What trivia/ anecdotes will you be able to tell your grandchildren?

14-07-2017 04:39PM #1

I'm 30, so if I have grandchildren, they'll probably be born in the 2050s - 70s, at which time the world will have probably changed dramatically.

What kind of curious memories or trivia will you tell your grandchildren that highlight dramatic social change or historical events?

e.g. I can remember 'seeing the internet' for the first time, at a friend's house, aged 12.

My granny was born in the 1800's, and lost family members in both World Wars. She babysat me as a child, and told me lots of crazy stories, some of which are even true.

Our next-farm neighbour was also born in the 1800s, and she lived in a house with no electricity. Her house was lit with paraffin-lamps, and we brought her a container of water each night on a tractor.

I'm sure some of you will have experienced historical events first-hand, but for most of us, there are probably many aspects of our early lives that may already seem to belong to a different world altogether.

biko · 14-07-2017 04:49PM

"I used to be chip-less so the government couldn't always tell where we were"

tomwaterford · 14-07-2017 04:51PM

My grandmother was a native Irish speaker and when she near death and unable to talk properly could converse perfect in Irish with a neighbour of hers growing up who came to visit

Also a grandfather of mine during the war of independence seen soldiers being lined up outside a famous pub in dungarvan and being whipped by their officer for ill discipline

My family pass down lots of things like this

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 14-07-2017 04:53PM

I saw the end of WW2: moon landing: first computers with no hard drives: travels to every continent: had involvement in major scientific research and discoveries: used to be paid in cash: stories of rural electrification: motorways being built: the list is endless really.

Widdershins · 14-07-2017 04:57PM

We used to have cars we drove ourselves with a steering wheel and nobody could track you when you were driving. You could just take off wherever you felt like going.

WoollyRedHat · 14-07-2017 04:59PM

I'll be telling them stories of what it was like to live on land as they will all live underwater and move around in water tight capsules

I'll try regale them about games of marbles and cogs and playing games outside with no handheld devices required and they will look in disbelief and awe out of their Google Glasses.

I'll tell them we used to communicate on forums, post about hypotheticals and connect with strangers over what food we ate on any particular day, and other daily nuances and they will laugh at me.

I will show them photographs, and they will tap them wondering why they do not move yet be moved by it, for everything to them is fast moving.

About books. The novelty of a handheld book made of paper, with its strange smell which will bedazzle them as if some strange fossil.. Things that we saw in the museum, they'll quip. And planets, how we used to think that there was only one living planet with a selection of different species that have since started disappearing from view, that we did not comprehend life away from the third rock from the sun yet showed such scant disregard for it.

The past is a foreign place.

TheIrishGrover · 14-07-2017 05:01PM

I've seen a king, a queen, 2 US presidents, 2 Irish presidents, an emperor and the Dali Lama in person (Not met them all but seen them all in person). Was in US for 9/11 (But not NY). Remember the Berlin Wall coming down. Remember having no phone in the house (Shocking to people my age. Grandkids will prob be "Ye had one of those cable-phone things?... Or DIDN'T?"). My grandfather has a street named after him in my home town.

Minor things really

14-07-2017 05:02PM

The grandchildren thing is important, when we were children we use to go yeah yeah she is off again when my mother would tell us stories form her rural 1930s childhood always sounded like dire poverty to us even though she grew up on a big farm.

On the other hand her grandchildren were fascinated by the stories of cooking over an open fire, poor children who came to school barefooted or of giveing the skimmed milk left from the creamery to poor people with no land and therefore could not keep a cow to provide milk for themselves.

Hector Bellend · 14-07-2017 05:07PM

I remember life before pornhub

Malayalam · 14-07-2017 05:30PM

I used to lie across the space under the back window of the ford escort as we made family journeys because there was not enough room with all the kids in the car. And I liked it there. My father would sometimes wear his slippers driving. And a string vest under his suit jacket (with no shirt). My mother smoked fags with the windows rolled up and we kids hardly noticed. She might be holding the latest baby in her lap at the same time. We pinched the living daylights out of each other, but didn't squeal because of an unspoken code of honour, and chawed and sucked happily on Time bars that would easily rip the teeth out of your head. This was what we knew as a day out or a holiday.

RhubarbCrumble · 14-07-2017 06:33PM

No plans to have kids so I won't have to worry about what to tell the non existent grandchildren.

Grandeeod · 14-07-2017 06:58PM

"It's a pity they cloned Bono."

Are Am Eye · 14-07-2017 07:04PM

RhubarbCrumble wrote: »

No plans to have kids so I won't have to worry about what to tell the non existent grandchildren.

You could adopt a grandchild. Or several.

RayM · 14-07-2017 07:16PM

"Of course, we had to make our own 8k ultra-high-definition televisions back in my day"

Cee-Jay-Cee · 14-07-2017 07:41PM

I remember when all of this was fields.

Solomon Pleasant · 14-07-2017 07:50PM

I think that Britain's exit from the EU will be considered a monumental day in history and will be interpreted as a time of huge change. If the EU eventually collapses, it will be marked down as possibly the main contributor to such a happening.

Detailing Ireland's most recent and deepest recession should also be an interesting one. I think many of us will find ourselves explaining how our parents were able to buy their houses, but, as a result of economic change and questionable decision making, working and middle class people now have little option but to rent. Our housing market will be more central European in nature in that renting is seen as the one and only solid option for most people.

Shenshen · 14-07-2017 07:55PM

Still childless in my mid-forties, so I think grandchildren are unlikely.
But I can tell them about how I grew up in Germany, spending all our holidays in my father's native Austria. Back in the day when they still had borders, and as my parents would purchase wine directly from the vineyards in Austria to supply friends and family, I was made part of a sizeable smuggling operation from a very early age.
Essentially, my parents would fill up the boot of the car with 2 litre bottles, then (thinly) spread out luggage over it. They would also remove the back bench and replace it with bottles, with mattresses and pillows draped over and us three sitting/lying on top. We would set out on the trip home late in the evening, my parents would time it so we would reach the border sometime after 2am. The last motorway stop before the border they'd pull over, straighten everything up, make sure no bottles were showing, and we three would receive instructions : We were to pretend to be asleep. If they stopped us at the border any longer than usual, we were to pretend to be waking up, all cranky and whinging and crying. The whinier, the better.

Worked every - single - time. No border guard will ever be willing to deal with 3 crying and screaming children at 2am in the morning. They'd always wave us through first sign of tears.

And we always got ice cream afterwards.

And I could then tell them about my parents once smuggling an antique bedroom suite (1 double bed, 2 bedside tables, 2 huge wardrobes, 2 chairs, 1 chaiselongue and 1 dressing table) across that same border.

Much as I enjoy traveling without borders these days, some of the fun is definitely gone.

Dr Turk Turkelton · 14-07-2017 08:22PM

Shenshen wrote: »

Still childless in my mid-forties, so I think grandchildren are unlikely.
But I can tell them about how I grew up in Germany, spending all our holidays in my father's native Austria. Back in the day when they still had borders, and as my parents would purchase wine directly from the vineyards in Austria to supply friends and family, I was made part of a sizeable smuggling operation from a very early age.
Essentially, my parents would fill up the boot of the car with 2 litre bottles, then (thinly) spread out luggage over it. They would also remove the back bench and replace it with bottles, with mattresses and pillows draped over and us three sitting/lying on top. We would set out on the trip home late in the evening, my parents would time it so we would reach the border sometime after 2am. The last motorway stop before the border they'd pull over, straighten everything up, make sure no bottles were showing, and we three would receive instructions : We were to pretend to be asleep. If they stopped us at the border any longer than usual, we were to pretend to be waking up, all cranky and whinging and crying. The whinier, the better.

Worked every - single - time. No border guard will ever be willing to deal with 3 crying and screaming children at 2am in the morning. They'd always wave us through first sign of tears.

And we always got ice cream afterwards.

And I could then tell them about my parents once smuggling an antique bedroom suite (1 double bed, 2 bedside tables, 2 huge wardrobes, 2 chairs, 1 chaiselongue and 1 dressing table) across that same border.

Much as I enjoy traveling without borders these days, some of the fun is definitely gone.

Yep I grew up on the border albeit a different one to you. It was a great time all jumpers for goalposts and throwing stones at heavily armed Brit soldiers. Ah the innocence.

SEPT 23 1989 · 14-07-2017 08:31PM

They have you under complete control every move you make is watched and recorded

Cashless society driverless cars

We watched it happen slowly right under our noses and never said stop

What trivia/ anecdotes will you be able to tell your grandchildren?

Comments