What were your grandparents like?

My grandparents were known by their family names. I never knew my Grandpa Currie as he had died in 1936, before even my Mum & Dad were married. Granny Currie, as I remember her, lived with my Dad's sister, my Aunt Jess and her family in Yoker ( Clydebank) Glasgow.Yoker is right on the banks of the River Clyde and I remember being taken for a ride across the river on the ferry there. It was an old clanking chain pulled ferry - even then!

Granny always seemed like an old lady. I don't remember her ever doing anything other than sitting in a chair, tho she always smelled nice and loved to give hugs. She had a lovely smile and laugh and my dad used to tell stories of how she had always had an amazing sense of humour and fun, and there was always laughter in their house. We used to go on the tram to visit her from our flat in Langside, and used to play with my cousins John & David who lived there. i remember getting into trouble once because my cousin David & I unpacked a box full of postcards that we found under a bed.

My Dad's oldest brother, Uncle David, had been in the Merchant Navy and had sent postcards home to his Mum from all over the world which she had kept. I just wanted to look at the stamps and felt very wronged. Granny always used to give us sixpence ' for a pokey hat' ( and ice cream) when we left after our visits. I remember one New Year when visited and stayed there, after we had moved to Whitley Bay, and being allowed to wait up to see the New Year in and hearing all the ships from the ship yards on the Clyde sounding their horns at midnight.

Granny visited us once when we lived in Whitley Bay, that was when she taught me how to knit. I knitted a mauve and pink hot water bottle cover! We have a picture of Granny with all her grandchildren, I remember it being taken at Aunt Jess's house. I was upset because I wanted to sit on my Granny's knee for the picture, but my cousins David and Joan were both babies, so they got to be held on her knee.

The photo shows a rather grumpy looking little girl! The date on the back of the picture is November, 1949 so I would have been 31/2. Granny died in 1956 when I was 10. I have more memories of my other grandparents, my Mum's parents, Granny & Grandpa Walker.

They lived in Alyth, in Perthshire. Granny Walker had lived there all her life and Grandpa had a business on Airlie Street which he and his Father had started when their family came back to Alyth from Edinburgh in 1895. We used to visit them what seemed like quite often when I was little, from photos it was probably twice year, in spring and summer. We used to take the train from Glasgow to Coupar Angus.

Alyth Station only had a goods line by then. I remember my excitement when we got to Coupar Angus and got off the train and the Station Master would be heard shouting, 'Coupar Angus...change for Blairgowrie......Coupar Angus...change for Blairgowrie'. The train then went on to Carnoustie and further north. I don't remember how we got from Coupar Angus to Alyth, but I imagine it must have been by bus as no one had a car.

In Alyth we had such freedom. Coming from living in a flat in the centre of the city, to staying in a house with a front door and a green to play on was heaven, the summers seemed endless! We were allowed to go down the street to the bakehouse and buy bread and 'morning rolls' - I remember coming home with them, the bread soft and sweet smelling and hot to hold to your chest and the rolls warm in a scrunchy brown paper bag. Granny let us have slices of the new hot loaf with butter and her homemade raspberry jam.

It was called a 'plain loaf' and had a dark crisp crust on the top and a lighter brown softer crust on the bottom. I always wanted the bottom part. We were allowed to play in Grandpa's shoe shop too. I remember the smell of new shoe leather and of the sticky leather laces for the farm worker's boots.

The back shop had rows of welllington boots hanging up, the smell of the rubber was quite intoxicating. We were allowed to have a new pair of shoes every summer before we went back home to Glasgow, or later, to Whitley Bay. Granny always seemed to be busy..... mind you, she accused me of having a 'gless bim'.... a glass bottom.... scared to sit on it in case I broke it....I guess I must have been a busy kid too. She used to take us with her around the town, I remember her helping with a Jumble (rummage) Sale at the YWCA and being taken to a big room at the Town Hall to watch her pin out a shawl she had knitted for someone - there wasn't room to do that at their house.

She was a great knitter and I remember her four needles flying as she knitted socks. She also made jam, raspberry from the local berry fields and blackcurrants, which she also bottled, from the bushes in the garden that Grandpa looked after. He was a lifelong gardener and I remember being allowed to go and pull a little white turnip before lunch time, getting it washed and having a 'handle' made from the stems, then crunching into the peppery flesh, We a were also allowed to pick peas to shell and pop straight into a cup of hot Bovril, that would still be a treat for me today.

Granny made amazing soup and mince and potatoes, always a favourite. The potatoes, also local, were white and floury and steaming in a bowl on the table at lunch time. Her pancakes ( drop scones) at teatime with jam & butter were amazing, we loved to 'help', and watch the bubbles rising in the batter as they cooked. I don't remember doing much with Grandpa, although I do remember him taking me for a walk with just him & me, out the Muirton Road past the berry fields and him allowing me to pick ripe ears of wheat and suck the sweet kernels.

He use to let us 'steal' a candy from the jar he kept on the sideboard - sugary clove flavoured sweets. As children we all had to be QUIET while Grandpa listened to the news on the radio. I think it was a remnant of wartime days,when the radio news was the only way, and vital, to keep up with what was happening in the war. Granny used to take Grandpa a cup of tea first thing in the morning, to have in bed, and we were told that it had become a habit because he had needed looking after after the war ( First World War).

In fact he had been severely ' shell shocked' and hospitalised in a special hospital for neurological injuries for sometime after he came back from Mesopotamia. The other thing I remember, not quite so sad, was Granny taking a tumbler with his teeth in to him every morning ( uppers and lowers)... as a child I was intrigued! Granny Walker died in 1954 and Grandpa stayed on in Alyth until 1959, when he sold the business and came to live with us in Beckenham.

He worked in the business up til then, so was almost 80 when he retired. Grandpa lived with us until his death in 1963. I remember him puffing his pipe, and sucking his Mint Imperials. He carried on gardening in our garden there.

I remember him planting cauliflower seedlings in Mum's flower beds, much to her frustration. Also, it seemed inevitable that he would come to fill his watering can at the kitchen sink just as Mum needed to use it for some other purpose! He used to plant his potatoes in a line with the Parish Church and the War Memorial in Alyth... even tho' we werein Kent 600 miles from there. The Parish Church & the War Memorial were in fact in a line due North/South........the best way to plant a row of potatoes.

He used to sit on the garden seat in the summer, puffing his pipe, wearing his Pith helmet to keep off the sun, the one that he had worn in WW1 in Mesopotamia. The only thing he ever said about his service in the war was the they had had beautiful oranges to eat in Palestine. My dad used to take him out every Friday evening to the local pub for a 'hauf & a hauf', but other than that I don't remember him ever leaving the house and garden. He kept the grandfather clock that Auntie Sheila now has (Sandy) going in our house, it sat on a small landing half way up the stairs.

I have a little book in which he had written the directions for how to put it right if the chime didn't match the hour. He had a beautiful hand, his script was always elegant and legible. I think that's all that comes to mind for now. I'll attach some photos....with love Granny Currie with her grandchildren in 1949 - me looking very grumpy Grandpa Walker with Auntie Sheila & i on the beach at Carnoustie Granny Walker with Sheila & I outside their house in Alyth - August 1946.

You can see Grandpa's red dahlias behind us.