilled one - a toe-turner! I kid you not.

dad's mum - a bus conductor/cleaner
dad's dad - railway conductor

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My grandparents are long dead...heritage of two generations of babies in late 30s/early 40s. My paternal grandpa was born in 1880!
But I do remember him Really wonderful old guy

Paternal grandad - market gardener and in retirement, responsible for the magnificent flowerbeds at...Crossness Sewage Works
Was in a reserved occupation in WW1 and was the only one of six brothers not to be conscripted into the trenches. The other five (inc. 2 Old Contemptibles) all came home more or less unscathed...and all lived into their 90s.
Paternal grandma - seamstress

Maternal grandad - civil servant for the Irish Government and part-time domestic disaster zone
Maternal grandma - died in childbirth following a runaway mixed marriage in 1920s Dublin. Her family were involved in the Easter Uprising

One generation further back on dad's side and you enter itinerant farm labourer territory. His grandfather was a Cold Comfort Farm-style travelling fire and brimstone preacher in rural Essex

Lots of fascinating stories on this thread

my grandma and grandad were very early members of the British Communist Party, my grandma was arrested for turning over a bus during the riots in the General Strike.
not by herself

Paternal Grandparents were farmers. GM cooked vast quantities of food, including her own bread, and had hundreds of jars of jam and preserves tucked away in cupboards all over the house.

Maternal GF - Optician
Maternal GM - worked for a photographer before she got married, then was a SAHM, except she had a housekeeper who came every day, and her MIL lived with them so she looked after the children I think GM mostly wafted about doing floristry and art classes. She's still going at over 90.

Isnt it strange (?) that so many of us seem to have connections with South Africa!

A reception class teacher, a chemist (industrial chemistry, not pharmacy), a shoemaker and an outworker for the shoe factory.

Grandad and Grandma shoemakers were in the RAF/WRAF in WW2; Grandad played rugby and won several medals. He was also into motorbikes. Self-educated, because his family were poor but very widely read and into politics. And a fab cook. don't know a lot about Grandma because she died before I was born.

Nanny, the teacher, was a proper old fashioned housewife who made cakes, jam, her own wine and sloe gin (we had to go out and pick sloes for her). She was also very religious, madam chairman of the RC Mother's Union. Grandad the chemist I remember pushing me on the swings but don't really know much about him, died when I was seven.

I've remembered that my Granny was sent from Denmark (where her half English, half German faimily lived as a result of WW1) to SOuth Africa as a c.18 year old, having developed an "unsuitable" realtionship with a gardener . In South Africa she met a neigbour on the neighbouring farm of the relatives she was staying with....... and the rest is history!

On my dads side;
Grandad owned the equivolent of British Steel in S. Africa
Granny was 'lady of the manor'!
Mum:
Grandpa - think he was an engineer
Grandma was a nurse in the War then worked as a shop assistant in Binns after Grandpa died.

Gosh - an ancestor of mine was physician to the King of Denmark and delivered Queen Alexandra - do I see a clique forming?

My grandad was a nightclub owner. He's now in his 80s and lives in New York with his 6th wife and five-year-old son