My paternal grandmother was born in Denbury, a little village on the edge of Dartmoor. She grew up in the village bakery, and went into service as a nursery nurse; later as de facto governess with the same family. Her employers moved to Kenley in Surrey, where Kathleen (that was her middle name; her first name was Ethel, but she never used it) met my grandfather, a Scotsman who worked at the garage and ran the local taxi. She died quite young of something that may have been Motor Neurone Disease; I just about remember her. Her main claim to fame was having once been struck by lightning in Italy. To my amazement, I found a school photo with her in it, aged perhaps about 10, on the Denbury website. Her expression (a scowl) was not unlike my own in similar situations.

My maternal grandmother was born in East London; a proper Cockney, by birth and on her mother's side, though her father was from Ramsgate (I think) where he had worked as a photographer. When they moved back to London, he was a stage manager in the music halls; died in the final months of the Great War. Winifred trained as a typist, but met (at a bus stop) a much older man who was a retired sea captain fron New Zealand. They eventually set up house together (he was still married, with a family back in NZ) and had three children. He made quite a lot of money out of a patented system for self-righting ship's lifeboats, but died when my mother was about 4 years old. The NZ family arrived, took all the money, and left my gran and her children to starve. Kind aunts took them in, and after a while she married Jack, widower of one of her cousins and the closest to a real granddad I ever knew. There's plenty more; minor Catherine Cookson material in a way. Winifred lived to about 96, and was only frail and forgetful in the final few years. A lovely person about whom no one ever had a bad word to say.