I think it's brilliant that you're telling your grandson not only about his ancestors, but about your own youth. So often, it doesn't occur to parents to let their kids in on their own story. Sometimes, telling a story about the time you did something naughty or got yourself out of trouble or apologised when you were wrong can teach a much more lasting lesson than just 'do as I tell you'. I was lucky as a child. All my older relatives were storytellers and I have a wealth of old family tales locked away in my head. I've spent most of my adult life gradually writing them down, along with my own memories of growing up and setting out as a young adult.
For example, there was the time my Pop gave sixpence to his youngest son (my Dad, Frank) and told him to walk to the butcher's shop in Cook's Hill and buy a sixpenny bag of soup bones. It was the Depression and Nanna wanted to make a good nourishing soup for her six kids. Only the Cook's Hill butcher sold good, cheap, marrow-bones decent enough for making soup. Dad was only eleven and Cook's Hill was eight miles away.
As he wandered past the local butcher's shop just up the road from home, he read a sign in the window that assured him 'dog bones' could be bought for threepence a bag so, nothing ventured, he popped in and purchased a threepenny bag of dog bones. Needless to say, he then popped in to the grocer's and treated himself to threepence worth of sweeties.
Returning (smugly) at the end of the day, he handed the bag of bones to my Nanna, who let out a shriek (she knew immediately that there were dog bones, not soup bones in the bag). Pop took hold of the bag of bones and gave my Dad a hiding with it!
But yes. The soup was made from the dog bones and it was, as expected, awful! Poor Dad. He never quite lived that one down.
