I never cease to be amazed at the way the things in my life seem to fall into appropriate chains. As longer-term readers of this blog will recall, this was often the case with my work. For example, I might go for six months without visiting a particular customer or town and then, in the space of a couple of weeks I would go there two or three times in quick succession. It's not a repetition exactly that I'm writing about ... although thinking about it, I suppose in a way it is ... but read on and you can decide for yourself.
Most of my friends seem to receive Christmas cards in a steady stream from the last days of November onward. I usually get my first one about that time and after then just one now and again. Occasionally two or three will arrive on the same day, but that's the exception rather than the rule. The other day there were three, and I realised that they were representative of three distinct segments of my life. One was from a cousin whose parents used always to send me a card ... one of those situations where the annual exchange of cards is the only-ever correspondence between us. When the second parent died a couple of years ago, their daughter inherited the mantle, so to speak, and the first card of the three was from her and her husband.
The second card came from a couple whom I have known for ages, one from childhood, the other since my teenage. Jean was my first wife's best friend at school, and visited us regularly in our first home. This was a two-roomed flat, and I recall that we had the fridge in the living room because the kitchenette was so small. Suddenly during one of Jean's visits, the fridge made a noise - as fridges do - and she turned round in surprise. We, of course had grown used to it and scarcely noticed this at all. Jean's husband was an art teacher at the local school, and I attended an evening class that he ran.
Many years later, I went for a holiday to Durham University, for a study week that was part of a scheme called 'Summer Academy'. It was an organisation that enabled universities to benefit from their facilities during the academic holidays; it ceased about fifteen years ago as a result of the changing pattern of people's lives. I attended a course on Medieval Monks and Monasteries, which ran in parallel with another on Thomas Hardy and his novels. The two groups shared the college accommodation and also joined together for social activities and as a result I made friends with Sheila, a divorced lady some twelve years my senior, with whom I have remained in contact ever since.
It was she and her husband (now married almost 13 years, although it seems much more recent!) who had sent me that morning's third card. When I first knew her I used to pay visits two or three times a year, including one Christmas when her son and daughter-in-law were visiting. The daughter-in-law was at the time expecting their first child and the girl I first encountered as 'a bump' has now landed a job working for London's Globe Theatre!
Earlier this week, I braved the remains of the weekend's snow to fulfil a promise made some months ago to provide my friend with a lift to our bell-ringers' annual dinner, in preference to hiring a taxi for the occasion. As we walked gingerly across the car park amidst the frozen wheel-tracks, I extended my arm, saying light-heartedly, "Here, put your leg into bed!"
It was a saying she hadn't heard before, and I readily admit it's one I've heard only once, but it had stuck in my mind with some amusement for over twenty years! It was on one of those early visits to Sheila. I was staying with her for the weekend, and on the Saturday afternoon we walked from her home into the town. All of a sudden, I felt her arm slide into mine along with the words, "You don't mind if I put my leg into bed, do you?" Although somewhat taken aback, I was content with the warm welcome that the gesture implied.
I also recall, with some embarrassment, an occasion - on that visit or some other - when we went to church together on the Sunday morning. An acquaintance approached and said, "Hello, Sheila, I haven't seen you for some time," she looked at me and continued, "is this your eldest?" I cringed, not sure whether it was a compliment to me or a slight against my friend, and I can't recall how the exchange concluded. Perhaps that's as well!
Friday, 15 December 2017
Friday, 8 December 2017
Under the Skin
I'm not heavily into getting inside someone else's body ... it's too much like that ultra-modern crime that's been around for decades - if not centuries - 'inappropriate touching'! But let's start with a quotation:
These words came to me this week in a missionary magazine. The context in which they were quoted was the twin concepts of Jesus being born a baby to share what a human life is like, and radio staff getting out into the communities to which they are broadcasting, in order to make their programmes truly relevant to their listeners. As I read them, however, two strands in my own life in recent weeks came quickly to mind and I decided that they should form the substance of this week's blog.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a close friend who was hospitalised, looking after her baby son who was ill. That blog was based solely on what I had learned from text messages sent from the bedside. The details were essentially factual, what treatment he was receiving, how he had responded, and so on. Although there was other information too, a mere text message conversation, perhaps 500 words spread over the day, couldn't convey the atmosphere, the feelings, the frustrations, the minute-by-minute life there.
The day after I'd written that post, I was able to visit them for a couple of hours. The conversation and the experience of being there conveyed so much more to me than a month of text messages ever could. There is so much more to conversation, for example, than the spoken word, so much more to 'regular observations' than mere figures written on a chart. I realised, too, how difficult it is to summarise the daily food intake of a sick little boy, who had had a bite of this and a small chunk of that, some of which had been spat out again. I was also able to appreciate some of the privations of being his full-time carer on the ward!
The images I gained that afternoon shaped my thoughts and prayers for the next few days, until they came home during the following week ... and since then, too, as my concern continues that he will stay healthy now life has returned to something like normal.
The other real-life parallel concerns another recent post here, when I reported having found two great-great-uncles on the 1861 census, apparently homeless. This discovery coincided with my decision to get involved in a project to help some of the homeless or otherwise vulnerable people of our town. Last week saw my second visit to an 'active' session of the campaign. It has begun, as was planned, in a very low-key manner, so that it can grow organically as word of it gets around and as the specific needs of those attending become known.
At a personal level (as I have mentioned here) I was apprehensive of getting involved, but at the same time convinced that it is something that I need to support. The experience of my two visits so far has been of dispelling my lack of confidence. For the most part it has involved being of help to, and having conversations with, my fellow-volunteers. Last week, after packing up, we shared an informal chat with one of the Salvationist leaders. She could speak as one with experience of this kind of work, and explained that the success of the enterprise was not in what we might say, but in the fact of our being there, willing to listen to what these unfortunate people had to say to us.
It's not until we have understood something of the detail of these people's lives over and above the bald statement 'we have no home', that we shall be able to help them. And how true that is of all segments of life in a community. The secret is in putting ourselves out so that we can truly get to know other people, whether that is simply by listening, or by sharing in the life they are living, for however short a while.
"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." - Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
These words came to me this week in a missionary magazine. The context in which they were quoted was the twin concepts of Jesus being born a baby to share what a human life is like, and radio staff getting out into the communities to which they are broadcasting, in order to make their programmes truly relevant to their listeners. As I read them, however, two strands in my own life in recent weeks came quickly to mind and I decided that they should form the substance of this week's blog.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a close friend who was hospitalised, looking after her baby son who was ill. That blog was based solely on what I had learned from text messages sent from the bedside. The details were essentially factual, what treatment he was receiving, how he had responded, and so on. Although there was other information too, a mere text message conversation, perhaps 500 words spread over the day, couldn't convey the atmosphere, the feelings, the frustrations, the minute-by-minute life there.
The day after I'd written that post, I was able to visit them for a couple of hours. The conversation and the experience of being there conveyed so much more to me than a month of text messages ever could. There is so much more to conversation, for example, than the spoken word, so much more to 'regular observations' than mere figures written on a chart. I realised, too, how difficult it is to summarise the daily food intake of a sick little boy, who had had a bite of this and a small chunk of that, some of which had been spat out again. I was also able to appreciate some of the privations of being his full-time carer on the ward!
The images I gained that afternoon shaped my thoughts and prayers for the next few days, until they came home during the following week ... and since then, too, as my concern continues that he will stay healthy now life has returned to something like normal.
The other real-life parallel concerns another recent post here, when I reported having found two great-great-uncles on the 1861 census, apparently homeless. This discovery coincided with my decision to get involved in a project to help some of the homeless or otherwise vulnerable people of our town. Last week saw my second visit to an 'active' session of the campaign. It has begun, as was planned, in a very low-key manner, so that it can grow organically as word of it gets around and as the specific needs of those attending become known.
At a personal level (as I have mentioned here) I was apprehensive of getting involved, but at the same time convinced that it is something that I need to support. The experience of my two visits so far has been of dispelling my lack of confidence. For the most part it has involved being of help to, and having conversations with, my fellow-volunteers. Last week, after packing up, we shared an informal chat with one of the Salvationist leaders. She could speak as one with experience of this kind of work, and explained that the success of the enterprise was not in what we might say, but in the fact of our being there, willing to listen to what these unfortunate people had to say to us.
It's not until we have understood something of the detail of these people's lives over and above the bald statement 'we have no home', that we shall be able to help them. And how true that is of all segments of life in a community. The secret is in putting ourselves out so that we can truly get to know other people, whether that is simply by listening, or by sharing in the life they are living, for however short a while.
Friday, 1 December 2017
Found by the Back Door!
It's impossible to know how far our ancestors travelled in their lives, and how far their knowledge extended. I have friends who are probably more familiar with Barcelona or Majorca than with Birmingham or Manchester, Bridgnorth or Motherwell or any other place you care to mention in the UK, and I have no doubt that knowledge and familiarity in past ages would have varied from person to person just as it does today. I particular, I wonder whether some of our Victorian ancestors knew who they were related to!
One thing that has fascinated me since I discovered that my future wife was already related to my cousin's cousin (that's well over forty years ago!), is the existence of what I call 'back-door links'. In other words, the fact that, for two people - typically living, or having families, in rural communities - who aren't even distant cousins - i.e. don't have a common ancestor - through a marriage or sequence of marriages there is a chain of people who link them together.
The cousin whom I've referred to above is my cousin because our mothers were sisters. That link to my fiancée was through her father's family, so there was no blood relationship. Earlier this year, as I was researching, and later following up, the twin family trees that I presented to my cousin as a golden wedding present, I tripped over not one but two more such links.
The first of these linked my cousin and me to her husband, John, through the family of our mothers' maternal grandfather. His great-aunt (we're now back to the early nineteenth century!) married a man called James Pawsey. John's side of this link is through his maternal grandmother. Her grandfather's niece married the nephew of James Pawsey. The link is therefore based on two marriages and a totally independent third family. In conventional terms, there is no relationship at all, which is why I call this phenomenon a 'link'.
The second such link that I found this year is between John and myself, this time through my father's family. Dad's paternal grandmother had a first cousin (the son of her mother's brother) named James Bootman. John is linked once again through his maternal grandmother. Her uncle married James Bootman's daughter. This link hinges on just the one marriage, and this time there is no other family involved, but we are still not directly related to each other.
The existence of such links is perhaps not so rare as one might suppose. Only a few weeks ago I discovered, through a 'memories' website, a second cousin (i.e. granddaughter of one of our grandfather's brothers) who is now living in Australia. Like us, her descent from this family is through her mother. However, when I discovered her maiden surname - not a common one - my imagination went into overdrive, and I began making some investigations.
That name, Munford, was the same as that of a family who are linked to ours (i.e. to my cousin and me) by marriage only. We knew of them because of two elderly cousins of our grandmother who used to visit regularly when we were children. Their link to us was through the marriage of our great-grandmother's sister, Susan Brickham. Our newly-discovered second cousin's great-grandfather (her father's grandfather) was a brother of the husband of Susan Brickham. Amazingly, her father had chosen as his wife a first cousin of our mothers.
You may have switched off after the first paragraph, and decided to wait for next week's blog ... which I assure you will be different! If, on the other hand, you've persevered this far - with or without pencil and paper - you may be wondering about your own family! If you have any interesting examples of links like this, do share them through the comments facility below.
One thing that has fascinated me since I discovered that my future wife was already related to my cousin's cousin (that's well over forty years ago!), is the existence of what I call 'back-door links'. In other words, the fact that, for two people - typically living, or having families, in rural communities - who aren't even distant cousins - i.e. don't have a common ancestor - through a marriage or sequence of marriages there is a chain of people who link them together.
The cousin whom I've referred to above is my cousin because our mothers were sisters. That link to my fiancée was through her father's family, so there was no blood relationship. Earlier this year, as I was researching, and later following up, the twin family trees that I presented to my cousin as a golden wedding present, I tripped over not one but two more such links.
The first of these linked my cousin and me to her husband, John, through the family of our mothers' maternal grandfather. His great-aunt (we're now back to the early nineteenth century!) married a man called James Pawsey. John's side of this link is through his maternal grandmother. Her grandfather's niece married the nephew of James Pawsey. The link is therefore based on two marriages and a totally independent third family. In conventional terms, there is no relationship at all, which is why I call this phenomenon a 'link'.
The second such link that I found this year is between John and myself, this time through my father's family. Dad's paternal grandmother had a first cousin (the son of her mother's brother) named James Bootman. John is linked once again through his maternal grandmother. Her uncle married James Bootman's daughter. This link hinges on just the one marriage, and this time there is no other family involved, but we are still not directly related to each other.
The existence of such links is perhaps not so rare as one might suppose. Only a few weeks ago I discovered, through a 'memories' website, a second cousin (i.e. granddaughter of one of our grandfather's brothers) who is now living in Australia. Like us, her descent from this family is through her mother. However, when I discovered her maiden surname - not a common one - my imagination went into overdrive, and I began making some investigations.
That name, Munford, was the same as that of a family who are linked to ours (i.e. to my cousin and me) by marriage only. We knew of them because of two elderly cousins of our grandmother who used to visit regularly when we were children. Their link to us was through the marriage of our great-grandmother's sister, Susan Brickham. Our newly-discovered second cousin's great-grandfather (her father's grandfather) was a brother of the husband of Susan Brickham. Amazingly, her father had chosen as his wife a first cousin of our mothers.
You may have switched off after the first paragraph, and decided to wait for next week's blog ... which I assure you will be different! If, on the other hand, you've persevered this far - with or without pencil and paper - you may be wondering about your own family! If you have any interesting examples of links like this, do share them through the comments facility below.
Friday, 24 November 2017
Jagged Edges
It's been a tiring week for me, but much more so for others close to me.
But, to start at the beginning ... it began in an orderly and planned way. I may have mentioned that my friend and I have been working for some months on a plan to distribute our church Christmas cards. Last weekend was the time of testing, when all the cards, bundled into 'walks' for easy distribution, were available for collection by the volunteers. It was nice to see the whole thing coming to a conclusion, a week ahead of schedule and well before the usual pre-Christmas panic that seems to overwhelm everyone.
A little photographic game has been going the rounds on Facebook in recent days. In common with many people, I was invited to post a series of black-and-white pictures illustrating, without comment and without the inclusion of people in the pictures, my everyday life. Some had taken up the challenge by posting high points of their past or their travels, but I decided that my seven pictures would tell the story of a potentially real day, and the idea of being in black and white added a sense of drama. I began with the bed I'd just got out of, continued through interests that might typically be included in a day of my life, and ended with the washing up that I might come home to after an evening out. In the light of what was to come, such a return could be termed a 'jagged edge': something broken off, the threads of which would need to be taken up again.
On Sunday evening I attended a one-off performance of a new musical - so new that it was introduced as a 'work in progress' - at our local theatre. Called 'The Navigator', it was set in the RAF of wartime. Although the cast and musicians had only been working together for a fortnight, the acting and movements were smooth and convincing, the singing clear and powerful; in short, to my eye at least, the whole performance was faultless. It told the story of the crew of a bomber, Q for Queenie, and movingly illustrated the effect of the war on these men and on their interaction with each other and with the women in their lives. Above all, the image I was left with was the way that war, and the death that it brings with it, slices across the lives of all it touches, having its own way, and leaving the jagged edges of unfinished - often unfinishable - business behind it. After such a performance, it was easy to recognise such an effect on my own family and others I knew, but it's important too to realise that the same tragedy is going on across the world today.
As I went about my 'everyday life' in the following days: the regular prayer breakfast, a visit to the hairdresser, catching up with my Welsh course (neglected for a variety of reasons for some weeks lately), preparing my own Christmas cards, and so on, I little realised how my life was about to be impacted in something of a similar way.
My friend's little boy had not been well for a couple of days and, instead of going to nursery as usual, had slept most of Tuesday. By Wednesday morning there seemed to be an improvement, and all seemed well. Suddenly around lunchtime, came an urgent appeal for prayers ... he was about to be rushed to hospital having difficulty breathing! It may seem a strange admission but, as I later described it, I found myself learning something about what real love must feel like. Although I have no 'actual' relationship to the boy or his family, I've become very fond of them all in recent months and, I confess it, I was in floods of anxious tears as I prayed earnestly for his well-being, and safe passage through whatever ails him.
These last two days have passed in something of a blur and, with the news that antibiotics and hospital treatment seem at last to have set him on the road to recovery, I'm only now able to focus properly on what I'm doing. We had a Bible study meeting on Wednesday afternoon, and the number of times I lost track of what I should have been leading was embarrassing; yesterday I was ringing for a funeral, and my thoughts were very definitely not with either the deceased or his widow. If I hadn't been ringing bells for nearly 50 years, it could easily have gone so terribly wrong!
Looking back from the sunshine of Friday morning, not just on these immediate events but the shape of the whole week, I begin to see a continuity, an understanding of the very fragility of life and how easily it can be dramatically disrupted. Worse, I realise that what I have experienced is only from the outside.
How much more disrupted have been the lives of those actually involved, whether it be in illness, in the other dramas of normal life, or in the sacrifices of war. No wonder, then, that many of those who had survived the horrors of the Western Front or the suffering of the Far East prison and labour camps - or the home-front shock of bereavement - were reluctant, perhaps unable, to share their experiences!
But, to start at the beginning ... it began in an orderly and planned way. I may have mentioned that my friend and I have been working for some months on a plan to distribute our church Christmas cards. Last weekend was the time of testing, when all the cards, bundled into 'walks' for easy distribution, were available for collection by the volunteers. It was nice to see the whole thing coming to a conclusion, a week ahead of schedule and well before the usual pre-Christmas panic that seems to overwhelm everyone.
A little photographic game has been going the rounds on Facebook in recent days. In common with many people, I was invited to post a series of black-and-white pictures illustrating, without comment and without the inclusion of people in the pictures, my everyday life. Some had taken up the challenge by posting high points of their past or their travels, but I decided that my seven pictures would tell the story of a potentially real day, and the idea of being in black and white added a sense of drama. I began with the bed I'd just got out of, continued through interests that might typically be included in a day of my life, and ended with the washing up that I might come home to after an evening out. In the light of what was to come, such a return could be termed a 'jagged edge': something broken off, the threads of which would need to be taken up again.
On Sunday evening I attended a one-off performance of a new musical - so new that it was introduced as a 'work in progress' - at our local theatre. Called 'The Navigator', it was set in the RAF of wartime. Although the cast and musicians had only been working together for a fortnight, the acting and movements were smooth and convincing, the singing clear and powerful; in short, to my eye at least, the whole performance was faultless. It told the story of the crew of a bomber, Q for Queenie, and movingly illustrated the effect of the war on these men and on their interaction with each other and with the women in their lives. Above all, the image I was left with was the way that war, and the death that it brings with it, slices across the lives of all it touches, having its own way, and leaving the jagged edges of unfinished - often unfinishable - business behind it. After such a performance, it was easy to recognise such an effect on my own family and others I knew, but it's important too to realise that the same tragedy is going on across the world today.
As I went about my 'everyday life' in the following days: the regular prayer breakfast, a visit to the hairdresser, catching up with my Welsh course (neglected for a variety of reasons for some weeks lately), preparing my own Christmas cards, and so on, I little realised how my life was about to be impacted in something of a similar way.
My friend's little boy had not been well for a couple of days and, instead of going to nursery as usual, had slept most of Tuesday. By Wednesday morning there seemed to be an improvement, and all seemed well. Suddenly around lunchtime, came an urgent appeal for prayers ... he was about to be rushed to hospital having difficulty breathing! It may seem a strange admission but, as I later described it, I found myself learning something about what real love must feel like. Although I have no 'actual' relationship to the boy or his family, I've become very fond of them all in recent months and, I confess it, I was in floods of anxious tears as I prayed earnestly for his well-being, and safe passage through whatever ails him.
These last two days have passed in something of a blur and, with the news that antibiotics and hospital treatment seem at last to have set him on the road to recovery, I'm only now able to focus properly on what I'm doing. We had a Bible study meeting on Wednesday afternoon, and the number of times I lost track of what I should have been leading was embarrassing; yesterday I was ringing for a funeral, and my thoughts were very definitely not with either the deceased or his widow. If I hadn't been ringing bells for nearly 50 years, it could easily have gone so terribly wrong!
Looking back from the sunshine of Friday morning, not just on these immediate events but the shape of the whole week, I begin to see a continuity, an understanding of the very fragility of life and how easily it can be dramatically disrupted. Worse, I realise that what I have experienced is only from the outside.
How much more disrupted have been the lives of those actually involved, whether it be in illness, in the other dramas of normal life, or in the sacrifices of war. No wonder, then, that many of those who had survived the horrors of the Western Front or the suffering of the Far East prison and labour camps - or the home-front shock of bereavement - were reluctant, perhaps unable, to share their experiences!
Friday, 17 November 2017
Getting it Wrong (or) One Thing Leads to Another
There's nothing like finding out that you've got something wrong for deflation of the ego or, on other occasions, making you feel a bit of a fool. And there's nothing like a busy week for getting something wrong! You've caught me at the end of such a week. Come in, and I'll tell you more ...
Last weekend was Remembrance and, as I stood in church for the usual words that followed the two minutes' silence, I was suddenly - and unusually - overcome by my emotions.
It wasn't "They shall not grow old ...", it was the other one, "When you go home ..."; words that prompted thoughts of 'the uncle I never knew'. These words are usually associated with the Burma Star Association, and are known as the Kohima Epitaph, after the memorial erected to the memory of the British 2nd Infantry Division who defended Kohima in north-east India against the Japanese in 1944. By this time my uncle, who was captured at the fall of Singapore in February 1942, had already died of malaria on the Burma Railway. However, the close geographical association has always associated the Kohima words with him in my mind.
When I explained these emotions, both at the time and later, I had used the expression, 'Kohima Farewell', and it wasn't until I researched the whole episode later that I realised that this is not only incorrect, but actually refers to something far nearer the present day!
I had posted a picture of my uncle on Facebook at the weekend, and this had been spotted by a cousin now living in Australia, who had been moved to make contact as a result. So it was that, on Tuesday evening, I began to look into the family history in this particular direction. Wednesday was particularly busy, and so it wasn't until last night (Thursday) that I finally got around to completing my researches and sent off the final report.
This morning brought the embarrassing news that I had made a dramatic error in preparing the chart. I had committed the genealogist's cardinal sin - assumption. I had found an appropriate marriage for one particular man, and entered it into the tree; I'm now informed that this was not only incorrect, but had taken place some years after his untimely death! Corrections and apologies are now in place, and egg slowly being wiped from face!
So, yes, this has been a busy week, not least because of these events, but also in the light of some of the early preparations for Christmas. Wednesday evening found me dealing with the remaining congestion from a cold, while practising for a couple of choral items for the carol service. It was also the day when my other blog, The Gospel Around Us (affectionately known as GAU), was published. I'm not normally give to blowing my own trumpet but, in case you are one who originally found GAU from the note on this blog, you may have found it missing recently. This is because I have moved it to its own website, which will offer me more development potential for the future. You can find the continuing twice-monthly posts of GAU by following the revised link in the side-bar of this blog, or by clicking here.
Last weekend was Remembrance and, as I stood in church for the usual words that followed the two minutes' silence, I was suddenly - and unusually - overcome by my emotions.
 |
| The Kohima Memorial |
When I explained these emotions, both at the time and later, I had used the expression, 'Kohima Farewell', and it wasn't until I researched the whole episode later that I realised that this is not only incorrect, but actually refers to something far nearer the present day!
I had posted a picture of my uncle on Facebook at the weekend, and this had been spotted by a cousin now living in Australia, who had been moved to make contact as a result. So it was that, on Tuesday evening, I began to look into the family history in this particular direction. Wednesday was particularly busy, and so it wasn't until last night (Thursday) that I finally got around to completing my researches and sent off the final report.
This morning brought the embarrassing news that I had made a dramatic error in preparing the chart. I had committed the genealogist's cardinal sin - assumption. I had found an appropriate marriage for one particular man, and entered it into the tree; I'm now informed that this was not only incorrect, but had taken place some years after his untimely death! Corrections and apologies are now in place, and egg slowly being wiped from face!
So, yes, this has been a busy week, not least because of these events, but also in the light of some of the early preparations for Christmas. Wednesday evening found me dealing with the remaining congestion from a cold, while practising for a couple of choral items for the carol service. It was also the day when my other blog, The Gospel Around Us (affectionately known as GAU), was published. I'm not normally give to blowing my own trumpet but, in case you are one who originally found GAU from the note on this blog, you may have found it missing recently. This is because I have moved it to its own website, which will offer me more development potential for the future. You can find the continuing twice-monthly posts of GAU by following the revised link in the side-bar of this blog, or by clicking here.
Friday, 10 November 2017
Postponed, Maybe, but now it's Personal!
Life is full of surprises. Last week I closed my post with the words, "Watch this space!" So now I'm going to follow that up ... but I didn't expect to be writing what follows.
For the last few days I have been suffering (typical man-speak here) from a cold. As usual, it's worst when first getting up in the morning but, for most of the time, it's no bother. However, I did decide to cancel one or two engagements for the sake of not infecting vulnerable people with my germs. One of those was my intended help at the Salvation Army's new project for the homeless. And that's where this follow-up post could stop, suspended until I actually go along. But read on ...
As regular readers will know (and will possibly be bored by hearing it), I've spent much of the last year first producing, and then catching up behind, a twin family tree presentation for my cousin's golden wedding in March. This catch-up is almost complete now, and the final phase results from the discovery that the newly-printed latest version of my complete tree does not include all possible birth and death dates. Many approximations based on baptism and burial dates have been omitted, making the whole appear far less complete than is the case. To overcome this, I've been examining each page in some detail and so far am about half-way through the exercise.
On Tuesday, I was looking at the page that shows my great-grandfather and his siblings. He was one of a family of nine: seven boys and two girls. The eldest son died at the age of three-and-a-half, and the third lived only a few days. Great-grandfather William, born 10th December 1827, was the fourth son and, when the next child arrived on 26th May 1829, he was called Robert, the name of his parents' late first-born. He was followed by a daughter, Harriet, a son who was named James after the other son who died, a second daughter, Elizabeth, and, on 15th August 1835 came the family's youngest, Cyrus. The family lived in the tiny north Suffolk village of Syleham; just across the river lie two Norfolk villages, Thorpe Abbotts to the west and Brockdish to the east, and there were many ties linking these three. One such tie was the attraction to Robert of a girl from Thorpe Abbotts named Elizabeth Flatman. She was about 19 when they married on 7th December 1850.
Robert died at Brockdish in July or August 1864, and later that year Elizabeth married Alfred Rush. As I examined this part of the family tree, I could see that Elizabeth had had two daughters, Eliza and Clara, with Robert, and then went on to have a family of seven with Alfred. Upon closer examination, however, I noticed that the first three of that seven had been born before 1864, so clearly should have been in the other family. I was about to correct what I saw as an error created by oversight some years ago, when the caution born of several more years of research kicked in and told me to go back to the original records ... or as near to them as is possible.
Now, my records use two entirely separate computer programs, one to produce the printed tree and the other which holds the details, so my first step in tracing this back was to the detail, where I had recorded against all these three Rush children, 'Registered as Evans'. Why, then, had I quite deliberately recorded them as Rush, and added them to the Rush family? I looked again at the census records. The family in 1871 looked quite normal: Alfred and Elizabeth Rush with children William, Charles, Ann, Ellen, Alice and John (the seventh child - another Clara; the first Clara had died aged one in 1857 - was born in 1872).
I turned to the earlier census of 1861, where a very different family was revealed. Here I found - as I had when I entered these records to my system - Alfred Rush as the head of the household, and Elizabeth Evans, described as a widow and, where the conventional relationship entry would be 'wife', had been written 'not married'. All three children, Eliza, William and Charles, instead of sons and daughter, had been described boldly, 'illegitimate'. This answered my immediate question, and indeed suggested that even a two:seven split of the nine children was in error!
What, then, had happened? Why did Elizabeth describe herself as a widow in 1861, when Robert didn't die until 1864? There are many unanswered - possibly unanswerable - questions. Did Robert have a personality problem? Had Elizabeth been in a romantic daze when they had married and later found the love she sought with an older man (Alfred was seven years older than Robert)? Why were there no children of an 1850 marriage until the arrival of Eliza in 1855? ... and she later declared 'illegitimate'! Whatever had been going on between Elizabeth and Alfred, one question I could address was, where was Robert in 1861? The answer shocked and saddened me ... and provides the key link for this blog.
The 1861 census for Brockdish ends in the Street, with the blacksmith's shop and two households at the toy shop, one headed by a carpenter, the other by a cordwainer. But then there is an additional page containing just two people. The first shows as an address, 'Street - hayloft'; the occupant is Sira Evans, unmarried, aged 27, a farm labourer born in Syleham. The second entry is 'open air; Robert Evans, unmarried, aged 38, a farm labourer born in Syleham'. Yes, there are discrepancies in their ages, but in those days many people, especially the labouring classes, were unaware exactly how old they were. The circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that these were my two great-great-uncles. When Robert died his age was recorded as 40. I've not yet been able to find out what happened to his brother Cyrus.
Homelessness may be a problem today, and was probably a far more serious matter for those who were homeless 150 years ago, but the causes then - as now - were probably just the same, and just as complex.
For the last few days I have been suffering (typical man-speak here) from a cold. As usual, it's worst when first getting up in the morning but, for most of the time, it's no bother. However, I did decide to cancel one or two engagements for the sake of not infecting vulnerable people with my germs. One of those was my intended help at the Salvation Army's new project for the homeless. And that's where this follow-up post could stop, suspended until I actually go along. But read on ...
As regular readers will know (and will possibly be bored by hearing it), I've spent much of the last year first producing, and then catching up behind, a twin family tree presentation for my cousin's golden wedding in March. This catch-up is almost complete now, and the final phase results from the discovery that the newly-printed latest version of my complete tree does not include all possible birth and death dates. Many approximations based on baptism and burial dates have been omitted, making the whole appear far less complete than is the case. To overcome this, I've been examining each page in some detail and so far am about half-way through the exercise.
On Tuesday, I was looking at the page that shows my great-grandfather and his siblings. He was one of a family of nine: seven boys and two girls. The eldest son died at the age of three-and-a-half, and the third lived only a few days. Great-grandfather William, born 10th December 1827, was the fourth son and, when the next child arrived on 26th May 1829, he was called Robert, the name of his parents' late first-born. He was followed by a daughter, Harriet, a son who was named James after the other son who died, a second daughter, Elizabeth, and, on 15th August 1835 came the family's youngest, Cyrus. The family lived in the tiny north Suffolk village of Syleham; just across the river lie two Norfolk villages, Thorpe Abbotts to the west and Brockdish to the east, and there were many ties linking these three. One such tie was the attraction to Robert of a girl from Thorpe Abbotts named Elizabeth Flatman. She was about 19 when they married on 7th December 1850.
Robert died at Brockdish in July or August 1864, and later that year Elizabeth married Alfred Rush. As I examined this part of the family tree, I could see that Elizabeth had had two daughters, Eliza and Clara, with Robert, and then went on to have a family of seven with Alfred. Upon closer examination, however, I noticed that the first three of that seven had been born before 1864, so clearly should have been in the other family. I was about to correct what I saw as an error created by oversight some years ago, when the caution born of several more years of research kicked in and told me to go back to the original records ... or as near to them as is possible.
Now, my records use two entirely separate computer programs, one to produce the printed tree and the other which holds the details, so my first step in tracing this back was to the detail, where I had recorded against all these three Rush children, 'Registered as Evans'. Why, then, had I quite deliberately recorded them as Rush, and added them to the Rush family? I looked again at the census records. The family in 1871 looked quite normal: Alfred and Elizabeth Rush with children William, Charles, Ann, Ellen, Alice and John (the seventh child - another Clara; the first Clara had died aged one in 1857 - was born in 1872).
I turned to the earlier census of 1861, where a very different family was revealed. Here I found - as I had when I entered these records to my system - Alfred Rush as the head of the household, and Elizabeth Evans, described as a widow and, where the conventional relationship entry would be 'wife', had been written 'not married'. All three children, Eliza, William and Charles, instead of sons and daughter, had been described boldly, 'illegitimate'. This answered my immediate question, and indeed suggested that even a two:seven split of the nine children was in error!
What, then, had happened? Why did Elizabeth describe herself as a widow in 1861, when Robert didn't die until 1864? There are many unanswered - possibly unanswerable - questions. Did Robert have a personality problem? Had Elizabeth been in a romantic daze when they had married and later found the love she sought with an older man (Alfred was seven years older than Robert)? Why were there no children of an 1850 marriage until the arrival of Eliza in 1855? ... and she later declared 'illegitimate'! Whatever had been going on between Elizabeth and Alfred, one question I could address was, where was Robert in 1861? The answer shocked and saddened me ... and provides the key link for this blog.
The 1861 census for Brockdish ends in the Street, with the blacksmith's shop and two households at the toy shop, one headed by a carpenter, the other by a cordwainer. But then there is an additional page containing just two people. The first shows as an address, 'Street - hayloft'; the occupant is Sira Evans, unmarried, aged 27, a farm labourer born in Syleham. The second entry is 'open air; Robert Evans, unmarried, aged 38, a farm labourer born in Syleham'. Yes, there are discrepancies in their ages, but in those days many people, especially the labouring classes, were unaware exactly how old they were. The circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that these were my two great-great-uncles. When Robert died his age was recorded as 40. I've not yet been able to find out what happened to his brother Cyrus.
Homelessness may be a problem today, and was probably a far more serious matter for those who were homeless 150 years ago, but the causes then - as now - were probably just the same, and just as complex.
Friday, 3 November 2017
Spot the Difference!
A friend of mine claimed recently that she makes a note of one thing she has learned every day. In my opinion that demonstrates an enquiring mind, and a humble attitude to life, acknowledging the falsehood of claiming 'I know all about <anything>'. Today I'm taking a leaf out of her book and will tell you what I have learned. This week I've discovered the difference between incompetence and incompleteness.
On Monday evening I succumbed to an overwhelming sense of incompetence. I was (in theory) taking part in a conversation about changes in comedy in recent years compared to thirty or forty years ago. In practice, however, I was only a witness to the conversation, finding myself unable to contribute to the discussion. Most, if not all of the modern examples referred to were unknown to me, and I felt there was definitely something missing in my life.
The next day another friend was planning a quiet hour in the midst of a busy schedule and, learning of my angst, offered to share that time with me. From a far-reaching café table conversation that nudged me back to reality, I'll pick out just one key point, "You do so much!". Thinking around my retired lifestyle, I can see the truth of that, but I'm also aware that much of what I do is less than satisfying because it isn't finished. Let me offer some evidence of that.
Three years and more ago, I obtained a book written by a fellow-writer. It is one of those self-examination books, with a few questions at the end of each chapter. I dug in with gusto upon its arrival, and covered several chapters quite quickly; one winter, I did a couple more, but it still sits on my table, less than half-completed. Last week saw the arrival of her second volume. This has now joined its fellow, and reminded me that here is a task not yet finished - incomplete, but not a sign of my incompetence, for there is documentary evidence of my having progressed through those early chapters.
About this time last year, I realised that I had booked a bell-ringing weekend that coincided with my cousin's golden wedding celebrations, and hit on a novel way I could provide a suitable gift - a twin family tree of both her and her husband. It wasn't until the task was well under way that I realised that, to complete both to an equal degree of compass and precision, I should have to cut some corners from my normal research routines. This in turn meant that, after the presentation, there was a good deal of 'catch-up' activity. With no urgency to this, it was completed only quite recently and it seemed a good point at which to print out the over 180 pages of my whole researched ancestry so far discovered, and replace the last edition created several years ago.
As I carefully replaced one set of pages with the other, I realised that a number of dates were missing from the print-out, mainly because burial dates - although a fair guide to an immediately-preceding death - don't automatically substitute for death dates! So I'm now slowly ploughing through the new pages, adding those dates manually for the time being, and noting which pages will ultimately need to be replaced. It's another task that isn't finished, but which doesn't imply any inability to achieve the desired end in time.
And finally, comes news of a new project, not one of my own, but one in which I hope to play a small part. Despite its outward appearance of comfortable prosperity, our town has a small but not insignificant homeless problem. The local Salvation Army corps has decided to try to alleviate some of the misery that this condition places upon its victims, and other churches including mine have pledged their support. Yesterday there was a meeting to plan in particular how this will be kicked off next week.
As someone who has for the most part led a very solitary life, I find it difficult to engage with strangers, and had hitherto been of the opinion that anything of this nature was beyond my capability and best left to the experts ... or at least to other people. There is something about this particular cause, however, that commands my closer attention, and I decided that the time had come for me to 'bite the bullet'. I have no doubt that, once started, this project will grow, but how it will affect me is for the moment somewhat uncertain. It's very much a case of watch this space!
On Monday evening I succumbed to an overwhelming sense of incompetence. I was (in theory) taking part in a conversation about changes in comedy in recent years compared to thirty or forty years ago. In practice, however, I was only a witness to the conversation, finding myself unable to contribute to the discussion. Most, if not all of the modern examples referred to were unknown to me, and I felt there was definitely something missing in my life.
The next day another friend was planning a quiet hour in the midst of a busy schedule and, learning of my angst, offered to share that time with me. From a far-reaching café table conversation that nudged me back to reality, I'll pick out just one key point, "You do so much!". Thinking around my retired lifestyle, I can see the truth of that, but I'm also aware that much of what I do is less than satisfying because it isn't finished. Let me offer some evidence of that.
Three years and more ago, I obtained a book written by a fellow-writer. It is one of those self-examination books, with a few questions at the end of each chapter. I dug in with gusto upon its arrival, and covered several chapters quite quickly; one winter, I did a couple more, but it still sits on my table, less than half-completed. Last week saw the arrival of her second volume. This has now joined its fellow, and reminded me that here is a task not yet finished - incomplete, but not a sign of my incompetence, for there is documentary evidence of my having progressed through those early chapters.
About this time last year, I realised that I had booked a bell-ringing weekend that coincided with my cousin's golden wedding celebrations, and hit on a novel way I could provide a suitable gift - a twin family tree of both her and her husband. It wasn't until the task was well under way that I realised that, to complete both to an equal degree of compass and precision, I should have to cut some corners from my normal research routines. This in turn meant that, after the presentation, there was a good deal of 'catch-up' activity. With no urgency to this, it was completed only quite recently and it seemed a good point at which to print out the over 180 pages of my whole researched ancestry so far discovered, and replace the last edition created several years ago.
As I carefully replaced one set of pages with the other, I realised that a number of dates were missing from the print-out, mainly because burial dates - although a fair guide to an immediately-preceding death - don't automatically substitute for death dates! So I'm now slowly ploughing through the new pages, adding those dates manually for the time being, and noting which pages will ultimately need to be replaced. It's another task that isn't finished, but which doesn't imply any inability to achieve the desired end in time.
And finally, comes news of a new project, not one of my own, but one in which I hope to play a small part. Despite its outward appearance of comfortable prosperity, our town has a small but not insignificant homeless problem. The local Salvation Army corps has decided to try to alleviate some of the misery that this condition places upon its victims, and other churches including mine have pledged their support. Yesterday there was a meeting to plan in particular how this will be kicked off next week.
As someone who has for the most part led a very solitary life, I find it difficult to engage with strangers, and had hitherto been of the opinion that anything of this nature was beyond my capability and best left to the experts ... or at least to other people. There is something about this particular cause, however, that commands my closer attention, and I decided that the time had come for me to 'bite the bullet'. I have no doubt that, once started, this project will grow, but how it will affect me is for the moment somewhat uncertain. It's very much a case of watch this space!
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