I was looking for something in cupboard today when I saw this and thought it’d be a great MLM.

This is a picture of my Nana, her sister and her mother taken back in 1918.  How fabulous are these old photographs – despite my dodgy attempt to get a good picture of them, the reflection off the curved glass made it hard! But, if you look closely, you can see the little paint brush strokes, touching up the photograph as was the fashion at the time.

Nana died a few years ago now at 94 years of age.  Up until the last couple of years, she was incredibly mobile and lucid, quite amazing given how tiny and frail she was in the end.  She was independent and didn’t mind going about life her own way, particularly after Pop died, 10 years before she did.  She never wanted to bother others and took it upon herself to make her own way it life.  I think she was around 89 years old and still walking 2km down to the sailing club where she lived to go and put a couple of dollars in the pokies before catching a cab home.

Nana and Pop lived a pretty amazing life, and it wasn’t until I was asked to write the Eulogy at her funeral that I realised how varied it was.  I recall early stories that Nana told of her and her sister moving to Sydney and working for Grace Bros back in her early 20s.  I get the impression that the pair of them were quite the party girls!  And it was there she met my Pop.

Nana and Pop spent a lot of time travelling around Australia.  They even used to travel with the Show – yes, as in the one that stops in at towns all around the country – so as kids we were lucky enough to pretty much go to the show every year for free.  In fact, I think I was about 23, the last time I received a roll of free tickets to go on all the rides!

I have lots of memories of Nana and Pop visiting us when we were little.  They used to stop in every now and then in between their travels bringing their caravan which had a circular bed in it!  So many little memories pop up just thinking of her now. The times we used to have dinner with her in their caravan and when she wasn’t looking stuff our veges down the hole in the middle of the table (designed for an umbrella to go in) – it was months before she could figure out where the smell was coming from.  Or when they finally settled down in the small beach town they would make their home for the next twenty years and I dropped around to visit after school and found her shimmying up a banana tree to cut down the dead fronds – she was in her eighties!

But my all time favourite memory of my Nana is her buying me alcohol for all my high school parties.  That and the secret bottle of rum she would buy me for each christmas and give to me on the sly so that my dad would never find out!

There is no question that my Nana was a pretty cool lady, I wish that I had have paid more attention to the stories she told us when we were  younger.  My memories are all a little bit sketchy now but I’m really enjoying these Memory Lane Monday opportunities to think back about some of the special people that aren’t here anymore.  Now, I really must get onto doing something with some of these fabulous old photos!

Do you love looking back at old photos and reminiscing? Was your Nana cool like mine and buy you sneaky alcohol behind your parents back?