Big Nanna

Known to her family as "Big Nanna", she was Paul Magrs' grandmother, on his mother's side.

She raised "Mam" and her sisters and her brother, though they were very poor, so their Christmases, among other things, were small, despite Big Nanna's efforts. In the 1970s, she made non-alcoholic ginger wine for her family, made from blackcurrant jelly that'd been left to dissolve in boiling water with bagfuls of sugar and ginger essence. (PROSE: Party Like it's 1979)

Sometime around 2001, Paul visited Big Nanna in Jarrow, using a tape recorder to record their conversation, as Paul was at the time writing a story with realism, and wanted to capture that with help from Big Nanna. (PROSE: The Great Big Book Exchange)

Behind the scenes

 * For Inktober, Paul Magrs painted a series of paintings based upon pictures from his family photo album. On day 12, he did one with himself, his brother, Brian, and Big Nanna.