Pleasantly Commonplace ... almost!

For my title this week I'm indebted to a Facebook comment by the man who is almost certainly my oldest friend.  We were at primary school together almost 70 years ago.  He wrote (I won't bore you with the context), "In standard English, 'nice' means pleasantly commonplace.  In American English it seems to mean high quality."

So this has been a nice week - very commonplace, and quite pleasant.  With my WEBBS work on hold just at the moment owing to an imbalance of the data flow higher up the chain, it's been quite relaxing.  Apart from a few exceptions, one day has been very much like another.  I've railed against the irrelevance and introspection of the news on the political scene; I've spent much of the daytimes at my desk; and in the evenings I have delighted in a variety of YouTube offerings ... including, last night, a most apposite episode of 'Yes, Prime Minister'.

The desk time has been divided - somewhat unevenly - between my continued researches into the family history of my cousin's husband's great-uncles and -aunts, and teaching myself how to use an on-line accounting system (and how to overcome the problems created by my misunderstandings thereof).  

By and large, the weather has matched this daily similarity.  Here in South Yorkshire we've been spared this week from the lesser extremes of heat in the south and rain in the north-west.  It's been wet most mornings, but clearer and drier later in the day.  I have an arrangement with my neighbour regarding the regular offerings in my garden by her cats.  I convey them to an suitable container on her side of the fence and she does what's necessary thereafter.  This week I've been quite absorbed by the challenges of the computer screen, and have often missed the opportunities to deal with this, and one afternoon I effected a 'bulk delivery'.

And so to those 'exceptions' to the routine.  One morning I spotted on Freecycle (I still can't get used to calling it 'Trash Nothing', although it's still only three syllables) an unused pair of slippers just my size and took advantage of a sunny afternoon to make the 37-mile round trip to the outskirts of Sheffield to collect them.  On Monday, following medical advice, I left the car where it was and made the journey by bus and on foot to Doncaster Royal Infirmary for a small surgical procedure.  (Driving after anaesthetic wasn't recommended.)  The outcome of this was minor and decreasing discomfort, and I have an appointment at the surgery in the next town to have the stitches removed early next week.

I'm now wondering what the next week will bring to this 'almost common place'.  Watch this space to find out.

A Solution in Search of a Problem

I confess it ... I'm a bit of an addict when it comes to spreadsheets.  Indeed, I remember one occasion when I said that I think in terms of them.  Certainly, when I'm confronted by a table of figures that's the first thing that comes to my mind.

I've been using this data processing phenomenon for the last 40 years off and on, right from having on my office desk an Apple PC with 5¼" floppy disks and 34KB of usable memory once the program was loaded.  Needless to say, in that time I've developed a degree of skill that is quite widely useful.  One evening this week I participated in a zoom meeting where I was able to offer help in this direction should it be appropriate to their needs.

To keep on top of developments and possibilities, I subscribe to a constant stream of 'daily tips' by e-mail.  These are provided by Allen Wyatt, an acknowledged guru of the system, who lives in Wyoming, USA.  Apart from these skills, which have resulted in many books and on-line courses over the years, Allen has recently opened a YouTube channel, in which he showcases some of the attractive scenery of his part of the United States.  He doesn't post there very often but, in my opinion, he's well worth watching.  As regards many of Allen's daily tips, however, I find my reaction is 'That's useful, but would I ever need to use it?'

The zoom meeting I referred to above was hosted by Make Votes Matter, which I mentioned in last week's post. One question raised was 'how can we make Proportional Representation better known?  When my turn came, my answer was something of a sidestep.  Feeling apologetic, I said, "I'm more of a worker than a thinker".  After all, my offer of help was very much along the lines of 'give me a challenge and I'll deal with it', rather than that of introducing any new strategies.  

Very much in the same vein as my thoughts about Allen Wyatt's Excel tips, I suggested that PR is a solution in search of a problem and I explained this by telling my own story.  Although I've been a voter for more than 50 years, I have never been represented by an MP of my own political persuasion.  I moved from a safe Conservative seat to another safe Conservative seat, and I'm now living in a safe Labour seat.  Never has there been even a remote possibility of my being represented by a Liberal or Liberal Democrat MP.

To my utmost surprise, one of the others in the meeting responded, "You've just answered the question, Brian.  Your personal history is the very way in which we can explain to people who live in safe seats their need of PR.  It's the only way they can have satisfactory representation."  With  a Single Transferable Vote system, a number of constituencies are combined to elect three, four or five MPs.  This means that the votes of those electors who support other than the present firmly-established party are combined and, together, may be able to return one out of all the MPs for this much larger constituency as their own representative.

Irrespective of the political subject under discussion, I came away from the meeting pleasantly satisfied that, although I hadn't realised it at the time, my thoughts and feelings addressed a question that I had felt unable to answer.

From Both Sides Now

I confess, I was out yesterday and completely forgot that it was Friday - the day when I usually write my blog.  Consistency is important, though, (and that's a phrase that has current significance, I realise) so here are a few thoughts about something that has been on my mind for the last ten days or so.

When Boris Johnson was finally persuaded to resign, one thing was inevitable ... an election to find a successor to him, both as party leader and, de facto, as Prime Minister of our United Kingdom.  I'd forgotten just how long and protracted a business this is although, apparently, the 1922 Committee have taken measures to speed things up a bit.

Essentially, the process is in two parts, rather like a French election.  Firstly the current MPs of the party reduce the many candidates to just two.  Secondly, these two are presented to the membership of the party countrywide, to determine which of the chosen two will be the new leader.  The first part of this process can take up to two weeks.  At the start, any candidate who can't find among his or her fellow MPs a required minimum number of supporters is eliminated.  Then the MPs vote in a succession of ballots at each of which the candidate getting the least number of votes is eliminated, until just two remain.

When I first heard how this was being done - I think it was when David Cameron resigned after the Brexit vote in 2016 - I thought, 'How stupid'.  If they were to use a Single Transferable Vote, all unpteen candidates could be presented to the membership from the word go.  It would then take, say, three weeks for the votes to be returned, each showing the voter's preferences and the new leader could be in post within a month.

After all, the MPs' selection process puts into human form part of the counting procedure in an STV election.  The candidates getting the lowest number of votes are eliminated and their votes go to their next preference.  In the actual Conservative party process, they have to decide who else to vote for; with STV that decision process is expressed at the outset.  What's missing in making this comparison is the re-allocation of excess votes over and above the minimum required to elect the winner (the Quota).

My own criticism of the system ended at this point with a declaration that, of course, the Tories would never decide to use STV.

The non-partisan activist group advocating proportional representation, Make Votes Matter, goes a stage further than I did.  Stripping the whole consideration back to first principles, their most telling analysis is simply this.  If the Conservatives really believe that First Past the Post is the best system, the only good way, to hold an election, then they would use it to elect their leaders.  They would send out the complete candidate list to the membership and whoever came out with the most votes would be the winner.

But they don't.  As MVM's leaders have pointed out, 'If FPTP is not good enough for them to use themselves, why should they force the general electorate to use it to elect our MPs?'

One Year On ...

Wednesday marked the anniversary of my removal to Goldthorpe and I thought it would be interesting to review the last year.  A few weeks ago one of my 'Sunday Friends' asked how I was getting on in Goldthorpe.  Aware of my limitations, I answered only the first part of his question, having brought with me a 'bubble' of life into which I felt I had largely withdrawn, cocoon-like.  Join me on a journey through my diary to see if that's true.

The move itself was interesting, starting in rain, but all was unloaded by 2.0 pm.  The major snags were attributable to the steepness of the staircase and the fact of its being enclosed.  The wardrobe had to be disassembled in the lounge and then rebuilt in the bedroom.  The bed wasn't so fortunate; it lingered in the dining room for ten days or so, and was finally destroyed and taken to the council tip.  Meanwhile my first few nights found me using the mattress on the floor until a self-assembly bed frame could be procured.

The garden was the next big challenge.  I hadn't wanted a garden anyway but, in a tight market, I wasn't about to make a fuss.  Many a morning was spent moving concrete slabs, and digging out giant weeds, before trampling it flat and laying a membrane, on which I repositioned the slabs and surrounded them with lots of granite chips.  At the front the tiny area was already stone-covered, but through this was growing what amounted to half a tree. I cut out what I could and treated the root with bleach. However, when it showed signs of new growth, I knew I should have to clear the stones and dig that out too.  By this time the back was ready for the chips, so some got diverted to make the front tidy as well.

As early as the first weekend, I found water running down the landing wall, and the roofing people came to 'fix it' a couple of weeks later.  Only they hadn't. A few months after that, the problem recurred in greater force and just before Christmas scaffolding was erected so that a more permanent repair could be done.  Meanwhile a mystery parcel had arrived.  My landlord, aghast at these and many other 'teething' problems that I'd had to cope with, had sent me a tin of shortbread!  Not much, I hear you say, but she'd had to bear the not insignificant cost of all the work that had been done; I only had a little inconvenience.

By this time, I'd become established in my new place of worship, the Quaker fellowship in Doncaster, who are inheritors of one of the very first Meetings, established in 1652.  Here I'd learned of their need for an Area Treasurer, and offered my services.  Being new to the fellowship, and not a Member, there were a number of administrative hurdles to be negotiated, but in January I was appointed and set to work immediately studying the complex workings towards the completion of 2020 accounts, and building my own spreadsheet 'family' to produce the required documents for 2021.  This exercise is only now completed - albeit a bit earlier than last year's was - and I can turn my attention to the current year.

I spoke of the 'bubble' I'd brought with me.  The greatest component of this was my work for WEBBS, which I've mentioned often on this blog, helping in the production of digital scriptures in foreign languages for use in the mission field.  Another was my Welsh studies.  By the time I'd clocked up 900 days, I decided that, for all the use I would put it to, my knowledge of the language was sufficient.  The main problems are primarily vocabulary (I probably have only about 1,500 words, if I can remember them) and secondarily, remembering the mutations.  But, given that most of my use of yr iaith Cymraeg is going to be translating into English, I shall recognise these when they occur, and won't have to worry about remembering to use them myself.

Of course there has always been family history to squeeze in. I brought with me the collection of microfiche of which I had been custodian for some years.  When I reminded the Society that I still had them, and was willing to do look-ups if anyone wanted, this was greeted with a kind of semi-serious mirth.  The technology of micro-fiche is virtually obsolete and, thinking that the subtext of my offer was a desire to get rid of them, I was told that they could be junked.  Seeing that I was serious, not only was a notice put in the Society magazine, but a month or so ago I was presented with a redundant fiche reader from the local record office, which is in much better condition than the one I owned.  And it's not an entirely dead technology either, for only this week I've received an e-mailed enquiry that I shall begin to look into after a busy weekend.

Realising the limitations of the answer I had given to my friend's enquiry, I decided to do something about this, and I'm now getting regular exercise by walking into the town one morning a week to join in a community coffee morning which, in some ways, is similar to the one run by the Salvation Army in Letchworth that I helped with before Covid.

I have plans for the future in many of these directions, but I keep reminding myself that the whole idea of moving away from the 'First Garden City' came from the Almighty, and I keep looking to Him for guidance as the days and weeks roll by.

While Gladstone danced with Disraeli and Salisbury ...

The 1911 census may have gone out of fashion following the arrival of its younger successor, but its unique 'fertility statistics' have proved immeasurably useful to family history researchers.  It's one thing to scour the censuses of the late Victorian era, and thereby establish what we might think of as a complete family, but the 1911 record provides what in most cases is the authentic total, and may send us scurrying to the recently-released GRO records to fill the gaps by searching for the mother's maiden name.

By such means a family of six can become a family of eight, three can become five or, as in one case I found recently, two early children and two later ones book-ended four siblings each of whom lived only a few days or weeks before dying in the same quarter as their birth.

But, to go back to my title ... between the spring of 1868 and the summer of 1892 - fairly well matching the to-and-fro of those famous politicians - Arthur and Clara Kerridge were steadily going about their business of re-populating the north of Suffolk.  During those years, they produced a total of eighteen children and, by 1911, they could claim, 'eighteen children: eighteen still living'.  There was no need for me to search for more, nor to seek deaths of infants either.

I had long been aware of their number, and had dutifully recorded their births when researching the family of my cousin's husband, whose grandmother was their twelfth child.  But it wasn't until a conversation during a visit earlier this year, that I realised that I have noted death details for only four of them.  Somewhat taken aback by this shortcoming, I pledged to search for the deaths of the others.  

Now, at last, I've cleared my family history desk of other matters and have managed to squeeze in (between other regular demands on my time) the opportunity to take up this challenge.  So far, I've made a list, noting the quarters and years of their births, and have noted possible deaths accounting for name and approximate age, but allowing that they might have moved around the country.  However, I realise that this is only scratching the surface, for ten of the eighteen are females, so my search can only provide possible deaths if they remained single.

In making my list, I discovered that not all of these siblings have been accounted for in all possible censuses and only three in the 1939 Register, so one of my early tasks will be to complete that chart. Along with this will be the need to find marriages, thinking that these might at least be reasonably local, and then I shall look for evidence of military service for the sons, and possibly the CWGC records in case any died during the war (this was the line of conversation that sparked off the whole search back in January).  

It doesn't help that there was a family habit of the second forename predominating in common use, for eight of them had two forenames and the first two daughters had three each!  None of the names are particularly rare, if you discount the 'd' in the middle of Standley.  And then there's always the worrying possibility of Philippa Louise being known as Betty ... or similar (not that these specific examples appear at all, but you get my drift).

I did think of following the headlines of recent years, the 'Birmingham Six', the 'Guildford Four' and so on, by heading this piece 'The Hopton Eighteen', but apart from the inaccuracy in that the first three children were born in Hinderclay, and only the other fifteen in Hopton, this template would cast an undeserved slur on the family, and the names wouldn't be so eye-catching anyway.

Given the amount of time and resources I have available to throw at it, this challenge will probably occupy me for the rest of the year, but I think it will be instructive for me as well as an achievement if I can reliably fill all the remaining gaps.