Things you remember about your nanna's house (i.e. gran or nan)

I remember tinned food in the fridge (unopened tins)

Lots of horse brasses around the hearth

An electric fire with plastic “logs” at the bottom and a flame effect generated by a low wattage red bulb and a sort of fan

Coloured glass fish ornaments.

Coloured plastic strips at the back door (to keep flies out?)

A hoover that smelt of wet dogs

The smell of cabbage and ribs / tripe and onions cooking on the hob.

Dirty glasses

Finding Kirbigrips (sp?) everywhere.

Advocaat & lemonade mix.

And her dog licking her feet through American tan tights.

I’m 42 so most of this is from the 70s

Eugh! Still makes me shudder that last one.

my Nanna’s house it still EXACTLY like that, apart from the dog who died about 20 years ago.
house still smells of dog though.
.
also includes PG Tips magnets on the fridge from 1983 and pink wafer biscuits in one of those funny metal sealed tins.

Kenneth McAller (sic) records.

Shrivelled up Apples..
Some kind of Mints in a bag (noooo not Worthers)
Orange painted 1960’s formica kitchen draw set.
Coalport China tea service.
Cheese.
Hovis.
Silver cheese knife.
A huge Arfix model of the Golden Hind.
Some fangled reel to reel tape player thingy.
A sideboard witha key in the lock.
A huge mirror in the middle of the room that was convex.
Loads and loads of house plants.

The washing tub and the mangle, and a 75 year old lady who got up at 6 everyday to light a fire because she refused any central heating.
Tell that to the over privileged fully suspended padded up knobbers of today and do they believe you?

she still there & it’s as it was 20 years ago, except the sweety tin no longer has sweets in it.

Musty smelling pantry full of cans of ‘food’.

Always smelt of gas (gas fires + oven).

Woodchip walls.

Teasmaids.

Huddd-ddd-du-dus (funny manual ‘vacuum’ cleaners that make a Huddd-ddd-du-du noise when you move them across the carpet).

The smell of the stairwell.

Smelt very ‘clean’, too clean.
Very quiet. Too quiet.
Horse brasses and ornaments everywhere.
Immaculately tidy.
Weren’t allowed to touch anything.
Really cold bed.
Horrible avocado coloured plastic bath.
TV that took about ten minutes for the picture to appear.
Smell of fresh mushrooms frying in the morning.
Proper tablecloth, serviettes etc for every meal.

Never really being happy any time I was ever there. 🙁

Tell that to the over privileged fully suspended padded up knobbers of today and do they believe you?

Aye….

Combining the homes of both nans….

A scarily loud loo, cold floors, wooden edges on the sofa arms, closing the curtains with a stick, leather chesterfield (green), achingly cool OMK leather chairs, pears soap

I remember finding her dead when she came to live with us after getting poorly too.

🙁

I remember sneaking a quick blast on a Watney’s Party Seven and thinking beer tasted ace.

There was a mirror in the hall with some French words on it.

I never understood a bleedin’ word my grandad said to me – Irish brogue way too strong. I just nodded a lot and smiled when he did.

My grandparents watching snooker in black & white.

Oh and a typical Sunday roast a la nanna was leg of lamb, roast potatoes, mash, cabbage, baked beans and gravy!

Clocks. Lots and lots of clocks.

Fluffy loo seat cover and matching mat.
One of these

Also
Polo’s in the handbag.
No hot tap in the kitchen, just a geyser on the wall.
and that woman with a blue face. Well not actually her but a picture of her….

Pictures made of butterfly wings (really).
Chinese carvings with ivory teeth.
Wooden elephants with ivory tusks.
A cast replica of a cathedral in Koln that used to contain a clock and was now used to prop open the bathroom door.
A battery powered monkey that blew bubbles.
Old toys that had belonged to my dad and uncle.
A rocking chair.
A piano in the front room. Horribly out of tune because it was damp but that never mattered – it still made a noise.

I had a great time at my Grandma’s house…..

A huge great radiogram in the living room.

When she died we found the cupboards were full of bags of sugar and tins of treacle, she was stockpiling in case rationing was introduced again.

full meals at lunch time, a sandwich in teh evening made from left overs of full cooked lunch, everyday.

funny smell, not bad just funny.

imperial leather.

rocking chair.

really long 4 seater sofa.

KitKats.

my nan working in teh paper shop until about 2 weeks before she died.

building dens.

miss my nan she was so rad.

Mine are still around – one of them is like this:

jaguar XKR
Pioneer 50″ Kuro
iMac
ipads – yes pads
me fixing associated i products for them
Associated meats lying around (butchers)
Tins of Salmon open in the fridge
Stinking cheese
Gin
Bits of half cut lemon all dried up
Funny Nimble bread

My granda loves technology at 76 but has no idea how to use any of it.

Edit – oh and false teeth lying around

Being offered “just one more slice of cake” when I went round, and it being just slightly too warm for me in the house.

RIP Nanna.

Grandfather clock
Tom and Jerry on the Telly
Grandad coughing in the corner ,gran in the Kitchen
No Dumping being barked aat us constantly
Fish and Chips
Lots of love
Board games
Rude/cheeky ornaments and toys – strength test man that when you pull him to see how string you are he wees on you – I own that now
Lots of what would now be called executive toys
Cakes she worked in a cake shop
Sugar piece sh dont tell your mum
Milk with sugar in it
Sugar rolls mmm Sugar rolls
Whiskey every cupboard had some whiskey in it she drunk every day but I never really twigged only when I look back
Papa taking us to sheep dog trials
Time on the farm
Aaran and the waverley

Walking through the front door to the strong small of gas from an unlit and forgotten grill.

The washing tub and the mangle, and a 75 year old lady who got up at 6 everyday to light a fire because she refused any central heating.

+1
Plus the dodgy gas water heater
hair in buns (think of a geriatric princess leia hairstyle)
the dinner gong
old portraits on the wall where the eyes follow you round

Three china ducks flying up the wall

The larder (I think thats what heaven would be like)

Wooden swords made for me by my grandfather in the corner

Bees

Bread & dripping

Protection from parents

Beans on toast infront of the fire… when in my pj’s & hair wet & brushed

RIP all of the grandparents

my mum’s mum, her house is just a house, she’s 65 looks about 55, jogs every morning, plays tennis but not badminton anymore, paints watercolours, and cooks lovely lentil curry.

Dad’s mum is retired as well lives in one of those retirement complexes and is a gossip about *everyone* who lives there!! She was a teacher (slightly scared of her!!) 😯

Amongst a great many other things….

‘Better’ nan’s house…

(This exact phone – we used to love playing with the drawer).

‘Poorly’ nan’s house…

A high seat – she was crippled with arthritis 🙁

Brill thread…

VHS covers that looked like books
Wine Gums
Tobacco smell
Bullseye
Place mats with 18th Century scenes on them
Pop off the Milk Man
Tomatos from the greenhouse
Losing Lego bricks in the sheepskin rug
Grandad ‘finding’ them and using a word I’d never heard before
Trying to explain Thundercats to my Grandma
Grandad saying that, if we didn’t want to go to school on Monday we could stay and live with him. ‘Go and ask your Mum’.

Funnily enough, I’ve just today been re-reading Gaston Bachelard’s “Poetics of Space”. My abiding memory of visiting my grandmother’s house is thick ham sandwiches on thick soft white bread. She was the only person I’ve ever met able to spread cold butter without tearing the bread. She never skimped on the Ribena either.

Things I remember from my maternal grandmother’s house:

A large ceramic horse ornament, complete with barrel laden wooden cart and genuine leather straps

Really, really hideous ornaments of paupers

An ornament that was covered in small shells. I can’t remember what it was supposed to be, but to me it looked a bit like a hideous face. Do you remember the humanoid tapeworm from the X-Files? When I saw that, it reminded me of that ornament.

Awesome beaded necklaces, really long ones

A manual sewing machine

One of those hand-cranked whisks

Scratchy green sofas in the ‘big’ lounge. This room was home to most of the above mentioned ornaments, plus one of those paintings of an ‘Oriental’ lady, which by the magic of Google I’ve learnt was a print of ‘The Chinese Girl’, a 1950 painting by the Russian artist Vladimir Tretchikoff. There was one in our school as well.

Coloured glass things. Lots of coloured glass things. And doilies.

The dalek in the spare room. It wasn’t actually a dalek, it was an old fashioned heater that didn’t even look much like a dalek. However, my brother was convinced it was a dalek and was terrified of that room, and passed that fear onto me.

Electric blankets.

An outside toilet. My nan did actually have an indoor toilet fitted in the late 70s/early 80s, but when we were younger we preferred the outdoor one, because we didn’t have to go past the room with the dalek to get to it.

The indoors toilet had one of those dolly toilet covers Bregante pictured.

UHT milk. My nan wouldn’t have anything else.

My grandad Sid’s mini-screwdrivers. Was absolutely fascinated with them because they had bright coloured, see through plastic grips. Got a similar set in a Christmas cracker a couple of years ago, was dead excited!

The pond and its huge lilies.

Really good chips from the local chippy in Pelsall, always eaten with brown bread.

The weird corrugated metal houses over the road

The beige car with the beaded seat covers.

I remember less from my paternal grandmother, we visited her less. Demands on her time were high due to having 8 children – when she died, she’d left 7 children, 16 grandchildren, 8 great grandchildren and 2 great-great grandchildren. What I do remember:

Brown. The entire house seemed to be very brown.

Lots of small ornamental teapots, small ceramic birds and a little house ornaments

Cups, saucers and tea leaves. She utterly rejected tea bags and mugs.

My uncle John. He came of his bike when he was 13 and hit his head on the pavement, and ended up brain damanged. He lived with his mom until her death at 86.

An electric fire with plastic “logs” at the bottom and a flame effect generated by a low wattage red bulb and a sort of fan

My parents had that, but it may well have been inherited when the grandparents moved house. Cat used to get so close that it’s fur singed.

Cheese.
Hovis.
Silver cheese knife.

^^that

A monkey puzzle tree (that according to Google Streetview is still there after 30+ years)

Clocks, everywhere, grandad was a repairer. Ditto flutes, drums and bagpipes. He ran a marching band too. Doilies in industrial quantities. Huge vases. Porcelain statues. Big Catholic icons and images on the walls. Toilet at the top of the yard. Front room for special occasions only. Polished brass doorstep. Noise of the Undertones or other Derry band playing or rehearsing at the Casbah at the top of the road. Bath buns, clockwork toys. Big pan of winkles collected at Buncrana. Lino. Easter eggs bigger than my head. Happy days.

I always remember my Nan having to repaint the front room every year due to “yellowing” from heavy smoking

Spending all the summer holidays there playing in the back garden

Walks to the shops for a 10p mix up

My Nans dog and being heartbroken when they had to have him put down

The best boiled egg and soldiers EVER 😀

Boxing day parties

Candlewick bedspreads

Finding all of our Christmas presents hidden in the wardrobe of the back bedroom

Great times….sadly missed by all of us!

gruesome true crime magazines

My “Salford” gran was pretty much the same as your Salford gran DS.

She also had:

Carrier bags inside string shopping bags in case the handles on the carrier bag “went”.
A blue “Ena Sharples” mac.
Clocks set fast so she was never late. This worked well until she started getting confused then the clocks would be hours out and the police would pick her up wandering round the market at 4:00am.
Fatty ham sandwiches with bright orange crumbs at the edge of each slice.
Chinese leaf lettuce with way too much salt.
A brass donkey ornament that had ruby effect eyes and when you took the tops off the baskets on its back it was full of hair nets.
Dalek water heater in the cupboard… with a clock on top of it.

We used to get fed a heady cocktail of Barr lemonade and Ribena that tasted wonderful but made you pee like a police horse.

Shame she never saw me grow up or I never got to know her when I was old enough to appreciate her.

My other gran was much more suburban and even had a great big VHS video camera.

*Impeccable cleanliness
*Warmth
*Good food
*polished furniture
*very deep pile carpet
*tonnes of crafts – mostly crotcheted that my grandmother was working on
*the smell of onions sauteeing in butter
*the cherries my grandfather would always add to the drinks he served (whether it was the adults’ gins or the childrens’ cokes

Deeply missed

A long barrelled Luger that was hidden under a cupboard in the kitchen – I always though that was pretty cool as a child 😀

Only had 1 set of Gp’s . from oop north too .
Izal toilet paper
Freezing cold house 1st thing in the morning
High Tea at 4pm
Beautiful china and cutlery
Horse Brasses ( now mine)
Flintlock Pistols
Coal Scuttle polished to a mirror finish
The best chrimbos ever .
Tv on really loud

I also remember saving bits of paper in my pocket so I could throw them on ‘better’ nan’s open coal fire.

I also remember saving bits of paper in my pocket so I could throw them on ‘better’ nan’s open coal fire.

When we were in Ireland we used to collect the pull tabs of fag packets, so we could see what colour flame they burned with on the peat fire, happy days…

A Gas meter that you fed with 50p’s, an electric meter that you did the same, and a rental TV that was coin operated (10p’s I think).

Oh and chamber pots under the beds.

Warm UHT milk on cornflakes.