General Chat

Gran was fined 10/- in 1940, for not having the headlights of her car properly masked.
Probably didn't need driving licences or insurance in those days, cos I'm sure she wouldn't have had them!

Hayley SAID

She needs more stories of Gran please" thanks x :-D :-D

Just double checked - it seems gran's aunt B married Mr Gay in 1908.
Gran's dad (aunt's brother) married Mr Gay's sister in 1909 :-0
Soooo My great granddad married his sister in law. Talk about 'keeping it in the family'!!

Hula, I'm afraid it's true!
The telling of ghost stories before we went to bed was, I believe a subtle ploy.
She'd ask if we were going to bed or, if we wanted a story. ie, get to bed or I'll scare the bejasus out of you. I noticed, after a couple of nights, my cousins went to bed when asked this. I didn't!!
Granny D was very sassy, and a survivor.
Her mother died 5 days after grans birth in 1908.
Gran said she was brought up by an aunt, but in 1911, she's living with her grandparents.
However, a chance remark to my brother at her funeral is interesting. If Gran was brought up by her aunt, this aunt was married to a Mr Gay. Gran, my dad, my brother and apparently gran's dad had one thing in common, black hair and the most amazing blue eyes.
At the funeral, a stranger (all the Cornish lot were strangers) came up to my brother and said:
'You must be a relation - you have Gay eyes'. Fortunately, my brother knew about the family name, but this comment implies her cousins also had the blue eyes, and gran was considered a 'Gay' by other relations.
Her father had remarried a year after her mother's death, and by 1915, had 4 children with his new wife.
Gran never spoke of her half brothers and sisters, but did say she used to take her dad lunch (or did she?)
I will need to see the 1921 census to see where she's living then!!

Gran had 2 children out of wedlock - the first when she was 18, and appeared to use various surnames. She was also a 'chancer'.
When an admiral - who was a friend of her grandparents (ie 38 + years older than her) was killed in the war, she tried to claim his pension as his widow, yet she must have known he had a wife, and 5 children! :-S He is, however high on the list of being my dad's dad, as gran was intelligent enough to know that just using a man's surname didn't make you his wife - but having his child may give you some 'rights' :-S

Anyhoo - now to search out her half siblings :-D

Call me sadistic iffen you loike.........but I want.......

More, More........More!!!

:-D :-D :-D

Ummm, Maggie, I cant help wondering if you take after your gran in the 'telling tall tales' department. It could be a family trait. It all sounds too good to be true.

Now where is the tongue in cheek smiley.

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Don't forget her daughter - who shot her husband :-D :-D
(With good reason, I'm sure)


The worst thing about my aunt was her dog - a Jack Russell, who was over possessive about her basket, and would sit on your lap - and you weren't allowed to move, or she'd bite :-|
Gran's dog, on the other hand, was a very laid back Old English Sheepdog called Buster - who avoided the Jack Russell.

I first met my gran in 1967, aged 11, Our family moved from Cornwall to Hampshire, and for some unknown reason, I was sent to stay with gran.
Why we'd never visited her when we lived in Devon and Cornwall, I have no idea.
Also staying with gran were my aunt - just out of prison, I think, 2 cousins (aunts children who gran had been looking after), and aunts god-awful dog!

I stayed there for the summer holidays plus a week.
Gran was very laid- back.
She 'controlled' her cows with a long piece of grass, tickled her pigs on the tummy, and even her chickens came when called by name!
She could speak in an indecipherable Cornish dialect, and sound like the Lady of the Manor in the same sentence, and had a wicked - no evil - sense of humour.

She told tales of hauntings and evil ghosts just before we went to bed.

The house was very old and run-down. There was no electricity upstairs - we used to take candles to bed - and the doors were like hardboard covered in many layers of wallpaper :-S
So ghost stories just before bed weren't the best idea :-S :-S

:-D :-D :-D

My other lot (mum's side) were ag labs, but one of them managed to demolish his neighbours sheds that were encroaching on his land.
Another tried to derail a train, and was put in an asylum. :-S :-S :-S

I just wish I'd known my gran better - she was well known and loved (not sure about trusted!) locally. But she, like my dad, preferred animals to humans.
I haven't (for obvious reasons - I have 2 cousins on that side) given her real names.

I've just told my sister - who is very cynical about 'proof' - but even she knows not many people would use both the surnames gran did.
I can't wait to tell my brothers!

I's a good girl, I is :-D :-D

Kitty .............


mine were Ag labs, lace makers, and then moved up to the industrial north to work in cotton mills

I must say one was a poacher who became a gamekeeper :-S

OH has a few more interesting ones ................ corn millers, tenant farmers, one who was a Quaker preacher if we can believe the story.

but nothing as interesting as maggie's gran!

she must have been fun to know ................. as long as you took her with a pinch of salt!!

:-D :-D :-D a better read than fiction Maggie

How bally fabulous and exciting Maggie!!! :-D :-D

Having said that, I don't think we can any longer be friends. :-( :-(

Love it!! ;-) ;-) ;-)

She was an amazing lady. Later on, to make money, during school holidays, she would 'take in' children from boarding schools, whose parents were 'too busy' to look after them themselves.
In about 1941/42, she found a 2 year old toddler wandering the streets/lanes.
She spoke to his parents, took him in and brought him up.
She was also prone to telling the most amazing 'porky pies'.
Her mum was Spanish - no, she was Cornish. To be fair her mum died when she was a baby - but Best isn't a Spanish name!!
She was a rally driver's navigator - no

Her surrogate son phoned me once. He was in awe of my dad, but when I pointed out how good gran was at lying (in a jokey way), he got in a strop!

When she found out my cousin and I had tried her Woodbines, she made us each sit on a cow (I got the only horrible one - Princess, as I was a year older), and smoke 5 cigarettes in a row.
When one of her pigs tried to crush me between the gate and side of the sty (I was trying to stay out of the bl**dy pigs way) she just called the pigs name (Maisie I think) and the pig turned and went out.

Great fun! :-D :-D

The only ones in my family who are well-known were "doing good" - not nearly so interesting.

On the prison records, it has her as Smith, Jones Brown - and even the name of the man she married in 1942 (still married to his wife in 1939 - she died in 1941).
All names on the register are crossed out and the note: see page 5!

This was more a marriage of convenience than love. My dad wanted to join the Fleet Air Arm, and, at the time, you had to have the name of your father on your birth certificate. Dad's never known who his dad was, so gran 'got' her new hubby to adopt him (he didn't adopt dad's sister).
At the time of dad's adoption, the certificate has gran living in Cornwall, her husband in Devon, and he hasn't signed the certificate - gran's written a statement saying he WILL adopt dad!! :-D

Mine too Sylvia......salt of the earth Ag Labs, one criminal who stole a lace hankie from her employer, one bigamist and a good few lunatics, idiots and feeble minded sufferers.

I love them all though :-)

fascinating .............


and much more interesting than most of mine :-D

Brilliant life story, in a warped kind of way :-D :-D :-D