Tenement My Story

This story belongs to Hannah

and her nana, Anna!

It's a tiny tale about Nana Anna,

and a thing she used to do.

Now it's time for her to share her memories, and take Hannah

on a journey of discovery.

Doesn't Hannah look just like

her nana when she was a wee girl?

Hannah's counting all her money.

How much is there?

-29.

-£29.

-Did you save that up from your pocket money?

-Mm-hmm.

-How much pocket money do you get every week?

-Usually, I only get one,

-but sometimes, I get two.

-Sometimes, you get £2?

-Mm-hmm.

When I was your age, do you know how much I got?

How many?

One penny.

Only one penny!

My dad used to come home from his work

and give us all one penny pocket money.

I had two sisters - the three of us

used to run to the sweetie shop,

and we could buy four different things for our pennies...

Four packets of sweets for a penny! Lucky Nana Anna!

That's a penny, isn't it? And there's an old penny.

-They're much bigger.

-Much, much bigger, aren't they?

Look what I've got here - I've got lots of old pennies!

Look, Nana Anna has been saving her old pennies - just like Hannah!

Look!

-Dozens of them...

-They talked about long ago,

when Nana Anna was a little girl.

Hannah wants to find out more

about her nana's life.

Nana, tell me a story about your mum and dad.

My dad came from Cork,

which is a city in Ireland.

My mother came from

the other end of the country,

a place called Donegal.

Nana Anna's mum and dad came from Ireland,

but moved to Glasgow, in Scotland, where they married.

Her dad worked in the shipyards, where they built enormous ships,

just like in this old film.

He was a joiner, who made furniture

for the bedrooms in the cabins where passengers slept.

In the shipyard, they made huge boats - very, very famous boats,

like the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth, and the men

who worked on the boats were very, very skilled workmen.

This is one of the cabins inside the big ships.

I think my dad must have worked on fitting out

the cabins in these big luxury liners.

Where is Hannah's nana taking her now?

I'm going to take you to our sweetie shop, Hannah,

which has been there for over 100 years. It's still got

the same kind of sweeties that we used to buy with our Friday penny.

Woah! What a lot of sweets!

Ah, now, look at this magic shop!

It's the kind of shop that I would have come to when I was your age.

Let's see if we can find some of the sweeties

that I would buy with my Friday penny.

Oh, there's one - look!

All the favourites of Nana Anna when she was a little girl!

ABC letters was another one that I loved.

And Lucky Potatoes.

-Do you think the lady would let us taste some?

-Mm-hmm.

-What is it you'd like?

-Could we maybe taste the ABCs?

-ABCs?

-ABCs are lovely!

-Yes, ABC...

Go on, try one, Hannah!

I'll put them on a wee plate.

-There you are.

-Oh, thank you!

-Thank you.

What a treat for Hannah and Nana Anna!

What will I try?

Yum!

Could I find an A for Anna?

Mmm!

Yummy!

-Have a wee taste of some sherbet.

-Have a dip with a bit of liquorice.

Oh, that's fizzy!

-I like it.

-Mmm, she likes that. OK.

Would you like to taste some of the Belgian chocolate mice?

Of course she does!

Thanks very much. Have a wee taste of that.

Nibble it...

Mmm!

Can I have a wee taste of that, too? Mmm, got a lot of chocolate in it.

Mmm.

-Yummy!

-And what about some Lucky Tatties?

-Hold on to the mouse.

-And I'll swap you over.

-Want to try one?

Uh-oh!

Hannah doesn't like that one!

How much do you think that would cost now

for those four things that I used to buy for a penny?

That would be about £1.50 now.

£1.50! That would be nearly all your pocket money -

for four things! And I could get them all for a penny!

Don't forget to brush your teeth, Hannah!

When I was a little girl, Hannah,

this is the street I lived in.

And this building is called a tenement.

And you can see, it's got three storeys - one, two, three.

And I lived in the middle storey,

and that was my house, there.

There's loads of cars now,

but when I was a little girl,

one person had a car,

and we thought that person was very rich.

We'd play outside ALL the time.

We'd play this game "bouncy" with a ball, a tennis ball.

And the person who could do the most bounces without losing the ball

won the game!

One day, when I was cleaning out one of my cupboards,

look what I discovered.

An old case of your mum's dolls. And all these dressing-up clothes.

She loved to dress up her dolls. There are all sorts of clothes.

Now, I've got an idea.

-How would you like to dress up today?

-Yeah.

OK, let's do that, then, will we?

This is the kind of dress I would have worn

when your mum was a little girl. And that's the kind of dress

-your mum would have worn. And guess who would have made the dress.

-You.

Me. I used to make all her dresses when she was a little girl.

-Do you like mine?

-Uh-huh.

Don't you look sweet?!

This is the kind of dress I would wear when I was a young lady,

when I married your Gramps.

How stylish was Nana Anna when she was young?!

And you just look like a little schoolgirl from that time.

Especially with your bunches.

-Do you like your dress?

-Yes.

-Do you like my outfit?

-Uh-huh.

Oh, looking good, Hannah!

This is the kind of dress that my mum would have worn.

That's the kind of dress I would have worn when I was little.

Especially if I was going somewhere special.

Hannah, you look lovely. You just remind me of Alice in Wonderland.

Nanna Anna loved to get dressed up

when she had days out with her family.

We used to go to Glasgow on the tram.

We always went upstairs and sat in the little front bit of the tram.

I can always remember I always had to go up there

as I got sick on the trams. There was a big exhibition

called the Empire Exhibition in Bellahouston Park,

which was a great excitement for children in those days.

It was a big deal for your parents to take you

to see the Empire Exhibition. It was absolutely magical.

We saw Eastern buildings and all sorts of fancy buildings

from all over the world.

And we children were absolutely goggle-eyed

at all that we saw in the Empire Exhibition.

It was one of the magic things that stayed with you forever.

Where to now, Hannah?

They're off to visit an old house

that has been kept the way it was when Nana Anna was a little girl.

Oh, my goodness, this is just like the kitchen

that I lived in when I was a little girl.

That's called the bed recess, and that's where my mum and dad slept.

What do you think this is, Hannah?

-A carpet beater.

-A carpet beater.

And what would happen would be that these rugs would be taken down,

thrown over the washing line and beaten like that

till all the dust went up in the air.

That would be part of cleaning your house,

to take your carpets down and beat them.

What's that, Hannah?

And this is what we call the range,

where all the cooking was done. We used to light the gas rings,

there, with a match. The cooking was done in those big pots.

That is the oven at the bottom.

We opened the door and did the baking in the oven.

Where would you sleep,

-if your mum and dad slept there?

-We slept in the other room,

where there was another recess bed like that.

Two of my sisters would sleep in there,

and we had a kind of settee bed.

The ones you could put down and fold up during the day.

So your room looked like a sitting room during the day.

That was where we slept, in that room, that was the sitting room.

Would you rather have lived

when I was a little girl, or would you rather be

-a little girl nowadays?

-I'd rather be nowadays.

-Why?

-Because I really like telly.

-Television.

We didn't have any television, so we had to make our own fun.

Let's walk over here and see what's over here.

In those days, no-one had a washing machine.

Everyone washed their clothes by hand,

using a washboard and a wringer.

This is the sink where some clothes would be washed,

then they'd put the clothes through that wringer.

See the handle, what would they do with the handle?

-Spin it round.

-They'd turn the handle round.

We used to call that "core the handle."

That's what people used to say. "Let's core the handle."

-What do you think that is?

-A washboard.

-How would you use it?

You'd just put it in the sink.

Yes, and then you'd rub your clothes up and down there,

as you'd have soap on the washboard already,

and then you would put the cloth back into the water,

rinse the soap off it,

and then you'd put it through there, the wringer.

Thank you for a nice day out, Nana.

I've just loved being back in this old tenement house,

it's brought back so many memories.

-What was your favourite part?

-Dressing up.

Oh, you looked lovely in all the clothes. Your mum and me

were always interested in fashion and dressing up.

I can see another story starting here with you.

Now, I think we'll go home on the bus, because I've got a...penny!

Don't be silly!

What a fabulous heap of fun!

That was Hannah and Nana Anna's tiny tale

about the things Nana Anna used to do and the fun she had,

and why she has such a big, old penny.

Nana Anna has shared her story with Hannah

and now Hannah is starting her own story.

Do you know someone with a story to share?