Happy Anniversary....

Gran and Grandpa! :-))

If my grandparents were still with us today, they would have been celebrating 73 years of wedded bliss because on 28th December 1938 Margaret (age 20) and John (age 22) said I do and ultimitely enjoyed 50 years together before my Grandpa passed away on 13th September 1989, 6 weeks after giving me away at my wedding.  I was so very lucky and had my gran until 2009, when she passed away aged 91, still of sound mind and very sharp wit!

I have thought about them a lot today.  My grandpa was a coal miner and my gran a maid (or In Service as she called it) in one of the "Big Houses" in the village where I (and my mum and my gran) grew up.  The house where she was a maid belonged to one of the pit managers.

She shared so many stories of her time working there from the hilarious - trying to get a shine on the black toilet seat by rubbing it with boot polish then getting distracted and forgetting to polish it off so the master of the house ended up with a black ring round his backside!  To the horrific - being slapped hard across the face (age 15) for accidentally throwing out the cabbage water instead of keeping it for soup stock.  

Even on the day of her wedding she still had to work.  She was up at 3.30am and over to the Big House to get the fires lit, the porage pot on the go and breakfast served and cleared up, before running back home to get washed and changed into her best "costume" as she called it, in time for her  wedding ceremony later that afternoon.

So much has changed in just two generations and I owe her (and my grandpa) a huge debt of gratitude for all the sacrifices they made in order to ensure their children and grandchildren never went without.

Wherever they are now, I am sure they are together because their love for each other is just about the strongest I have ever witnessed.

THIS SONG is one I always remember my gran singing to my grandpa at Christmas and on their anniversary and my grandpa always sang Maggie to her.

The songs might be a chore to listen to but the lyrics alone never fail to bring a tear to my eye.

Little Things Mean a Lot

When You and I were Young Maggie

Happy Anniversary Gran & Grandpa :-))  xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thistle Bouquet Big