Longtime Ago People
In a world where family connections shape us, stories bridge generations. Many of us carry cherished memories of those who touched our lives, which I think deserve to be shared.
Each episode I hope will feature guests recounting touching, funny, and inspiring memories, celebrating the impact these individuals had on their lives. I aim to beautifully remember loved ones, offering listeners nostalgia, warmth, and connection.
I am looking for people to reflect on the impact of these relationships.
Longtime Ago People
Wiggy, Egg Sandwiches, Shared Baths & Cheeky Wiring
Wiggy, Doris, Mick, Peter & more - Sean 1965
grans & uncles/grandson & nephew
In this episode, I sit down with Sean to share vivid snapshots of Wiggy, A grandmother named for her hair, the Londoner who never quite forgave leaving the city, and Ron, the quiet man who gave up inheritance for marriage and then left for war. What starts as a conversation about a beloved gran becomes a richer look at class, place, and the grit of making a home when everything moves faster than your heart can follow.
We trace the years from a teenage pregnancy before the war, through a bungalow built in haste, to Sundays filled with warm egg sandwiches in a house mysteriously heated by fan blowers. The reveal—Ron’s cheeky electric rewire—lands like a family legend: practical, daring, and just a little bit unlawful. Alongside Wiggy stands Doris, Sean's maternal gran, another Londoner who rode the bus back to dance halls every weekend—proof that some places never stop calling.
The conversation shifts to time and its tools—how older hands meet modern screens. Teaching an iPad to a parent becomes a window into empathy, patience, and the wonder of seeing a face across oceans. We talk about Uncle Mick, the young man who left for South Africa and flew high before life tempered the gloss, and how his path shaped the next generation’s sense of risk and return.
Through grief, humour, and the stubborn details of memory, we make a case for why grandparents matter: they are our first lessons in loss, and our clearest proof that ordinary lives carry extraordinary weight.
Pass this episode to someone who still remembers the smell of Sunday tea. Your memories might be the chapter someone else needs.
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Have a story echoing through time? I’m listening—300 words or fewer.
"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."
Listening to Miles, and this is a long time ago, people. Now today I'm joined by my good friend Sean and we're gonna be talking then mainly about your grandmother Wiggy. Brett, yes. And maybe other grandparents or people maybe maybe. We'll see how it goes. Right, first of all, um I've got to ask the I've got to ask the first question uh about Wiggy. Where did the name Wiggy come from?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so Wiggy comes from the fact that she had, well, so much hair. So children, nobody knew her at all as grandma or mum. She was just known as Wiggy in a house because of her massive hair that did look like a wig, although it wasn't. She said she her hair stayed pretty dark even to a, you know, into her seventies and eighties. And she was a lovely lady. Lovely lady.
SPEAKER_00:Well look, can you paint me like a picture of your grandmother Wiggy? What was she like in like in everyday moments?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, well, Wiggy was a proper, proper Londoner. And she wasn't particularly tall, she was quite a dumpy sort of character, and wore glasses. Well, she was she was quite a character. She managed to get herself pregnant when she was 16 with my granddad.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Pretty shameful back in the day.
SPEAKER_00:So what what what decade are we talking about here? What decade?
SPEAKER_01:It's me. Well, I really don't know, Marles. So she would have been probably in her eighties and died about 10 years ago. Yeah, so he was he was pretty unheard of back then, but it it was kind of before the or around the soil of wartime, just before possibly. So is that sort of here for sure. As soon as pretty much my my grand had my dad, which was her first child, my granddad went off to war. And my dad didn't know his granddad for the first six years or so. Because he was off in Africa. He only briefly came back. And in fact, he thought his granddad was his dad in his head when he was younger, because he never he never saw him. So it's quite incredible. So yeah, so Wiggy moved from London, married her husband Ron. They lived end up living in Oxfordshire. However, that had some side effects because Ron, my granddad, was disinherited because of this. So he was told and no uncertain terms was he to pursue this lady which he got pregnant. In no way should he marry her, marry her, and if he did, he would be disinherited. Now, apparently, and allegedly, they were quite wealthy landown owners in Oxfordshire. So he gave up quite a lot to be with my grandmother, and then ended up going straight off to war. But before that, he he bought a piece of land and he'd managed to get builders and himself to to build a bungalow before she gave birth to my dad. This all happened pretty much at once, and off he went. Off he went to war. It was it was quite interesting that my dad really didn't know him, know his dad his dad at all until later get to know him. However, they went on to have more children. They had a four children. So there was my dad, Roy. Next came along Joe, seven years later.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because that would have been after the war, yeah?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Seven years later, Julie. Then seven years later, Barry. Wow. Then seven years later, Peter. Talk about seven, eight-year-itch. So that was an interesting one. However, Peter was kind of like our brother because Peter was younger than me. So my dad didn't not only know his dad particularly well, he didn't know his brother at all, his younger brother at all, because he was married to my mum and had me and my brother. So it was quite interesting.
SPEAKER_00:I might need a drawing here, Sean.
SPEAKER_01:But I had an uncle who was actually younger than me, and still have to this day, Peter, who now lives in Torquay. But I mean, Wiggy didn't really speak affectionately about my granddad. In fact, she despised him. She hated the fact that she was dragged away from London to go and live in Oxfordshire. And every time he spoke to her, particularly if I was on my own with her, she would swear about him quite a lot. And she did quite like the use of the F-word every now and again as well, which was pretty unusual for her grandmother.
SPEAKER_00:She's a Londoner though.
SPEAKER_01:She was a proper Londoner, and of course he wasn't. And he was quite a quiet man, really. But I don't know what he did wrong, but she just disliked him forever. Up until the point when he did die eventually. And when he died the day he died, he was the best thing since sliced bread. But I mean I've got some other fond memories of my grandmother. I mean, we used to go around there quite a lot and um see Wiggy and my granddad on a Sunday. And it was also always when we had our tea. I think my mum and dad had run out of money by the weekend, so we had to go around there and now and have our tea. And also a bath, by the way. Me and my brother in the bath together. Not in our older ages, Mars, you understand, but when we were younger.
SPEAKER_00:But we all we all did that in the 70s for sure.
SPEAKER_01:We not necessarily all did it with our uncle, Pizza, who was younger than us. All three of us in the bath, but we always had, and my memory is always of um warm egg sandwiches that were sliced in a slicer and put with salt and in white bread, and it was always warm, and it was just a fond memory of her. And the house was always warm. Now there was a reason why the house was always warm. They never had any radiators, but they had those electric fan heaters. And my mum always used to say, How on earth can I afford to run those heaters? Because they're quite expensive, those fan heaters to run. No radiators at all back in those days. Well, we found out when my granddad died that he'd wired up the electricity in the next door neighbours. So he he turned out to be quite a character, and they had to undo all of that once he died. It was quite funny, interesting character. He was a dark horse, really. And the other side were were paying for it. Both sides, I think, I believe. He'd wired to wire up. Some way, somehow. So yeah, and that's why the house was always warm in the winter. But yeah, going back, we yeah, we ended up sharing baths with my uncle Peter, which is not a thing I'd really want to share, but I'm sharing it with you.
SPEAKER_00:I promise I won't tell anybody, I won't tell the side.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I first remember my grandma wig wiggy going absolutely berserk because Peter managed to put himself in that bath when we were all in there. Oh. And she dragged him out and pulled him out by his ass. That's the first time I can remember of getting quite moody. But other than that, she was quite mild-mannered mannered apart from speaking about my granddad. Yeah, lovely lady. Pregnant at 16, moved moved from London down to Oxford uh Oxfordshire, hated it, you know, in a relatively small bungalow, which we ended up with all of the children.
SPEAKER_00:So did she ever return to London or was she always just a Londoner outside of London?
SPEAKER_01:No, she was really just a Londoner outside. Now that's interesting because that leads on really to my mum's side a little bit, because my mum's side of Londoners, my granddad heralded from Italy. I don't know what part, but my mum Doris was a again a true Londoner, and they moved down, ended up moving down to Oxfordshire and worked for a company called Smith's Industries. They were all engineers at the family. And my mum had three brothers, but her mum Doris, talking about London, absolutely hated Oxfordshire, and at every opportunity went back on a bus. Every weekend she'd just go back and leave my mum to look after all the boys, the three brothers and and my granddad. Because she she just could not stand it. So every opportunity she was off on that bus. And off dancing, I understand. Dancing in London, yeah, in in the centre of London, because she just couldn't.
SPEAKER_00:It's out quite late then, by the sounds of it.
SPEAKER_01:No, she'd stay over for the weekend, and sometimes longer, just come back when she wanted. And they end up retiring in um near Clacton on sea, a place called Holland on Sea. Clacton was considered a little bit lower key, Holland on sea, sort of middle ground, and then you had Frinton, which is for the very posh.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I've heard of that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Frinton on Sea, uh, he was so posh he didn't have a fishing ship shop. Uh and Holland on sea uh was middle ground, and that's where they ended up being. But they had uh she had three brothers, Mike, Bob, and Dennis. Dennis being the eldest, all of them ended up in one way or another being engineers, but Michael ended up in South Africa at the age of 23, and he was quite a high flyer. He's still there to this day, and he is now 85. Can't afford to come home because it's just too expensive in the UK versus what he gets in South Africa.
SPEAKER_00:Also, it's quite it's quite a long way for an 85-year-old, I would imagine.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. So we we we've got quite a lot of cousins and and everything else. Quite a big family on both sides. On both sides, yeah, and you know, it they've all they've all done relatively well for themselves on the whole. I think Wiggy always resenting the fact that she could never ever go back to London and didn't go back to London. She just didn't travel, didn't want to travel, but hated the fact that she was dragged out of London and Doris on the other side on my mum's, every opportunity back and they didn't know each other at the time, did they?
SPEAKER_00:So she should have gone dancing with her.
SPEAKER_01:I know, I know. Well this is the point. They didn't really know one another that well and didn't really mix, is my understanding. So yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Apart from the baths that you used to have, is it is there anything that that you you think of on on either Doris's side or Wiggy's side that you that you did with them in the 70s? Did you uh you know, did you did you spend weekends with them? Is there is there any rituals that you did with them, any family events that you did, anything like that at all?
SPEAKER_01:No, not really. I mean it it the those are ground as grandparents, they weren't particularly well off, so not a lot really happened, Miles, to be perfectly honest. I mean, Christmases are always a thing, and we always help put up the Christmas tree and do those sorts of events. But apart from that, there wasn't there wasn't a great good deal going on. We did go occasionally to a social event at Smith's Industries Social Club. That was uh typically uh on a Saturday night when my parents could afford it. We went there and met our uncles and danced a night away with them um with a coke and uh you know, pop and crisps. Apart from that, there was very little that went on because they simply just didn't have the money to do it.
SPEAKER_00:What do you think they would think of the world now then? I mean, what would they think of, you know, like the technology say for arguments? I love this question because I always think of grandparents and the world's changed dramatically in in mine in your lifetime. Uh that we didn't have mobile phones, then we've got mobile phones. I mean, what would they make of mobile devices and everything it can do now?
SPEAKER_01:I think on the whole they'd be absolutely horrified and frightened of it. I really do. I think it's it's the technology movement is so quick. And I can only relate it back to my dad, and we've recently got him an iPad. To do FaceTime on it is taking him so long. It's such an easy task for us. We just pick it up and go with it. He's just it's taking him forever. And that's because he wants to speak to my uncle Mick, who's out in South Africa. The technology is not there really for him to do cheap phone calls. So FaceTiming is is the option to do. And it's just you wouldn't believe the times miles that we had to sit down and go through all of that. So for Wiggy, Doris, Cyril, and Ronald, my grandparents, I think it would be absolutely frightening for them. I really do. I I don't think they could perceive that this has all happened so quickly in our lifetime. And I think we just take it for granted. And I and our children worse. I mean, they've they've not grown up with a spoon in their mouth, they've just grown up with an iPhone in their mouth because they just automatically get it, it's so intuitive for them. And I think it would be so far from intuitive for the for my grandparents, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_00:I think what's quite funny is we even even our generation have grown up with iPhones, so we had the first one and then you had the next iOS system, then you had the next iOS system. So all the the changes happened over a longer period of time. But then if you suddenly, if you didn't have all that and you just put an iPhone or an iPad into someone who's 85-year-old hands and then expect them to use it, it must be quite daunting. Oh, yeah. Well, at the same time, suddenly see each other all the way from South Africa. What does he think about seeing?
SPEAKER_01:See I think he he thinks this he thinks it's fantastic. He he he loves he loves the fact that he's got it, but I don't think he likes I think I mean because we've we try it with him um at the moment. The thing is, we we try the face timing, and I know what he's doing. He's got it by his armchair, we've plugged it all up. It's on full time, it's on 24 hours a day, so he's not going anywhere. It's right by his side, and he's just listening to it go off. And then we phone him and say, Dad, why are you not not picking this up? And he has trouble. He dabs, he dabs on the screen as well. He's pressing too hard. He can't do this light finger touch. And if if he needs to swipe, he has a struggle with that. So it's a struggle for him. So goodness knows what it'd be like for the likes of Wiggy. I really don't know.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, yeah. I mean it's um my aunt has has got an iPad. She goes, she goes to the library, funnily enough, and they give her lessons in the library, which which is a thing. So I think that was that's cut.
SPEAKER_01:So that's a challenge for for a lot of a lot of people. And it used to be mobile libraries and everything, didn't they?
SPEAKER_00:So Definitely did. Is it is there anything from Sir Ivor Wiggy, Doris, that's shaped the way you look at things yourself? Is is there any particular sort of trait you've you've got from them well, from any of your grandparents, really?
SPEAKER_01:I really don't believe it's so much of my grandparents, because they all in and as I say, the majority were sort of engineers, but definitely feel that I've got more of my uncle, uh my uncle Mip, who went to South Africa. I always had a close relation with him growing up. When he came home, it was always a big thing, and he, you know, he kind of did quite well going out as a sales director in his early twenties. Uh so I think more than anybody in my my life that I can think of who was older than me, it would have been my uncle Mick. He went out there, he was successful, he he had the maids, he had the um he had uh the swimming pools and everything else out there, which wasn't unheard of out in South Africa. But of course, then he's had a big fundamental change in the way the whole world is for him out there as he's got older because it's been a total shift of shift of course in in what's going on in South Africa.
SPEAKER_00:So when did he go out there then? What what decade or roughly when you went out?
SPEAKER_01:Well he was only 24 when he went out there.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, yeah, so wow.
SPEAKER_01:He was relatively young and you know, and got himself up to heady heights with it within a company and then has worked for various companies. However, he has had various he's had a number of divorces which have made him pretty dinny throughout his life. He you know, he's just he's a smashing chat. But he's he's he's had his failings through his marriages. He he he'd love to come home back home to live with his current uh his current wife, but he he can't I can't afford to. I think more than anybody else who shaped me was it was probably here. But my fondest memories was definitely of uh in terms of grandparents of Wiggy, the way that she used to talk was funny, the way she used to talk about my granddad, you know, just you it was unheard of the way that she used to describe him et cetera. The flower tray way was unbelievable. Um, but I loved her all the same. I was very close to her and I miss I miss her very much. And when she died, it took me a long, long time to get over her because we we were quite close.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think people forget that grandparents are are are extra special because of what you just said. I think you know, as a child, when your grandparent dies, and you could be a child, you could be in your teens, you could even be in your twenties, but it's probably your first experience of of somebody in your family dying. So it it hits hard for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, it does. Well, Sean, that's it. Should shoulder the sweet.
SPEAKER_01:I just wanted to just say Yeah, I didn't I I don't know, I don't know, didn't know what to expect, what you wanted to ask, but I just it's it may not be the most exciting, but you know, that's that's the way it is, you know.
SPEAKER_00:I'm looking for this, exactly this, nostalgia, fond memories. That's exactly what I'm looking for, and uh you've shared that and I love the fact that you had one grandma that just m couldn't get better London and one that got back to London all the time. So uh that's right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's got that's kind of cool. Brilliant. All right, Sean. So thank you for the time, and uh I'll I'll catch up with you soon, mate. All right. Okay, buddy.
