Your Kilted Grandfathers (or Other Grandfather Influences)

[Bugbear]

Just had a short PM conversation about grandfathers. It seems to me they can leave a significant impression, even if in directly through the family stories or photos.

If you wish, discuss your grandfathers and their kilts, and how they have influenced you or even post pictures. Or, if Grandpa didn't wear a kilt how did his ways and customs influence the way you approach kilt wearing now?

I will give one example. One grandfather, who passed away when I was very young, had pocket watches. From seeing them in a drawer from time to time after he passed away, I wanted to have a pocket watch from a young age, and have almost never worn the wrist watches.

[Ryan Ross]

When my Grandfather Ross (below, at right) first set foot on American soil, circa 1911, he was wearing a kilt. He remained kilted full time for a further 6-8 years.



Hearing that story always intrigued me, even at a young age, and I think it inspired me to take more than a passing interest in kilts... and I may or may not have recieved the steely glint from him, as well.

[Steve of Lansing]

What a cool pic, Ryan! You definately got the glint from him!

Something interesting to me is that just last week I was wondering what precedent there was for wearing double breasted jackets with a kilt. Now I know they were doin' it 100 years ago.

As for the OP, my Grandad didn't have any influence on my wearing of the kilt. He passed on about 13 years before I wore my first one.

He was a farmer and one thing I did get from him, though, is that one should always carry a pocket knife, and I often have more than one on me.

Always, -Steve

[Spartan Tartan]

What a great picture! Seeing pictures like that makes me want to take a nice family photo with both my son and I in our kilts...

[Hocfutue]

Didn't get the kilt bug from my grandfather. My grandMOTHER is where I draw my Scottish ancestry, although she never showed any leanings towards the traditions or history. But she was thrilled that I did.

Here's to you, Granny! I miss you.

Steve in WA

[Peter Crowe]

My paternal grandfather (Grandpa) was English (although his maternal grandfather was a Scot, he married a Scot my granny, and settled in Scotland). He was born in Aldershot in 1906 and grew up in the Poole/Bournemouth area on the Dorset-Hampshire county line. He ran away from home and enlisted in the East Surreys in 1926. He rose through the ranks to become RSM warder at Barlinnie Prison's military wing before OCTU and a commission in the Royal Engineers (1943). He retired from the Regular Army as a Captain in 1953. He had a wooden yacht for many years on Loch Lomond. Nicknamed 'The Colonel' by my granny's younger brother, he was an exceptionally well dressed man all his life, but never wore the kilt. He mostly wore Cavalry twill trousers. polished shoes (oxfords or brogues), tweed sports jacket, and informally a fine polo necked sweater otherwise a collar and conservative tie. Clean shaven with short neat brilliant white hair with a side parting. He always seemed very venerable, patriarchal and proper although he had a dry sense of humor. He sometimes wore a trilby outdoors but detested men wearing hats indoors (with the obvious exceptions of appropriate military protocol, i.e. parading indoors/religious observance). He died a few weeks short of his 81st birthday in 1986 when I was 20. He spoke Received Pronunciation/Southern Standard English without either the affected plummy speech of old-style Army Officers or the modern tendency to adopt an estuarine (Thames Estuary) accent.

My maternal grandfather (Papa) was a Scottish Borderer from Galashiels who had serious lifelong chronic health problems. He was born in 1913 and died when I was an infant in 1968. He looked like me and my mother and (like me, not my mother) had a receding hair line. He dressed a bit like Churchill whom he resembled more than a little (unlike me, as he was short and stocky) in dark suits and with a Black homburg or in tweeds. He occasionally wore tweed THCD with a Gunn kilt. As a young man he had been a Lieutenant in the Boys Brigade and was a Home Guard (KOSB badged) private during the war (he attempted to volunteer for active service but was rejected on medical grounds). My Papa had a very earthy but innocent (by today's standards) sense of humor. I can't remember his speech but have been told it was Scottish English/Scots in the accent and dialect of Galashiels.

Both my grandfathers were considered to be gentlemen although from modest family backgrounds, were active freemasons and good men by any standard. I have been very influenced by both of them in different ways as much as by my own father. ith:

[Bugbear]

... He was a farmer and one thing I did get from him, though, is that one should always carry a pocket knife, and I often have more than one on me.

Always, -Steve

That counts. Do you cary one in your sporran?

[Steve Barclay]

My grandad on the right with Tam no doubt made by my nan (a dressmaker), and my dad as a wean in the middle, sometime I assume in the late 1950's, most likely at Hogmanay.



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[ThistleDown]

Great, great great grandfather, Duncan (yes, I know about the kilt blemish, but what can you do on New Year's Eve?):

[Steve of Lansing]

That counts. Do you cary one in your sporran?

Yep, Always. Currently it's just a little 3" liner lock Gerber. But that same Grandad gave me a 2 1/2" 2 blade folding toothpick that I still have and carry on the rare occasion I have to wear dress pants.

I also have a 3 1/3" Gerber liner lock in my EDC bag, and one of those weird little Buck liner lock knife/bottle opener/key fob things on my keyring. Those 2 go with me every day to work.