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Looking back it, that cherry stone game wasn’t much, but it pleased my grandmother.   Her hands in old age were swollen but she was quick enough to find the brown velvet bag in the cupboard by the fireplace.  We would sit facing one another, she in her rocking chair and I on a low stool, holdingContinue reading “Mantlepiece Tales”

When I approach family history writing, like many people I am phased by the enormity of the task, and the question of what will treasured after I am gone.  Developing the strategy of thinking about a little moment has been useful. It usually leads to something else, which fleshes out the tiny memory and sets itContinue reading “Grandma likes Saffron Cake”

We are all familiar with shortbread… it is eaten all over the world. It’s a simple good-natured foodstuff. Made from butter, sugar and flour it doesn’t even mind how it is mixed. The butter and flour can be delicately rubbed together with fingers before the sugar is added, it can be rudely food processed orContinue reading “SCOTTISH SHORTBREAD”

David Brooks in his essay ‘The Odyssey Years’ describes the usual four familiar life stages: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. To this he says two have been added in the last generation. I suggest that both have resonances and relevance for us the grandmother.  One is the active old age from which we areContinue reading “The Odyssey Years and an Active Old Age”

I’m looking at a brown envelope addressed to me from my mother in Cornwall. I don’t know how many hundreds of times I have seen my address written in that hand.  She has always kept up with her correspondence, dating back to strict Edwardian parents.  For more than fifty years, she has sent me letters,Continue reading “Manilla”

One of my joys over the last few years has been wrangling my own story into a shape I prefer. Take for instance my memory of a teenage early morning drooping about on a dirty pony searching for a cow and calf on Bodmin moor in the mist. It can be made to sound allContinue reading “A Wispy Mist or Air from a Whoopee Cushion”

The wise old owl sat in an oak The more she heard the less she spoke The less she spoke the more she heard Why can’t we be that wise old bird? This week on our walk down the path through the trees I saw a patterned caramel coloured wing feather lying on the ground.Continue reading “Wise Words from Grandma”

This Australian moth is called the Grannies Cloak (Speiredonia Spectans). From a purple patterned soft cloak shape, we can see a grandma stare. Is there such a thing as a metaphorical grandmother’s cloak I wonder? A cloak that a grandmother uses to keep her family safe from harm. We have heard about the menopause allowingContinue reading “Granny’s Cloak”

Gendered Language:  A review of past and current thinking. (The Long Read) Answering the questions: Why does grandma do so much of the family remembering? Why does grandma make such oblique requests? By asking my contributors about their grandmothers as well as their mothers and themselves, the timescale of my research spans the whole ofContinue reading “Grandma’s got her Green Skirt on”

Blog Post 11 Let’s talk about the Menopause. For most of us grandmas, it will be a dim and distant memory.  Our breeding phase is even longer ago, and some of us feel a little redundant now, especially when our families live independently far away. But in the paper this week, there was a headline:Continue reading “Riddle: Why is Grandma Faraway like a Killer Whale?”