So many memories tied up in photographs.
Every Easter when we were children we would go round to visit my Gran. She was my Mum's Mum, and gosh I loved her to bits. Mum criticised her all the time to my Dad in the hearing of me and my brother and I never understood it or thought it fair even as a child. Now as an adult a lot of the things that she said and did still seem so unfair, especially considering that my Mum is so like her in so many ways.
We are stood outside her large four story rented house in this photo, she was relocated there after the family home was totally flattened by a bombing raid during World War 2, and she stayed there until she was rehoused in the early 1970's. As a child I loved the old house, but found parts of it very spooky as it was very gloomy in all but the front 'best' room, hence the photo being taken outside on the street.
It was about a forty minute walk to get to Gran's house, but back in the day we were all used to walking much longer distances weren't we and it just seemed normal. Gran would walk round to ours most Saturdays as she loved to watch the wrestling on the television, she refused to have a tv in her house until her dying day, she thought that they would burst into flames willy nilly.
I have to say none of mine ever have. 😁
We didn't have to travel any where near as far to visit my Nana, Dad's Mum. We lived downstairs in her house. So we would get our new Easter clothes on and troop upstairs to receive an Easter egg and have our photo taken. I loved my Nana, just as much if not more, although sitting and posing for a photo with her seemed strange.
I would go upstairs and watch television with Nana most nights, our favourite evenings together were Mondays, when it would be at least one quiz show, usually University Challenge ... Nana did like Bamber Gascoigne ... and then Opportunity Knocks. A highlight of watching tv upstairs was that I got to sit on a chair, downstairs we only had two armchairs so me and my brother would sit cross legged on the floor when we watched anything.
It's funny, but oh so nice, how two photos can bring so many memories flooding back.
Wishing a very Happy Easter to all my readers, wherever you are and whatever you are doing. Perhaps you are making memories for the future, or simply reliving lovely ones from the past. Both are wonderful things to do.
Sue xx
Easter is full of memories for me... We used to have early communion then breakfast at church. One year we came out if the chapel to go into the church hall and were overwhelmed by the smell of kippers. Dear David said that in the Bible, after the Resurrection, Jesus cooks fish on the each for his friends. So David was frying kippers on his portable bbq in the church hall! 🐟
ReplyDeleteHaha ... I doubt very much that it was kippers that Jesus cooked ... but at least if he did he was doing it outdoors. I bet the hall smelled fishy for days. Happy Easter Angela. xx
DeleteSue thank you for sharing your memories, they are so similar to my own. It made me feel quite emotional. I’m finding it difficult looking through old photos, so many loved ones gone, so many happy memories. I’m so grateful for the childhood I had and for my family.
ReplyDeleteHope Alan is having a rest or is he itching to get back to the bungalow and getting stuck in?
Enjoy your Easter and thanks again. June
I think our childhoods were so much simpler than these days weren't they, we were able to be children for longer.
DeleteAlan will be back at the bungalow on Monday morning, one of the bricklayers wants to come in and build an interior wall ... don't workmen like Bank Holidays, it seems they are all workaholics!
Sue forgot to ask was your childhood spent in the North? June (from the South ).
ReplyDeleteYes, I am from Old Trafford in Manchester, my Gran lived in Moss Side. I lived in and around Manchester until I was twenty five ... then I escaped further up North. ;-)
DeleteWhat lovely memories, happy Easter to you both, x
ReplyDeleteEaster was always lovely, none of the pressure of cooking a Christmas dinner for my Mum, that was the stressful holiday.
DeleteHello from Ohio! Not very nice weather today, but we are having an Easter egg hunt in our yard for the great grands, 12, 7 and 5. Most of the organized events have been ruined by obnoxious parents, so we have our own. I'm not religious, but Easter is a time of hope, flowers blooming and warmer weather. New reader here, looking forward to your posts. Carol
ReplyDeleteOur weather is awful, but we keep seeing glimmers of sunshine between the hail showers and the bins have been knocking on my front door all night due to the high winds. Thank goodness I don't have to go out and hide Easter eggs. I hope your Easter egg hunt goes off well and you all have a lovely time. Welcome to my blog, it's nice to have you here. xx
DeleteThis made me smile and I remember so many similar things. My mum was like yours over her mum and is now far worse! She was and still is always critical of anyone.
ReplyDeleteMum and dad lived with my gran for 7 years before we got our own house when I was 2 and my brother 6. We were both born there. Our new house had red carpet in the living room which was cheap aeroplane carpet and the fireside chairs in the dining room were two bucket shaped seats from an old car. They were good days back them and very make do and mend. Looking at old photos of our dishes the cups, bowls and dinner plates are tiny compared to what we use today...no wonder we are all getting bigger our portions must be so much larger than what we had then!
We have such similar childhoods. We moved out of our three rooms at Nana's when I was 13 and my brother was 9, the council realised that brother and sister were sharing a bedroom, we got a brand new council house. Mum put a red carpet down and we finally got a 3 piece suite. Then we felt posh.
DeletePlates were the size of our current side plates weren't they, which is why I have stayed at that size since I lived on WW2 rations the first time.
PS Happy Easter, hope we get some sunshine.
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter to you too. Sunshine would be nice, we have high winds and intermittent hail showers. But we will be in the car soon on our way to visit Mum, so a pretty indoors-y kind of day.
DeleteHappy Easter and hope you are having some rest.We had thunder snow earlier so I’m unsure whether our visitors will arrive or not. I will encouraging them to stay safe at home if there is any doubt.The food can be frozen or eaten over the next few days. Your photos are such a lovely record of your childhood with your brother and thanks for sharing. Catriona
ReplyDeleteMy Dad was a prolific photographer, so we have lots of lovely family snaps. I hope your visitors either arrive safely, or stay away if that is deemed safer for them. Happy Easter. xx
DeleteLovely memories.
ReplyDeleteWe've had some very upsetting family news this past week, so I am pleased that I could focus on some good memories.
DeleteAll my grandparents had passes before I was born, so I don't have any happy memories, but I did see my own daughters loving my mum, so today we are making memories with our grandchildren. Lovely to see your photos and feel the love coming through from your words.
ReplyDeleteI was very lucky to have two Nana's, and although I would have loved to have had a grandad, I did have my Uncle Harold who was married to Auntie Ida, one of my Nana's sisters. He shaped a big part of my childhood.
DeleteI was also very lucky that my Gran lived long enough to see a lot of my eldest son, and Nana lived to see both my boys.
I initially thought it was the same gran in both photos, but reading it seems not. They are very similar though… Maybe all grans looked similar in those days 🙂 Mine was painfully thin due to ill health, and died when I was 10, so my memories of her are hazy… I never knew my paternal grandmother. Karen S
ReplyDeleteTo me they are not alike at all, they never were, the only thing they had in common was their height. Yes, Grans did dress like Grans in the 1960s, and young married women dressed like middle age women. Nana got very thin as she got older, but Gran always stayed chubby. ❤️
DeleteI'm a Great-Gran ... I have no idea of how I should look. 😄
Happy Easter. I too adored my nan, only had one but she was so lovely that I never felt I missed out. We did an Easter egg hunt for our three year old grandson this year.
ReplyDeleteAww, I hope he enjoyed hunting the eggs. 😀
DeleteGreat photos and lovely memories, thank you for sharing them. Hope you are enjoying your Easter Day.
ReplyDeleteAlison in Devon x
It's been weird. We went all the way to Manchester to visit Mum and she didn't wake up once. It was the same yesterday when my brother visited. 🫤
DeleteSo great to have pictures from days gone by.
ReplyDeleteI'm really lucky that my Dad loved taking photos. ❤️
DeleteNice memories! I never knew my Dad's mother very well, because she lived all the way across the country in California. We wrote each other letters now and then but I only met her once or twice after I was old enough to remember. My mom's mother, on the other hand, we visited every year -- but not at Easter.
ReplyDeleteYou have to travel such huge distances across states in the US to visit don't you. Here in the UK most people are within hours of each other. Happily most of my family were in and around Lancashire ... except for my Nana's sister who married a GI and moved to Chicago 😄
DeletePhotographs hold so many memories. Yours are good ones.
ReplyDeleteWe have some really good ones, including a lot of photos of my Dad discovered after my Aunt and Uncle died recently.
DeleteSweet photos. Thanks for sharing your memories
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to have a wander down memory lane occasionally isn't it. 😀
DeleteWhere the journey takes me. I’m intrigued, “aeroplane carpet?”. I immediately thought of a flying carpet! It made me smile so thank you. What was an aeroplane carpet? June
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know it's very flat piled, almost smooth, hard-wearing carpet.
DeleteI do think it needs to be inside an aeroplane to be able to fly though. 😄
I love looking through old photos, but I have to do it in small bites, as it takes me down a memory lane that feels lonely now. Very hard to look at my kids' photos at Easter - we all looked so young and hopeful.
ReplyDeleteOld photos bring all the memories flooding back don't they. They can bring regrets too, but I always think that we all go through life doing the best we can in the situations we are in at the time. Bring young and hopeful is a wonderful state of affairs isn't it. ❤️
DeleteLovely family photos! Old photos do bring a lot of memories, don't they? Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThey really do. ❤️
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