What do you know about your Granddad.

[Stinky]

I am lucky, I knew both of mine into my adulthood.
My Daddy’s father was, as were his brothers, a miner in Doncaster.
A loving semi literate man.
His brother, died in Bentley Mill, two days after asking May to marry him.
Her family were no help,so she turned from them to our family for support and one year later married Albert, my Granddad.
11 children and 64 years of marriage followed.
Two of his sons died in the same pit as his brother.
When May died, he just gave up and lasted only days.
For him, life was Black and White.
Good or Bad.
Right or Wrong.
Loved my Mum, but could not understand why she wanted my Dad.
Posh Lass, he said.
Unable to pay the rent one time, he spent seven days in the Debtor's Prison.
Fourteen hours a day of work, learning to cobble.
The proceeds from repairing shoes, boots and plough horse harnesses, payed for their food.
Talking to me in the Working Man’s Club, he said that, that week was the best thing that happened to him.
For the rest of his life he made a few shillings mending shoes on the estate.
An inveterate better on the horses, he kept quiet about his winnings.
But May knew he kept his money in his work waistcoat.
And would take half, which payed the shopping bills.
Their little game, neither ever mentioning it.
He was so proud of his children.
But never more so than of my sister.
One Sunday lunchtime, comfortably ensconced in the Miners Club, pre Sunday lunch beers with his sons and friends, my sister, the only woman in there, got up and bought a round of beers.
Women did not buy drinks in there and not many even went there.
He ‘dined’out on that story for many Sunday lunchtime sessions.
Daughter of my son’s Posh Lass, bought all a drink.
Like to think he smiles about that now.

[Blaze]

Powerful stuff, Stinky. I enjoy your writing, big descriptions with few words that say it all.

[Spectrum]

Not too much, my mums dad was a tram driver, my mum became his clippy and that's how she met my dad, in the tram shed which is still there, he got out of the wrong side and fell into the inspection pit, had to give up working, my dads dad worked in the mills, he came from a long line of "Teamsters" which was replaced by the IC engine, he ended up as a finisher in another mill, he was a good gardener with an allotment as well, he was gassed in the WW1 and suffered breathing difficulty's later in life.

[Blaze]

I never knew either of my grandfathers. One died and the other was divorced by my grandmother after an affair, before I was born. My mother's mother married again to an American but he died when I was about 6.

[ExMontpelliérain]

Grandad 1: Left school at 14 but self-taught quite advanced maths. Moved from Barrow to Birkenhead to work at Cammell Laird (shipbuilders). Skilled fitter/machine shop worker. Football fan who could name any Tranmere Rovers team back to the year dot. Lovely man, never owned property. Grandma gave birth to two hulking boys (amateur light heavyweight boxers) & daughter who could give Hyacinth Bucket a run for her money. Sweet woman who I often used to help bake bread. Delighted when I passed my 11+ & died not long after.
Grandad 2: “Grosspapa”, mother’s side worked in a Swiss provincial bank. Advised middle-aged widows where to invest (he was a widow magnet after my grandmother, who I never met, died young). Crack shot with a lumbering Swiss army rifle that looked like should be equipped with wheels. Also never owned property as he came from a generation that felt buying a house was a waste of investment income. Still chasing women when he died in his 80s.

My parents had an interesting life, but that’s another story.

[Char]

My Grandad was the son of a Jewish Hairdresser, he had 4 brothers.
He also had a sister that I didn't know of until he died - apparently they hadn't spoken since the death of their father and she didn't exist as far as grandad was concerned.
When he left school he got a job as a Butcher's Boy and spent a lot of time delivering orders on an old fashioned bicycle with a basket and a bell but not much to make it look good. (apologies to Pink Floyd)

He married Nanna in 1936, she was the cashier at the Butchers.
He got his call up papers when the 2nd world war started and went off to serve his country leaving his pregnant Wife behind, not knowing if he'd ever see her or the child she was carrying again.
He never spoke much about the war even though he kept lots of photos which I have today. He spent some of it taking messages from the officers to the guys who actually did the fighting on the front line. He was in the Engineers Corps. I know the war left him with a bad taste in his mouth for the upper classes, he refused to call anyone Sir afterwards.
When we used to have bonfires on the allotment he often got a far away look in his eyes, he told me one day that the smell of certain things burning took him back to the war, especially oily rags.
He didn't get home until after the war and his son obviously saw him as a stranger - they never did have a very close relationship. My Uncle married a lovely Dutch lady and moved to Germany before I was born.
The Butchers had kept his job for him and he worked his way up to become a Master Butcher and ended up managing the shop - there he stayed until he retired. He still delivered orders to people who couldn't make it to the shop, his way home each evening.
We didn't see much of him during the lead up to Christmas when I was little, because he'd sleep on a camp bed at the shop, there were lots of Turkeys that needed plucking so he'd work plucking them until the early hours of the morning.
After he retired he did volunteer driving for the hospital and other volunteer charity work.
He always cooked the Sunday Roast, bestest roast potatoes and Yorkshire puds I've ever eaten. I always got to make the mint sauce when it was lamb, picking the mint, adding the sugar and vinegar and wizzing it up in the wizzy machine was my 'job', only because I liked doing it.
He'd make sooty footprints from the gas fire covering the chimney, up the stairs to my bedroom on Christmas Eve, just to keep the Father Christmas magic alive for another year. I'm not sure whether or not Nanna was very impressed with that though.
He never let me win at games on purpose much to Nanna's disgust - I learnt to be gracious in defeat as well as winning which was always a joy.
I used to put his hair in curlers when playing at being a hairdresser.
I saw most of Europe because they always took me on holiday with them, we spent a lot of time in Germany.
Nanna died in 1995 and he wasn't the same after that, he used to grow all their own veggies, and the garden was always filled with flowers for Nanna to pick for the house, but he stopped gardening after she died. He died in 1998 and I still miss him today.

I could go on but I think I've gone on long enough - I was very lucky to have known him.

I know nothing about my Father's Father, I never knew my Father and I think his dad died during the war.

[Spardo]

My Grandad and his brother, my other Grandad, was born in Lanelli into a 'mixed race' family. Their father married a Cornish girl (but they termed her English) and, as a Welsh speaking family refused to speak English to her, so she said she wouldn't allow them to speak Welsh, though they both did unofficially later.

Reg was a Master Mariner at 21, Willie a Chief Engineer at a similar age, and, separately they sailed the world. Reg was Mum's Dad and settled down in Manchester with his own marine architect business, he designed 2 dredgers for the Ship Canal, the 'Mancunian' and the 'Salford City'. Reg's wife was from a Sunderland seagoing family and her father became the 1st pilot on the Manchester Ship Canal in the 1890s. Willie married a Hampshire girl and settled in Southampton. They had 2 daughters and a son, who also became a Master Mariner and who I once 'met' when on watch during the night in the Red Sea, when our 2nd mate radioed to an approaching ship to say 'hello' to Captain Uncle Harold. There was another son who died at age 8 before all the others were born, I have a painting of him purported to be by my Grandmother, who was an accomplished artist.

Reg had a son and daughter older than Mum. Reg junior was 3rd mate on a freighter off Newfoundland when it was torpedoed and sank with all hands. He was 21. I had, when lorry driving in France and waiting to load at St. Nazaire, the eerie feeling of standing on the same spot in the U-Boat pens where the commander responsible for his death, would have stood before setting out on his mission. Daughter Peggy was a schoolteacher who was a very good hockey player and could have played for England (birth) but chose to play for Wales. She died of illness in middle age. My poor Mum had the distinct embarrassment of being taught by her at school.

I saw mostly Reg as we lived in Manchester and then Nottingham, and only very occasionally Willie in Southampton. Reg was lovely and always huggable. Willie I'm sure was nice too but had a very fierce visage with his very bushy eyebrows, which both my Dad and I have inherited. I have a photo of me at about 5 helping him in the garden at Chandlers Ford and, to this day if I smell burning leaves he is always brought instantly to mind.

[curtis]

My Mother's father was a foreman in the Great Western Railway factory at Swindon.
My Father's father ran the family fine épicerie shop in Faringdon Berks.
I have a couple of framed photos of the shop with the staff outside. This was at the time when Great Grandfather was in charge.

[Sparkle]

All fascinating lives being told here. I know nothing much about either side of my grandparents except that on mum's side he was a jeweller and had a bicycle shop and on dad's side he was butcher journeyman - they died long before I was born. I don't know a great deal about my parents either! Most of what I do know has come from the 1939 Register or birth/marriage certificates.

[tagh]

On Dad’s side he was very Methodist and a lifelong teetotaller, an engineer working on early aero and other engines at the Westland helicopter site in Yeovil, mainly Petters, I think.

On Mum’s side he was not spoken of, seems to have worked in the wool trade round Wellington, had a pub which is still there and later left and divorced my gran with whom he had five children.

He lived with someone else and is rumoured to have fathered a child but family would not speak of it. He was a drunk, apparently and was not invited to his youngest daughter’s wedding but watched from upstairs in the local Conservative Club in Taunton. A gravestone was recently put on his grave in Wellington cemetery as his sons had always refused to mark it.