10 Things that remind me of my grandparents

The final list then goes

1. Coal fires
2. Sterilised milk
3. Gollys off jam jars
4. Pigeons
5. Soldiers free with Daz
6. The trick biscuit
7. Devon toffees
8. Swan Lake pictures
9. Cake and biscuits
10. Hats

TTRMOMG 10 Hats

I thought we'd finish the series with some hats. People don't wear hats as much these days as they once did. When I look at the two hats above I immediately think Bampie, Grandad. My Grandad Brady was 6" 4' an inspector in a steelworks and wore the trilby, my Bampie Thomas a council workman was 5" 1' and wore the flat cap.

TTRMOMG 09 Cake and biscuits

Among my strongest memories of my grandparents involve food. My Nana Brady in particular was one from making trifles and milk jellies and was always providing cake and biscuits to go with the cuppa. My favourites then were custard creams and what I believe is called Genoa cake. As a child I would always split the custard cream, lick off the "cream" (or scrape it with the back of my front teeth) and then eat the biscuits. Glace cherries were always extracted from the slab of cake and eaten last.

TTRMOMG 08 Swan Lake

I've never seen the ballet Swan Lake performed but I remember three pictures my Nana Brady had similar to the one above. Like the snow globes with London scenes they fascinated me as a kid. 

TTRMOMG 07 Devon Toffees

My granddad was a big one for Devon toffees. On occasions he would share them with us grandchildren. He got them from Woolworths I guess. He also liked Mint Imperials I was told but I never saw him eating those.

TTRMOMG 06 Trick Biscuit

The original uploader was Dark-Fire at English Wikipedia (original Author: Mark Hogan), CC BY-SA 2.5
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons

Lincoln biscuits remind me of my Nana Pidge, my dad's mother, partly because she would serve them but chiefly because in a drawer in her kitchen there was a trick one. It looked like a Lincoln biscuit from one side but then you turned it over and there was a mirror on the other side. I don't think I ever genuinely caught anyone out with it but the very idea thrilled me.

TTRMOMG 05 Daz soldiers

https://michtoy-from-the-front.blogspot.com/2016/09/figure-of-week-126-daz-washing-powder.html

These cowboys and Indians were given away free with Daz in the sixties and my Nana, my dad's mother, used to collect them for me. Cowboys were done in red plastic, Indians in brown. My, I had some fun with them.

TTRMOMG 04 Pigeons

My father's mother (Bampie I called him. My nana always referred to him as Yer Gransha - both good South Walianisms [the first a childish way of saying grampie, the second a form of Grandsire]), like many urban working class men of the period, kept racing pigeons. He had built a sort of pigeon loft that dominated the garden. I remember the smell of pigeon feathers and excrement and the sound of grain being thrown onto the wooden platform and the clicking noise my Bampie would make to coax the pigeons back in. Bampie would soemtimes win races and was quite knowledgeable. My dad's brother, still living at home, also kept pigeons at one point. I'm always positive about pigeons, therefore, nuisance as they are here in London.

TTRMOMG 03 Golly collecting

I can't tell you how much pleaseure this illustration gives me; it's like an artefact from another world. I', sure you could get these bags from various retailers in the sxities but when I was a child I only knew one or two places. These included Curtesses the shop where my father's mother went. What you would do is to stick "gollies" on these paper bags. The gollies were to be found inserted behind the label on Robertson's jams and marmalades. When you had collected ten you were able to send for a golly gift - a badge or pottery figure. In the end we had a whole band of gollies and they are still about somewhere. When my oldest son was young I used to get the gollies to perform. Must locate them again.

TTRMOMG 02 Sterry

Both sets of grandparents used sterilised milk. Ideal in the days before refrigeration was common.
You don't often see it these days. I never did like the taste but a sniff might stir some memories.

TTRMOMG 01 Coal fires

Thought I might try a little series on things that remind me of my grandparents. Both sets lived in Newport (Crindau and Corporation Road) until the males died and the nans were moved into sheltered accommodation. Back in the old houses there were coal fires, though the Bradys abandoned their at some point. I was always getting in trouble for poking the fire or burning newspaper in it.

10 things that remind me of my mother

Just to put these in list form

1. Sheepskin mittens
2. Bananas in milk
3. Cameo brooch
4. Pavements
5. Apple pie
6. Pastry
7. Tweed talc
8. Perry Como
9. Black leather gloves
10. Oil of Ulay

TTRMOMD 10

So here's my final one of these. It's a dance floor. My dad was a life long dancer (as was my mam) 14-late seventies anyway. Dad wa always keen on a good floor. I remember seeing this place in Pontypool he used to dance at on Saturday nights and expressing doubts about it. "Lovely floor" was his answer. Sadly, I haven't followed in his dance steps having two left feet and no real sense of rhythm.

TTRMOMD 09

My dad was always very neat about the collar. He always used a Windsor knot, which he taught me to do.
I think other knots look rather naff.

TTRMOMD 08

Being in St David's Day mode my mind has gone back to St David's Day as a child in Junior School, when it was always a half day at school (we'd spend the morning drawing something Welsh - a leek or a daffodil - the girls would wear traditional clothes with black top hats you could buy from local shops). We'd also get a half day if there was a rugby game on (my dad was a soccer man and would sometimes moan that they didn't do that for soccer). Anyway on the afternoon of December 6, 1967 (I was 8) my dad took me to Rodney Parade in Newport to watch Monmouthshire play the touring New Zealanders (who only lost one game that tour). The great Keith Jarrett (not the jazz pianist) whose career was tragically cut short by strokes when only 25, was playing, and Monmouthshire did well thanks to his kicking, eventually losing 23-12. All I remember is Jarrett kicking a lot of goals and that they wore black shorts. It might have been the only rugby game my dad took me to (not sure how he had time off work).

TTRMOMD 07b

My dad liked a game of cards from time to time and we had an old home made cribbage board which I have featured here before in the house. I was familiar with it for years before I knew what it was for. The very word cribbage takes me to my dad, I guess.

TTRMOMD 07a



My dad was a great believer in halibut oil capsules. We were encouraged to take one a day, which we did for years as kids.  How much good it did, I don't know.



TTRMOMD 06

As a mere photo, this is useless. What I remember and what I cannot convey to you is the smell of camphorated ointment. For years we had a little grey cardbard box of it with a hand written label in the bathroom. I was no asthmatic but if I did go to bed with a chesty cold my dad would make sure I had a liberal dos of camphorated ointment on my chest. How well it worked I don't know but the smell was pleasant enough and the fact that he believed so much in it was enough for me. Aaah, I miss my dad.

TTRMOMD 05

It was a tradition in our house to have a fry up or mixed grill on Satrudays. It was my dad's tradition. Our version featured egg, sausage, bacon, fat bread (as my dad called it ie fried white bread), black pudding, egg and beans (done in the frying pan after the bacon and sausage.

TTRMOMD 04

This picture shows the inimitable Glenn Miller shaking hands with a clarinetist and illustrates the fact that not only Glenn Miller but the clarinet itself always reminds me of my dad. Apparently the key to the Glenn Miller sound involves a clarinet.