My Grandmother

A Memory of Tring.

My grandmother was born in Tring in the late 1800s and was married in Tring Church on Christmas Day in 1909.  Her grandfather was a very peculiar character and had to be taken to the village pump for his weekly wash and he used to sit on the wall to jeer at  the churchgoers.  He was known as Grampy Rodwell.  Once a week free bread was given out and he always was the first in the queue and used to bag his loaf by poking the bread with his filthy hands.  I loved hearing stories about him.  My grandmother was in service and worked for The Roschilds as a cook.  She was, apparently, the first woman in Tring to ride a bike.  She came from a very large family and most of them married in Tring Church.  I have recently read "Lark Rise to Candleford" and it takes me back to sitting round my Aunt Em's table and hearing her daughters call her "Our Mum" and listening to them proudly chanting a childhood rhyme.  "Tring, Wing and Ivanhoe, saw three churches all in a row, take my shoes and stockings off, and jump over them."