Something random: earliest born person you ever met

My other half and I were discussing this last night. We’re 26/27, so young ‘uns really. I’m curious how far back second hand living memory goes on the BBS.

I’m interested in the oldest you ever knew, and if you heard any first hand interesting stories from them.

Earliest born being the oldest birth year, rough estimate will do if you’re not sure.

My other half could only stretch to her gran born 1929. Vague memories of WW2 and growing up in the segregated US south.

The oldest I knew was my great gran born 1905. She told me stories of watching a Zeppelin fly over Chapeltown on its way to bomb Sheffield in WW1. She died in 2002 when I was 7.

 

That's an interesting one. My great grandparents were born late 1800s and similar to you the last of them died when I was 7/8. Can't remember talking to them about any historical events though, only being given 10p whenever we saw them for a donkey ride at the seaside! I'll have to ask my Dad if they ever did tell us anything.

 

I will be beaten hands down. Some reight owd buggers on here. .
2 of my Grandparents Were alive. well into the mid 1980s both born circa late 1890s. My Grandad talked more about his working life rather than the wars. I think the wars to a degree were a taboo subject for him. One of his sons. ( My uncle. Mams brother) Suffered terribly at the hands of the Japanese in a pow camp. He also never discussed it. Only in my teens would my parents approach the subject.
Parents. Born Mam 1923. Dad 1924.

 

In the early 60’s I was a cub in the 23rd Pitt St. group. I remember one evening the pack leader (Akela? sp?) brought an old gent in who was 92. So I guess he would have been born about 1869 / 70.
Anyway he fought alongside Baden-Powell in the Boer war and told us some stories about him.
I don’t remember much but Mafeking was mentioned.
He was older than both my Grans so he goes back further than anyone else I’ve met.

 

Probably my granddad, he was born in the 1890s. He was quite well known in Thurnscoe, Jimmy Armstrong, spoke with a strong Sunderland accent right to the end despite moving to Thurnscoe in 1936, died in 1980.

 

Probably my paternal grandfather born in 1889. The person who I know who lived longest was the current Mrs DR's auntie Doris who lived to be 105. She died 6 years ago.

 

i was born in 1956 and remember talking to my great grandad, he died in 1962 aged 95 so 1867

 

My great gran lived to 99, she was born around 1890, I remember her as a doddering old lady in the 70’s, but she’d only have been about 80

 

What a great thread,my gran 1909,always wanted to put her life into a book but said she darent because my mum would be too shocked

 

just imagine being born in 1900-ish and living into your 90's what you would have seen, the 1st cars, traffic jams,1st powered flight to man walking on the moon, talking pictures, radio, mobile phones, rise and fall of communism, 2 world wars, computers, but mainly seeing the reds lift the fa cup

 

On a similar note mate. My uncle Ron. (Died a few yrs ago) Grew up in Brentford. But lived (after meeting my aunty )in worsbro, till he died, for about 60yrs. Great bloke. Never lost his london accent. Quite cute when he threw the odd thee/tha in. He Was a fireman.

 

We need some stories, sounds interesting.

 

My great grandmother born in the 1890s so in her 80s and 90s when I knew her in the 70s and 80s. Her piano we played as children is now in my mum's house.

 

My great grandad was born in the very late 1890's. Died in 1990 I think, when I was 11 or 12. Don't really have that many memories of him though as he was quite frail and didn't socialise that much. However, I have a lot of memories of one of my neighbours when I was growing up. She was also born in 1899, and finally called it a day in 2001, a couple of months shy of her 102nd birthday. A remarkable lady, who was still keeping bees or her roof into her 80's, and cleaning her upstairs windows from the outside and swimming several lengths of the local swimming pool into her 90's. She was on Look North on her 90th birthday when the local hairdresser gave her free haircuts for life. He retired before she left us. My mum always said that her long life was almost certainly due to the fact that she never had kids.....

 

My Wife's Grandma was born in 1899 and lived to 101 years old. So her life spanned 3 Century's - 19th, 20th and 21st

 

Grandad born in 1874 in a Norfolk workhouse. Always thought that this was a sign of destitution until I learned that they also delivered antenatal care. Poor women would often go there to give birth and they were poor.
His mother was born in 1851 and worked as a skivvy in a stately home when she could get work. They were agricultural poor and my grandad left for a "better life" in the pits. He and my grandma had thirteen kids of which my mother was the youngest, only eight of them were alive at the time of my birth.
An aunt who I never knew drowned herself in the canal because she had been made pregnant by her employer, a doctor for whom she worked as a maid of all work.
Wasn't much like Mary Poppins or Downton Abbey was it?

 

Have a read of Akenfield by Robert Blythe to get an insight into how dirt poor agricultural workers were in the 19th century; no wonder they went to the mines and the mills.

 

Paternal grandmother born 18th July 1880 and died 3rd February 1971 when I was 18.

 

I started training as a nurse in 1985 and had a placement where a patient had her 105th birthday, so that puts her at 1880.