Grandparents and how they define you

There was a lady on the radio talking about grandparents. The point was of course that they were a mixed bunch and that’s what defined her: a mix of four different cultural connections. That got me thinking. How do my grandparents define me?

Here goes, and starting on my mother’s side:

My mother’s mother was an Edwards. Good Welsh name and all I remember about her parents was that they were married for over 60 years, I went to the Diamond Wedding party, and that my grandmother was one of 11 children. Families were like that in those days.

Her father was a Vickers. He, William Gilbert, was a butcher as was his father, Samuel, whose name is on the bridge on the High Street over Wepre Brook as one of the councillors at the time.

There are 22 Vickers listed on the Flintshire County Council web-site relating to Connah’s Quay including Gilbert and Samuel. An earlier Samuel was a master mariner. Click here for the link.

The photo above is of my maternal grandparents together. He was active in the NFMTA, the National Association of Meat Traders Associations, (does it still exist?). I think this photo was taken at the dinner at their annual meeting.

On my father’s side his father was, of course, a Jenkins. That’s another good Welsh name. He hailed from South Wales, Swansea, and came north with his family to work in John Summers’ steelworks. He was one of several brothers and when I met the daughter of one of the others a few years ago she mentioned some earlier migration of the family to Philadelphia from which just my great grandfather returned.

To some extent Shotton was a steel town and the ‘works’ was across the river and most people went by train so the streets were busy three times a day as men walked to and from the station at shift change.

I’m told that during the 1930s recession my grandfather was out of work but still found a way to send my father to university in Liverpool where he trained to be a doctor. I’m not sure that would be so easy these days.

My fourth grandparent, my father’s mother, was a Nock and she hailed from the Midlands. I know nothing about how she came to be on Deeside although I do know that many Brummies came to work in the brick works around Buckley. Maybe that’s what her family did. I’m presuming she married my grandfather there just before my father was born because he always told me about the various houses he lived in in Shotton.

So not much of a cultural mix but a rather typical one for Connah’s Quay and Shotton. The local accent is supposed to be quite specific and is a mix of Welsh, it is in Wales, Scouse, it’s close to Liverpool, and Birmingham, from the brickworkers.

Now for my kids it’s a little different with a mother from East Java …