Memories of my grandparents, Part 3

Only two photos today. In the album my sister made for me are these two, showing my grandparents on my mum's side. Above is (back row) my Auntie Iris and my mum, seated are my Pop and Nan, and in front are my sister, a mystery baby and me. I must be somewhere between seven and ten in this photo as I have those lovely glasses on that I needed after I had the measles. My sister and I are wearing the blue dresses that were our summer school uniform. This was worn with a straw boater hat and white shoes and socks.


This one must have been taken in our dining room in the house I grew up in. Classic black and white tiled floor. I'm the one standing, my sister on Nan's lap.

I didn't know my Pop very well. When we used to go around to their house, he just sat in his chair and didn't say much. He was quite deaf. I do know that he went to Canada as a young man, and when he met my Nan on a trip back to Jersey* he convinced her to marry him and go back to Canada with him. She did, but hated it - something to do with hanging her silk underwear on barbed wire to dry it, according to my mum! Anyway, she was pregnant with my aunt when they returned to Jersey, so that would have been about 1925. He died when I was 14. I still remember my mum coming into the living room and tearfully telling me that he'd died, but it didn't have a lot of impact on me.

My Nan died in 1991 so she never got to see her great-grandchildren. She was quite a character. I spent more time with her and got to know her better when I was an adult myself. She liked to hang out in her local pub and smoke cigars and drink whisky. She'd play cribbage with her friends. I sometimes joined her in the pub when I was about 18, wearing my army khakis and Doc Martins from the army surplus shop.

My two sets of grandparents couldn't have been more different!

*These were my Jersey grandparents - Jersey is the small island in the English Channel where I was born and grew up. I probably saw more of them than my English grandparents, but have more memories of the latter, probably because going on holiday was more exciting!