Funny/Endearing/Crazy things your Grandparents/Parents got/get up to!

retalivity · 22-08-2012 02:02AM

my grandad toured france in a band towards the end of WWII. going town to town that were all nearly destroyed by the nazis.
also reckons he played with stephane grapelli (django fans will know who that is), but I didn't believe him.

uch · 22-08-2012 03:09AM

My Grandad fought in the civil war, then got bored after that and went to fight in the Spanish civil war, that was'nt enough so he went and fought in the second world war and the fu*ker surived them all with just one gunshot wound (spanish civil war ) and still managed to have 8 kids,,,, legend!

Oh and then one of his kids had me!! Bummer

discus · 22-08-2012 07:25PM

My parents have little mannerisms that I genuinely love.

My dad will always give himself the crappest steak/burger/anything of the bunch, the worst spuds and the ****ty veg, and always made sure us kids got the best. He still does it, even now when we're all mid twenties!

My mam loads every text with an assortment of random smilies. Not 'random', but actual random. Picks 4 from her repetoire of about 30. Always makes me smile, her picking which 4 it shall be this time!

What about yous boardsies?

gara · 22-08-2012 07:26PM

My Dad gives me money any time I'm home -it's so cute! ♥

22-08-2012 07:28PM

Threads Merged

Alice1 · 22-08-2012 09:02PM

My Granny was a legend in her day. Seems my grandad (her husband) was involved with the Whiteboys (branch of the Fenians) and was on the run. At the same time, three other men on the run came to my granny's house looking for shelter. Shortly after they arrived, news came that the Black & Tans were searching so granny hid the three men in the loft (attic). When the Black & Tans arrived, she said (truthfully) that she had no idea where her husband was. So the B&T said they would check the attic and granny said "well, you can search where you want, but if you wake the baby in the attic, you'll have to stay and rock him to sleep again. He has me heart broken" ....so they decided against searching the attic. Only granny would have the cheek to stand up to the B&T.
She was one woman who walked to Straide in Co.Mayo to hear Michale Davitt speak - not very interesting till you hear that the preceding Sunday, the priest had spoken out against Davitt and "forbade" any parishioner to go to Straide to hear Davitt speak.

Love this thread

Sleepy · 24-08-2012 03:35PM

I never knew any of my grandparents which is a great shame. My great-grandmother was released from jail for harbouring IRA men due to herself and the other women trashing the place and the prison guards of the day being too chivalrous to hit women!

My paternal grandfather led an interesting life too, heavily involved with the volunteers and the war of independence, he knew Collins personally, spent time in Kilmainham, suffered gunshot wounds and on retiring from the army as a Captain, he was seconded back to it by the Civil Service as one of Ireland's first military historians. His job was literally to cycle around Ireland with an allowance to be used buying pints for volunteers to document the war! I came across a trunk of his old papers and some of the stories he collected were priceless: flying columns who were given the task of robbing the lead from a local RUC barracks and when they successfully completed their mission and the men stationed in the barracks had been bollocked for allowing such an embarassing thing to happen, promptly went and re-installed the same lead the next night!

Later in life, he was one of the coaches for an all-Ireland winning Kilkenny hurling team.

I'd love to have known the man, though my Dad has only managed to find out his history in the past decade or so: he never talked about his involvement in the war while my father was young and died when Dad was only about 14. Would love to know more about him.

seamus · 24-08-2012 04:00PM

My maternal granddad was a bloody looper. And not in the fun way, in the "lost his mind" way.

Where I grew up, there was a long green at the front of the estate (i.e. all the houses looked onto this green). At the far side of the green was a series of huge trees separated by thick hedging, about 20 feet high and 10 feet deep, running all the way along the green to either end of the road.
We spent inordinate amounts of time in this hedging, exploring all the various pathways that kids had cut through it over the years and climbing the trees.

When I was quite young, I think about six or seven, I managed to disturb a wasps' nest in the hedge and ended up getting stung all over the place. Running into the house crying, as you do, and my granddad was over for his Sunday dinner. So he gave my brothers a few pound, sent them off to the shops and told them to get some marshmallows.

When they came back, they found my granddad at the hedge, and a big bonfire lighting in the middle of it. He would burn the wasps out, he said. Of course the local kids were all delighted, running around and toasting their marshmallows, but all my Mum could see was the possibility that several hundred metres of hedging (which stretched across multiple estates) would be up in flames.
It didn't, thankfully, though there was a big gaping hole in the middle of hedging for about ten years after that

ElvisChrist6 · 24-08-2012 05:53PM

My grandad was some mad bastard, literally was mental. His kids have so many stories about him....

Sometimes he'd call over his kids when they were young, in a nice friendly voice as if he was going to give them something: "Come here, come here... hold out your hand" and then he'd ash his cigarette into their hands as he had no ashtray!

My mother would be going out as a teenager and he'd look up at her, "Where are you going?"
"Nowhere."
"And don't you forget it!!!"

He was a bastard for being unashamedly nude, even going so far as to go out in the rain completely naked with a bar of soap. As the environment got worse and worse, he'd contemplate the acid rain, saying: "****ing terrible, you can't even have a wash in the rain anymore these days!"

He used to take me down the bookies before he died, when I was about 2-3, and he'd walk down the street with me sat on his shoulders. One day my aunt was walking behind us, though we didn't know this. She noticed people giving us funny looks as they passed and wondered why. When she caught up with us she noticed we were both, though mostly my grandad, making faces at the passers-by.

Very vulgar, was my grandad (who I had affectionately dubbed Boy for a reason no one knows). We'd be sat in the living room, if something funny had caught our eye, we'd both laugh and exclaim "fucking gas!!" He had me saying all sorts, even calling people silly cunts. However, as much as he didn't pay his own kids much attention, he was very good to me!

castletownman · 24-08-2012 07:24PM

I had a grand-uncle who fought for Germany in World War II. Was a prisoner of war over in England after it where he met my grand-aunt who was a nurse at the time. They moved to Canada but came to visit every couple of years. I only have a vague recollection of them but my father and uncles have regaled us of stories he used to tell them about the war. Of course, as he did his fighting for the "enemy", they were all the more fascinating. He could still do 100 press-ups into his eighties. A remarkable, if somewhat scary man (from what I can remember of him)

DEFTLEFTHAND · 24-08-2012 08:09PM

My grandmother brought the handset from her cordless landline phone into town thinking it would work as a mobile.

Pensivepuca · 25-08-2012 01:16AM

My cousin had his wee hamster out in the fenced in garden, inside those exercise balls to run about in. Well, in comes my Granda, and thinking its a normal ball (it was not transparent easy mistake) he gives it one hell of a boot over the fence!! Cousin went after it, poor wee hamster was dead. My granda went and bought him a new one but no one could stop laughing when we seen what happened. I have loads more but thats 1st one comes to mind.

KKkitty · 25-08-2012 01:29AM

My dad did 3 things I will never forget. He mistook gravy granules for coffee, my hair removal cream for shampoo and my mam's denture fixative cream for toothpaste. He also had a unique way with words. He bumped into a woman he knew while doing the weekly shop with mam and the same woman was on another diet and dad said jaysus you're after putting on some weight. He'd come out with anything to anyone. Really miss those times.

DazMarz · 25-08-2012 02:20AM

My mother's father was in the Gardaí for years (1944-1982; I think), and for a good stint he was stationed in Louth Village. One of the funniest stories I remember from him was in the dying months of World War II, he was the only Garda serving the village that actually lived there. So this night anyway, he awoken to find the local idiot standing in his front garden, screaming up at him:
"The Germans are attacking us, Garda Durkin! The Germans are attacking!"

My grandfather was going out to try and talk sense into him, but the looney thought that the village Garda was coming down to help fight off the forces of the Third Reich from Louth Village. So he shouts:
"Brilliant! Don't forget to bring your baton!"

He was also a great man for fishing. He loved it. Often went out for long stints, sitting on riverbanks and hoping for that big catch. But one day, he didn't return. My grandmother (alone with her 2 daughters at the time) panicked and managed to get word to the Garda barracks in Dundalk that her husband (now a sergeant in the Gardaí) was missing and had been all day. The Gardaí searched but could find nothing. Then, at about 3 or 4 in the morning, my grandfather returned from fishing, absolutely furious. When my grandmother asked him where he'd been the response was:

"I was trying to catch a fúcking salmon. I had the fúcking thing hooked and I had to wear the bastard out for fúcking hours. I had the bastard reeled in and was about to get him on the bank... when the fúcking line broke and he got away..."

marshbaboon · 25-08-2012 02:50AM

My relationship with my parents is the same as it was with my grandparents: non-existent.

They probably did loads of cool **** & took loads of drugs, I have no idea.

Funny/Endearing/Crazy things your Grandparents/Parents got/get up to!

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