stories mum has told me

• on holiday in germany she saw a wolf on the edge of the woods
• she worked in littlewoods with her friend
• nan used to visit her at work (the bank) and she found it annoying after a while although people at her work called it "cute"
• when they were on holiday in scotland nan panicked about granddad's driving and pulled the car door handle off
• as a teenager she answered back to rude girls who insulted her by replying "i dont know it hasnt got a label on it", she regretted it
• when she wore make-up as a teen/young adult nan said to her "look at all that black around your eyes"
• she failed a-level sociology because the exam was full of stuff they werent taught
• she was really embarassed in primary school because nan wrote her a sick note for the teacher saying she'd been "feeling a little queer" and the male teacher laughed
• as a kid she cut off her cat's whiskers
• as a child her and fiona got dysentry from drinking dirty water abroad
• she met dad in a pub
• she wanted to be a nurse when she grew up or work in a hospital as radiologist or something
• she did horse-riding

stories dad has told me

• when he was a child, about 7 or 8, his dad came home and had got lots of thick books about animals, there were whole pages covered in large high quality photos of animals, he didn't know where his dad got them from but he found it fascinating and that's what got him interested in wildlife/nature
• as a kid he played on large sand dunes on the beach with his siblings, jumping off them (porthcawl, wales)
• when he was a kid his family was very poor and the food they had went very quickly, with so many siblings they rushed to grab the bread and juice when their parents got it
• dad's first job was a glass cutter, he got the job by seeing an ad for it in the paper and got an interview straight away
• he worked in a funfair as a teen?, when he went on a ride that goes upside down all the change fell out of his pocket and he lost it
• his mum was ill and spent some time in a mental health facility
• he said the people in the mental hospital all went "crazy" when it was a full moon
• (he's mentioned her being in a mental hospital a few times but has never elaborated on why she was. I asked mum and she doesn't know either. She doesn't think it necessarily means she had a mental illness/disorder, maybe just put her there because there was nowhere else for her to go for her multiple sclerosis? I've read that people with MS are more likely to have mental health problems like depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia)
• he was in a motorbike accident where he broke part of his back
• he got beaten up and got a broken nose