Do you have any particularly vivid memories of your grandparents?

Oh yes, many…… I was fortunate to know three of my four grandparents. My Dad’s father, David Currie, died in 1936 when Dad was 21. Family lore has it that he died as the result of an abcess when something was left in his abdomen after an operation for appendicitis. His Death Certificate confirms the abcess but not necessarily the story.

Dad’s Mum, my Granny Currie always seemed like an old lady. She was lovely and laughed a lot, but I do not ever remember her on her feet, isn’t that weird? in my memory she is always sitting down. When I knew her she lived with her daughter my Aunt Jess and my two cousins, John & David at their home. Their Dad, my Uncle Norman, was an Engineer in the Merchant Navy and was away from home for long periods of time.

We used to go on the tram from where we lived in Langside in Glasgow, to their house in Yoker to visit with her and she used to give us sixpence for a ‘pokey hat’ ( ice cream) She did come to stay with us once in Whitley Bay ( so she must have been on her feet at some time!) and I remember her brushing my hair before I went to bed. She taught me to knit during that visit. It was a purple and pink hot water bottle cover and I remember choosing the wool for the project with my Mum.

She died in 1956 of ‘Myocarditis’. She was 77.. Mum’s parents, Granny & Grandpa Walker probably played a larger part in our lives, because we were able to visit and stay with them at their home in Alyth. I remember Granny Walker always being busy, she never seemed to be off her feet! yet she accused me of having a ‘gless bim’- a glass bottom, that I couldn’t sit on or fear of breaking it!

She cooked and she baked and she made candy for us, pulling and stretching the confection until it was shiny and could be broken into small pieces. Granny’s ’tablet ‘ a kind of fudge, was also a favourite. We all went berry picking and she made raspberry jam - oh, the taste of Granny’s new jam on a big, fresh ‘dod o breed’ or a morning roll fresh and warm from the bakery. She canned blackcurrants that Grandpa grew and we always went home from holidays with enough supply to last us.

She was an accomplished knitter and I remember her taking me to a room at the town hall where she was able to stetch out a completed shawl she had made( that’s how I learned how to do it) - there wouldn’t have been any room in their house. Mum used to say that her claim was that she coud lread one of the Agatha Christie novels that she loved, while listening to a play on the radio, while turning the heel on a pair of socks she was knitting- the original and ultimate multitasker!

She also did all the book keeping for the shop. Grandpa Walker was a quiet man who took himself off to work in the shop every morning,coming home for lunch and then back for the afternoon. When he was home we children had to be quiet and behave. We had to be completely silent while he listened to the 1 o’clock news on the radio.

Granny looked after him entirely, she always took him his breakfast in bed, this dating from when he returned from WW1 and had spent some time in a Sanatorium, having suffered from shell shock. We children used to watch with wide eyes the morning ritual of his teeth being rinsed from the jar by the kitchen sink and being taken in to him with his breakfast. The clock that I now have sat on the mantel in his bedroom. Grandpa loved sweeties and had two jars on the sideboard, one with peppermints and the other with a cinnamon/clove flavoured candy and we were allowed to pick one after dinner.

Grandpa allowed us to play in his shop and I remember the smell of the rubber farm boots hanging in the back shop and of the oiled leather boot laces he sold. We also loved to peek into the shoe boxes of new shoes that were ranged high along the wall of the shop. Grandpa always made sure that we had new shoes for school and was very careful to measure our feet for a good fit,and room to grow. Grandpa made both Sheila and I leather satchels when we started school, I know was very proud of mine.

Grandpa was a great lifelong gardener and it was a treat to be allowed a fresh white tangy turnip to eat from his garden, or to be able to pick and shell peas into our soup, or Bovril at lunchtime. Granny died in 1954 at the age of 70 of Cardiac Failure, she was also quite blind with cataracts. Grandpa stayed on working in the shop in Alyth until 1959 when he was persuaded to retire ( at 79) and to come and stay with us in Beckenham, Kent. He brought Sandy, the grandfather clock that Sheila has, with him and was tasked with keeping it running on the landing. he enjoyed gardening in Mum’s garden, sometimes to her frustration when she woud find a cauliflower popped into a flower bed when he ran out of space in the veg. garden, or arrived with his watering can at the kitchen sink just when she was tring to prepare supper.

I have a mental image of him sitting on the garden seat in his tweed jacket and solar topee from his Black Watch service, with the Red Hackle tucked in the brim, smoking his pipe. He had a fall and fractured his hip and died in 1963 at the age of 83.