How Was it for You?

Well, it's over for another year, that Christmas nightmare.

There are some people, we are told, for whom Christmas is 'a difficult time'.  I have to admit it, I'm one of them.  That expression is usually trotted out by people who are in a position to help and, to be fair to them, often do so to great effect.  This description of 'Christmas being a difficult time' has a variety of meanings, of course, depending upon the individuals.  Since I can only comment in depth on my own situation, I've been reflecting just what kind of help I do and don't appreciate.

One of the frustrations of living alone is food.  Fortunately supermarkets provide a wide range of 'meals for one', so there is no excuse for going hungry.  However, apart from a certain sameness of such a diet, there is also the question of additives and all the suspicion that surrounds them.  Since I finally retired, I have ensured that at least some of my meals are prepared at home, although the health benefits of home-cooking are undermined by the conflict between having the same meal three or four times in a week and the waste resulting from not using fresh ingredients before they are not longer fresh.  Of course some dishes can be made in 'serves four' mode and then frozen, and indeed I do this, but freezer capacity is limited, especially in a small flat.

So, when it comes to a traditional Christmas dinner, I very much appreciate the invitation to eat with others at this time of year.  It's something that is provided from time to time by churches as part of their service to the community.  Those with the ability - some of whom are themselves alone - join forces to use the church's kitchen facilities to benefit a broader gathering, with the cost partly borne by those attending who can afford it and the balance underwritten by the church.  Sometimes it has been my good fortune to attend such a meal; on other occasions a variety of church families have offered me a place at their table and I suppose that, one way or the other, I've dined alone at Christmas less than half of the time.

Christmas is a time for giving, of course.  Its whole purpose, after all, is the commemoration of the gift of a baby to be 'God with us' here on earth.  In human terms, presents - in their being bought, prepared, wrapped, given and received - represent an important part of the overall Christmas experience, and a not insignificant contribution to the economy!  This is particularly frustrating for me, partly from a lack of resources, and partly from a limit to the number of worthy recipients.

There is particular disappointment in going round the shops, seeing something really delightful and then having that enjoyment 'balloon' immediately popped by the pin of realising that there is no one in my life for whom to buy it.  I favour 'alternative' gifts, where a sum of money is given to a charity in return for a label announcing the purpose for which it will be spent, the label - in the form of a greetings card - then being sent or given to a friend or family member in lieu of a tangible present.

Often the solution to a problem brings with it another difficulty.  The domestic resolution to the matter of the festive meal means that the 'lonely one' is injected into a family atmosphere that isn't his own.  Family presents are exchanged. 'This one is from Aunt Harriet'; 'Here's one from cousin Peter' ... the excitement rises; then out of nowhere - or so it seems - 'and here's one for you'. A present is provided for the invited one; so that he should not feel left out, but at the same time a reminder of all that sets him apart.

Does this mean that I don't appreciate a meal in someone else's home?  Certainly not!  Such pleasures are most welcome; it's just that they're not the comprehensive solution to a problem for which such a solution probably doesn't exist.

Now that their own family commitments have been discharged, I'm spending a few days with my cousin and her husband.  Naturally the whole business of being away from home requires one to behave in ways of normality that are not part of one's solo domestic lifestyle.  One of the less expected of these manifested itself at the breakfast table.  My normal habit at home is to make my breakfast in the kitchen and then transport it to the table.  In my kitchen I butter my toast on the flat surface of the worktop; at the breakfast table I faced this task upon a plate, the raised rim of which hinders the even approach of knife blade to bread.

The experience brings bonuses as well.  I don't have to worry about food, and instead have the delight of communal wiping up.  I'm also planning a variety in worship this weekend.  Rather than attend a local church, I shall take a bus into Nottingham and, for the first time in many years attend a Quaker meeting.  For a couple of years in Norfolk, it was my habit to go the the village Church and the Meeting House alternately and the discipline of silence is a dimension of worship I miss.

For the present, the greatest 'problem' is knowing what day of the week it is.  I think we are all in need of a good strong Monday to sort us out ... is that one I see just around the corner?

Ready for Christmas?

It seems to be the question of the season this year.  More people than ever have asked me, "Are you ready for Christmas, then?"  My response is the non-committal, "As ready as I'll ever be."  It's a question that does demand some serious thought, however.  What does it mean to be 'ready for Christmas'?

Christmas, and consequentially to be ready for it, means different things to different people.  At one end of the spectrum is the religious festival, commemorating the arrival of a baby.  At the other is a sequence of gatherings and parties focused solely on enjoying the company of friends, eating and drinking as much as you feel comfortable with ... or perhaps a little more than that!

To be ready for a religious festival falls on the shoulders of a few who are organising it, although - in our church at least - that few tends to be quite a sizeable number, as more and more are willing to get involved.  But for the average attender, a little forethought is probably the only preparation required, so long as you can get to the venue on time.

At the other extreme, a great deal of organising is involved, laying in stocks of traditional food, nibbles and drinks, decorating the house, preparing games and amusements, maybe organising live music for a big party.  And this is all in addition to the writing and receiving of loads of Christmas cards, and the buying, wrapping and delivering of all kinds of presents, graded in size and value according to the closeness of the relationship to the recipient.

I was ready for my own marking of the season some weeks ago.  Cards were bought, written and stacked up for posting, a few simple gifts prepared and wrapped, and some 'alternative gifts' arranged.  That's not to say that there aren't one or two 'extra' food items, but as one who has neither room nor aptitude to entertain in any meaningful way, these are necessarily few.  For me one of the greatest excitements is the arrival of cards, and the messages - some long, some short and concise - that they bring.

One evening this week, I had a phone call from the God-daughter of a second cousin, who had been passed, for the second year running, my card and newsletter that had been sent to him.  In a wave of overwhelming embarrassment and guilt, she realised that she'd never got around to phoning me last year to tell me that he'd died two Christmases ago!  After reassuring her that she shouldn't worry about that, that these things happen, and so on, I began to look at my card list and noting the absence of cards from one or two other elderly people, wondering whether they, too, might have fallen off the twig of life during the past twelve months.

As I noted last week, many friendships and relationships like this are only updated once a year in this way.  It's a worthwhile exercise to look through the cards before recycling them, to reflect on the notes that have come with them.  One chap who, so far as I knew had remained unmarried for fifty years, had this year added to his greeting, '... and family'.  Another card enclosed the usual single sheet listing all the children, grandchildren and now great-grandchildren, out of which I think I recognised just one name.  Another, which doesn't usually enclose a letter, brought news of a son who had taken his young family off to Australia following up a job offer.  The job didn't work out, and he's now looking for work there.

There comes a point - perhaps midway through the following week - when the parties are over, the energy completely sapped and the larder empty and you begin to ask, "Was it all worth it?"  Unless something really exciting or really terrible has happened, this is another question that's difficult to answer, until that date in January when all the bills have to be paid, and you realise that it was definitely not worth it, and wonder why you bothered!

One reason that most people bother was expressed in a familiar saying I overheard in the supermarket the other day, "It's all about the children, isn't it?"  In a way, that's true, of course.  It's all about that baby in a manger in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.  But He didn't come just for children: He came as a child, but for us all.  In the sense in which I heard that remark, I have to agree, though.  The sense of awe and excitement that only children seem to be able freely to express certainly evaporates once they've grown up. 

In times past Christmas Day was only the start of a celebration that would go on until Twelfth Night.  The Yule log - in some houses a whole tree-trunk - would be burned from one end, and pushed further into the grate as the days passed, while the celebrations continued.  The modern Christmas razzmatazz, however, stops abruptly with, or even before, the new year, as commerce moves on. 

Today's focus is on the build up to one big day; the whole season of Advent, which puts Christmas into perspective, is squeezed out.  Without this background that gives Christmas its purpose, modern man is lost for a motive for his celebration.  Without that motive, it's little wonder that the celebration falls flat on its face once the food is eaten and the booze is gone; little wonder that we ask 'was it all worth it?'

So, with a sincerity that only some will recognise, I wish all of my readers a truly Blessed Christmas.

Legs and Letters ... Children and Christmas Cards!

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!

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:

"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.

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.

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!

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. 

The Kohima Memorial

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.

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.

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!

Growing Up

Passchendaele Poopy Pin
Photo: Royal British Legion

I'm not given to impulse buying.  In fact, I probably think twice - or twenty times - about most things before deciding to live with the status quo.  On Monday, however, I ordered a Passchendaele Poppy Pin.  These have been manufactured in a limited edition of 60,083 ... one for each British soldier who died during the battle that lasted from 31st July to 10th November 1917.  The brass from which they are made has come from shell fuses collected on the battlefield, and the green and red enamel has been mixed with soil from there too.

Now that it has arrived - with amazing efficiency and speed! - I find myself wondering about those young men commemorated, many of whom would have been in their late teens or early twenties, and I have tried to think what might have been important in my life at that age.  Work would have been very prominent: was my job going to last? would a day-by-day job turn into a profitable and useful career?  Also high on the list would have been girls, dreams of getting married, starting a family; in those days that was really the only way a young man would leave home, unless going to university or joining the armed forces.

With my mind thus tuned to teenage, I recalled what was probably the first time I ever spent a night away from my family home.  I was fifteen or sixteen, and had been admitted to hospital for a minor operation.  It would almost certainly have been dealt with today on a 'day-surgery' basis, but in the '60s it meant being admitted on Monday and finally discharged, and brought home by a kindly neighbour possessed of a motor car, on Sunday morning.  The operation was carried out on Tuesday and, since it didn't impair my mobility, I was quickly wandering about the ward, or spending time in the day room chatting to the only other young man there.  I was considered too old for the children's ward, and most of the other men around me were so old as to be no company for a teenager.

As my memory of that week came back to me, I recalled one particular nurse named Mary.  Only a few years older than me, I suppose she was more empathetic than some of her colleagues; seeing me clearly bored, she suggested that I come and help her.  It would never be allowed now, of course, but I was quickly taught how to fold 'hospital corners' and helped her make all the beds.  It's a skill that has never left me, even though I'd not used it for many years until recently.  This all took place during the long summer holiday and after my discharge I had time for more adventures before returning to school.  One day I took my cycle on the train to Norwich, found where Mary lived and took a photograph of her!

Yesterday, I surprised myself by the power of modern computer software.  In half an hour, I was able to discover the names of Mary's parents, when they were married, the fact that Mary was a twin, when she was married, the names and ages of their two sons, and the address at which, for at least ten years, the family was living in the suburbs of that 'Fine City'!  I found the house on Google, and - amazingly - there were people outside, one of whom could well have been this lady!

It would be completely out of order to make contact with her after all these years but - if she remembers me at all out of the hundreds of patients she must have looked after - I wonder how she would react to the thought that a skill she passed on over fifty years ago is still in use today!

Solo Performance

On Monday this week I had occasion to visit Christine, who has been an acquaintance through our church connections for many years.  As we sat in her lounge, I was quite surprised by the depth of our conversation.  Now 75, she and her husband either had just celebrated or were looking forward to - to my shame, I can't recall which - their 47th wedding anniversary.

She referred to one of her bridesmaids, now living in the far north of Scotland, who was unable to attend their celebrations.  They had shared a room at boarding school.  Her friend was a couple of years older and the school's policy was to pair girls up in that way so that new pupils could find their way.  Christine said, "She was like a sister to me.  I should have loved to have a sister ... but it just wasn't to be."  Since I, too, was an only child, our conversation then explored this common factor a bit more.

The following day, I had been expecting another friend to visit me, but this had been called off, so instead of driving to the post office, I had ample time to walk.  Now, I live in the industrial part of the Garden City, which is no longer solely industrial as was originally planned in the early twentieth century.  This does mean, however, that the sight of heavy lorries on our nearby roads is quite commonplace, and a couple passed me as I walked along.

Inevitably, my thoughts went back to days before my retirement, to the times when I needed to park my tiny van next to a 40-tonne artic. at a busy distribution centre and queue with those elites of the driving world, waiting for instructions or for a delivery to be completed.  Conversation on these occasions would reveal something of their lives.  They worked on a larger scale, of course, but underneath were lives very similar to my own.

The life of a lorry driver, just as that of a same-day courier as I had been, is not for everyone.  In many ways family life, if there is any, has to submit to a different one as part of a team, but a team of people whom you might see the next day, or not for two or three weeks.  You might speak in the crew room of something happening that evening or at the weekend, and the next time you meet it would be, "how did so-and-so go?" by which time the whole event has passed into history.

I recalled the previous day's conversation when we had spoken of how being an only child had taught each of us to cope with life alone, whether on an odd occasion or for longer periods.  Christine had asked me, "how long have you been on your own?" and I had replied "for most of my life really."  I had told someone a couple of weeks ago that, in real terms, my family these days is the church and the bell-ringers.  While this is true, I'm beginning to realise that it's less real than I'd thought, for I meet with those folks only once or twice a week for a limited period, so that 'family' is no more so than those fellow drivers of a few years ago.

I said 'beginning to realise'; this realisation is partly a consequence of another friendship, one aspect of which was the expected visit I referred to earlier, that had been called off.  That message - so clear and irrefutable - was, I later realised, similar to many I've received down the years: 'a cold ... keeping my germs to myself.'  I had got used to passing off such messages as excuses when people just didn't want to bother with me.  This time such a thought never entered my head.

A day or so later, I made enquiries as to the progress of the cold.  After the update came another warming comment.  It said, "thank you for checking ... it's nice to feel ... that the thought is genuine."  It told me that I was being trusted; it was the reciprocal of my earlier observation about trusting other people.

Trust like that is only really found in a family; it's something that had become foreign to me.  That said, in recent years, I've gradually learned a lot about trust: trust when a well-paid job ends; trust when a financial crisis has a dramatic and almost overnight detrimental effect on weekly earnings; trust when age and circumstances mean that life has to take a whole new direction.  I'm pleased to realise that this stage-by-stage learning process is still moving on.

An Ever-rolling Stream

I'd like to say that this week's title is as a result of an exciting journey in a picturesque landscape.  A few years ago there would have been little doubt about that but, since retirement, such journeys are few and far between.  Instead, the words come from a hymn often sung at Remembrance services: "Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away / They fly, forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day."

This week's journey has certainly been exciting, but not in the sense of travel.  Nevertheless, those lines are relevant in more senses than one.  I thought of the effect of a river on the rocks and boulders in its path.  What seems so hard and permanent is proved to be quite changeable as the river passes constantly over it and gradually wears it away.  In the same way, something that seems insurmountable in life can melt away or take on a completely different shape.

When I joined the Liberal Democrats a couple of years ago, it was just before a leadership election.  Because their constitution accords a vote on such matters to every member, however new, I received a phone call one day from Norman Lamb, asking for my support.  Seeing from his notes that I was a new member, he asked why I'd joined the party and I gave him the same two reasons that I've told other people.  One was the 'heritage factor', a passing comment by my father that his father (who died within a year of my birth, so I have no memory of him) "always spoke well of the 'little Welshman'" i.e. David Lloyd George.  The other was a long-held observation that their way of politics was co-operational, rather than confrontational, which seems a very common-sense approach to so much in life.

Once I was proudly wearing the yellow dove, came the big question, 'what could I now do to further the cause?'  I went to meetings, to a regional conference, to the launch of the general election campaign, but this was all 'taking in'; what could I 'give out'?  I felt - and still do - a great reluctance to get involved in political discussion; it's one thing to hear a speech and feel in agreement with it ... it's entirely another to come up with the right answer to a question on the hoof (or the doorstep!).  So far, I have contented myself with office help in election campaigns, folding leaflets and so on.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, when an e-mail arrived last week - part of an all-member circulation - asking if I'd like to stand as a candidate in next May's local elections, it was quickly on its way to the 'deleted' folder.  A follow-up this week almost joined it ... until I noticed a phrase at the bottom, 'or an election agent'.  Curious, I decided to find out what this might involve and, discovering that it sounds very much like being the accountant for the campaign, I'm now considering whether I want to be involved in a way I had never imagined before.

My other excitement is more personal.  A particular problem had been occupying my thoughts for the last few weeks and I'd been finding more difficulty than usual in sleeping.  Often I'd woken after a couple of hours' sound sleep and then lost an hour or two in a vain struggle to regain Morpheus' embrace.  Over and over in my mind, I would replay potential conversations, alternative attempts to overcome this difficulty: if I were to say so-and-so, would that lead to ... or would it make things worse?  I'm sure many others have played the same unproductive mind games before me.

This week, what I had anticipated with some apprehension as being the encounter that would herald the denouement of the matter, was suddenly precipitated into a business meeting.  The parties assembled in readiness for this but, before the serious discussions began, conversation revealed that the problem that had confronted me was not precisely what I'd thought it to be.  The sharing of views and an understanding of each other's situation quickly led to a solution that will, it seems, be beneficial to all parties and certainly one that I'm looking forward to seeing in action.

Some dreams, as in the hymn, die at the opening day ... others linger, turn into nightmares, and need tranquillity and common sense to dispel them.

The Families of Nash and Fern

I’ve been digging into the family history again.  Tissues at the ready?

When the census was taken on 3rd April, 1881, there was living in the south Derbyshire village of Egginton, a household comprising Henry Nash, 37, his wife Ann, 32, Priscilla, 8, William, 6 and Elizabeth, 5.  At first glance they were a normal family, but this was far from the truth.

Henry was born in 1842, the eldest son and third child of  William, a labourer in Thurvaston, a hamlet of Marston Montgomery on the western edge of the county, and his wife Alice.  By the age of 28, he had become a farm servant at a large farm in Doveridge, where he was the eldest of a team of eight servants altogether.

In nearby Church Broughton, on 14th September, 1845, Elizabeth, daughter of William and Harriet Gotheridge, was baptised.  In 1871, she was a domestic servant, but still living at home, so presumably working close by.  She and Henry were married at Church Broughton on 27th January, 1874.  No doubt all were pleased for the couple, but the following winter tragedy struck.  At the end of January, or possibly the first days of February, she died during or soon after giving birth to their son.  She was buried on 4th February.  Her son was given the names William Gotheridge Nash, and was baptised on 21st March, 1875.

Not far away, in Egginton, Ann Brittan was born in the summer of 1848, the fourth child and second daughter of John and Elizabeth, another labouring family.  At 12, she was housemaid at Park Hill, a large house in the village, the home of Thomas Radford, a small farmer and grocer.  Ten years later, she had spread her wings, and was found in Market Street, Heckmondwike, near Dewsbury, Yorkshire.  Here she was a general (i.e. the only) servant to Edmund Dent, an iron and metal agent, where she met the needs of Mr & Mrs Dent, their three sons, aged 17, 8 and 4, Mrs Dent’s mother and two sisters. Ann was only 22.

Were things too much for her?  Did she give way to temptation, or was she taken advantage of?  We'll never know the circumstances but, during the spring of the following year, she gave birth to a daughter, whom she called Priscilla.  At that point, her career at an end, and possibly with a degree of shame, she returned to Egginton.  Not long afterwards, other unknown circumstances brought Henry Nash and his son to Egginton, and Henry and Ann were married there on 22nd June, 1876.  In addition to their own respective children, they took into their household the illegitimate daughter of one of Ann’s sisters; she was Elizabeth, the fifth member of the ‘family’ recorded in 1881.

The fact that they stayed together for almost 30 years, until Henry’s death in 1905 would suggest that things were rosy for them and, indeed, this may have been so for the most part.  There was sorrow, too, though, not least that Ann outlived her daughter by over five years, before her own death early in 1933.

Yorkshire-born Priscilla had the same exploratory gene as her mother and, at the age of 18, she was the general servant to 25-year-old Oliver Car, his wife and one-year-old son.  Oliver was the harbour master at Morecambe in Lancashire.  She later returned to Egginton, however, where she married George Edward Fern on 11th September, 1897.  In 1891, George was shown as a Brewer’s labourer, living with his family in Stapenhill (then in Derbyshire, but now part of Burton-upon-Trent), where he had been born in 1874. In 1901, they were living in Egginton, with one child, William Arthur, aged 1 year.  Priscilla junior arrived later that year.  Then things went awfully wrong, although the records don't reveal any details.

On 12th April 1903, at All Saints’ Church, Coventry, seventeen-year-old Emily Rose Holloway, daughter of Walter and Rose, married George Fern, said to be the son of Edward, a farmer, now deceased.  The 1911 census shows them living at 118 Nicholls St, Coventry, with Annie Rose, 7 and George Herbert, 6.  If Emily had been pregnant when she married a man nearly twelve years her senior, and at such a young age, then it’s likely she miscarried, since no records of any other children have been found and she described herself as ‘married 8 years with two children both still living’. 

In 1901, Walter was a ‘filer up’ in a cycle works; Emily (then 15) was a plater, and her brother a wheel maker.  In 1911, Walter was still in the same business, along with four of his children.  It would appear that George had been welcomed into the family, for on his census form he was described as ‘stores clerk, cycle industry’.  He died in Coventry in 1955, Emily in Warwick in 1968.

We cannot guess what Priscilla had been told of all this.  In 1911, she was living with her widowed mother, Ann, and her own two children, William and Priscilla.  Both she and her mother were working for Burton-upon-Trent Corporation as osier peelers (they peeled the bark from willow stems for basket weaving).  The most intriguing detail, however, was that in those ‘fertility columns’ of the census, she had described herself as ‘Married 13 years, with two children, both still living’.  There is no sign of another George Edward Fern in the 1911 census, and no ‘convenient’ birth of another George Fern of that age, farmer’s son or not.  We must suspect bigamy.

You may well ask, what is my interest in this family?  Ann (1848-1933) was the great-aunt of my aunt by marriage: the wife of Charles, my father’s eldest brother.  He used to visit us on an annual basis in my childhood, but I never knew Mary; she had died in the early 1950s.

Doesn't it Just Feel Good ... ?

... when things come together?  I have to say that, in my experience, it's rare that lots of 'stuff' goes right all at once without there being something big and festering in the middle to sour the whole shebang.  Looking back through the past week, since I wrote about old age, funerals and lovers not returning from war, I have to say that this has been one of those rare occasions ... and I'll try to summarise why.

It had occurred to me earlier that, by the final week in September, I ought to have received a new lease for my flat, but so far it hadn't arrived.  Not wishing to be turned out onto the street (although, I'm sure, it wouldn't have come to that), I was getting a bit anxious.  On Saturday, it arrived in a Royal Mail 'damaged post' package.  Deciding not to trust the post with its return, I walked into the agent's office with it that morning and was assured that all was well.

That afternoon, I watched my favourite football team start its adventure in the FA Vase competition.  After taking a 2-0 lead, they left fans a bit worried as they were set back as far as 2-3 before finally winning their qualifying tie 5-3 to progress to the First Round Proper in three weeks' time.

Replica Hawker Hurricane
fighter at Wimpole Hall

Sunday afternoon found me in a long queue of traffic.  Usually I find this a stressful situation, being unable to do anything to forward my cause.  This time, however, with no pressures and the sunshine around me, I was nicely relaxed as I inched ever closer to the car park at a local attraction, Wimpole Hall, where a World War II themed event was in progress.  It may be that my demeanour was helped by events earlier in the day.  I'd had a brief encounter that morning with someone whom I feared I had offended, but I'd been reassured that this wasn't the case and so was, in a sense, 'floating on air' as a result.  We met up later in the week and enjoyed a relaxed and wide-ranging conversation over a drink.

On Wednesday morning I had the opportunity to erase another blot on my escutcheon.  Some months ago, I had been invited to a coffee morning that had had to be rearranged at fairly short notice.  I failed to change my diary, though, and didn't turn up.  I'd been instantly forgiven, of course, but still felt uneasy about it.  This week another such gathering had been arranged, and I was able to redeem myself.  As well as the coffee and chatter, I had the privilege of briefly holding my host's baby daughter on my lap; it was the first time since Christmas time about thirteen years ago that I had enjoyed such an experience.  The older one gets, the rarer - and therefore more significant - such events become.

I wrote here a few weeks ago about prowling the streets with a notebook in connection with the planned distribution of church Christmas cards.  Another project recently came my way, that has had the same consequences.  I've once more been seen making surreptitious notes, this time about the industrial areas of our town.  Thanks to the welcome fine weather, this project, too, is nearing completion and, although this won't stop me walking, it will remove the obligation to do so, and the restrictions on my choice of routes.

And finally, a good experience to which I can't put a date and time, which may sound strange.  A couple of weeks ago, I 'attended' (if that's the right word) a webinar - an internet-based lecture or conference - for which I had to download a small program to enable the transmission to be received.  In the event, I don't think it was very helpful, and shan't need the program again.  However, the downloaded file was still sitting on my computer.  Try as I would, I couldn't delete it because - although I own the computer and am the only one who uses it - I didn't have 'administrator privileges'.  I tried to move it to another location, so I didn't have to keep seeing it there: this needed authority I didn't possess.  I employed the indirect strategy of re-naming the file so it no longer looked like a program: this could only be done by an administrator!  Annoyed, I gave up and resolved one day to seek my son's help (he had set the computer up for me when I bought it).  Yesterday, having done nothing further about it, I noticed that the offending item had vanished!  Grateful, I didn't go hunting for it, but I do wonder how, where, when ...?

Today is 'Old Michaelmas' day; the fine weather continues and, although there is no longer golden corn to wave fairly in the summer breeze, this is our church's Harvest Festival weekend.  More blessings for which to be grateful.

When it's Time to Say 'Goodbye'

I doubt the names Will D. Cobb and Paul Barnes will mean anything to you, but bear with me, and I'll try to explain.  As I reflected upon this Janus* of a week, a song came to mind that was published in New York some 119 years ago.  Cobb wrote the words while Barnes was responsible for the melody.  It first gained popularity in the Spanish-American War but, within a couple of years, slight changes were made to the lyrics.  The words "'Tis the tramp of solders true, In their uniforms so blue, I must say goodbye to you" were replaced by "'Tis the tramp of solders' feet In their uniforms so neat, So goodbye until we meet".  British red uniforms took the place of the American blue (although they were soon to be exchanged for khaki to blend with the veldt) and "Goodbye Dolly Gray" became a song of national support for our boys fighting the Boers in South Africa.  I wonder how many people thought to question the spelling of the lady's name.

My last post here looked ahead to a day of 'self inspection and teaching' at our church last Saturday, which we called "At Home Together".  It began with a morning of teaching about the theme of hospitality, and after lunch came a whole variety of activities, from swimming to sewing, from walking to painting, from talking to reading the papers to just doing nothing.  I felt it was a mixture that reflected what a real family might find itself doing on a Saturday afternoon. In the evening there was dancing to use up the last dregs of our energy.

My friend summed the day up amusingly: "Boogie-woogie Bible study", but then followed up with a more thoughtful analysis, "It was about us reconnecting and getting to know each other better, through having fun together, but we still managed to open our doors wide to those who need us most.  This is why I'm so proud of being part of this church family."  It was a time of looking forward to what we might be doing in the future, both collectively and as individuals or small groups, and the service on Sunday followed the same positive theme.

On Monday, I went to the annual school reunion, where there was a brief debate about winding up the society.  The school closed in the 1980s, so there is no more 'new blood' to be introduced; attendance and interest in a formal organisation is expressed solely by the over-60s now, and the organising committee felt it was time to go out on a high, rather than reach a point where dignity and willpower simply evaporate.  There is still a lot of feeling among some of the older members towards some kind of regular get-together, but indecision about how this can be arranged without some formal structure.

The whole thing has been left in abeyance until some of them gather for a Christmas dinner in a few months' time.  Most of the others are older than me, many having left the school before I was born, or soon after!  I have been a keen follower of the society in the past but, for me, the time has come for mental self-preservation.  While I recognise that, like everyone else, I'm getting older, I feel that having so many friends that are younger than me keeps me young ... in outlook at least.  If I have to be with older folks, then I would prefer to spend time with those I know, see frequently and with whom I can have some kind of relationship, rather than make an occasional trip to see people who are virtually strangers.  I admit this is selfish, but my enjoyment of this week's gathering was dulled as I thought of all the human decay around me.

By contrast, the next day was a most uplifting occasion.  We celebrated the life of a lady who had recently died after a long battle with cancer.  In the usual funereal way, relatives and friends paid their tributes and we learned something of her life long before her path ever crossed ours.  The service had been arranged very much following her own wishes, and I was privileged to be one of a small choir - with whom she had sung until shortly before her death - to lead the hymns and close the ceremony with one of her favourite choral works.

Before you go hunting in bewilderment for that tattered song book in your cupboard, I'll confess.  The exact words of my title are not to be found in the song, but I think you'll agree that the sentiment is appropriate to the events of this week.  I've looked forward, as those solders did when they marched away; I've looked back, as folk often do when they sing songs like this, to the early lives of those around them or whom they knew in times past; and there has been a facing of death, the raw emotion of being reminded of our own mortality, as soldiers might when comrades fall, or like the fictional Dolly, as she realised that her soldier boy wasn't among the returning regiment.

I'll be looking for a lighter theme to write about next week.

*Janus - a Roman god with two faces, for looking both forward and back.

Almost Like Being at Work!

In complete contrast to last week's calm, there have been times this week when that title was scarcely sufficient to describe its intensity ... for many different reasons.  One of these was this morning, when I exclaimed, "What NOW?" as one thing and then another clamoured for my attention, while I was already engaged on a third ... all to do with the same basic activity area. I'm sure many of my readers will know this feeling: one from which I had thought retirement would bring freedom.

The week began - for the second time, now - with the welcome and buoyant start that is our men's breakfast meeting.  It was very productive, even though only five of us were able to make it, focused this week on 'confession'.  Later on, I pursued further what has almost become something of a 'parish survey', in connection with the Christmas card distribution plan that I mentioned last week.  A brief meeting on Tuesday with my collaborator ensured that we are aligned in our thinking about the tactics of this, and now, subject to any change to details resulting from more road checks to be carried out in the coming weeks, the essential planning is done.

Ringing practice was as informal as ever, lightened even more this week by a visit from an occasional ringer who is celebrating becoming a granddad, passing around pictures of the new arrival.  The bond amongst ringers never fails to impress me by its openness, strength and endurance.

Tuesday found me in the throes of that family history catch-up of my cousin's husband's family, which has taken me so long partly owing to my propensity for distraction.  In one of these side-tracked moments, I found the name of someone who had married into the family in the 1840s that I thought I recognised ... and couldn't resist checking it out.  It transpired that, by marriage, he was part of my great-grandfather's family.  The result was that I could piece together on a single sheet a string of descents and marriages that link together my cousin and me with her husband!  Some weeks ago, I found a similar link on my father's side that links her husband to me, but I have yet to lay it out so impressively - yet another of those 'one day' jobs!

Wednesday was its usual combination of church and domesticity.  After attendance at the midweek service came shopping and ironing and our home-group met in the afternoon for the first time in the new season.  The leader confessed that she hadn't been able to construct many questions from the allotted passage ... but managed to conduct as broad and enlightening a discussion as ever!

I followed this by a brief visit to a 'pre-planning-application' exhibition regarding a housing development only a few streets away from my home.  To many present there seemed to be a number of glaring oversights to the suggested arrangement, including the number and layout of the houses; the fact of there being only one vehicular access, and that from a narrow lane with no pavements; and the matter of the preserved open space being tucked away in a corner, while the centre of the area is devoted to the back gardens of what would be, in effect, 'back-to-back' properties.

Yesterday was a day of outstanding success.  With no external commitments at all, I spent almost twelve hours - apart from a brief interlude in the kitchen converting a piece of meat and some vegetables into an appetising stew (rewarding in itself!) - working with spreadsheets.  The stepping-off point was my weekly review of investments which, of itself, normally takes less than an hour.  But, for some while there have been a number of anomalies from one set of records to another and, coupled with the need to make amendments to accommodate some new funds, in the way that one thing leads to another, there were thoughts of 'why don't I ...?' and 'wouldn't it be better if ...?'  With nothing to stop progress, all those questions were answered positively and I went to bed contented and ready to sleep the sleep of the satisfied.

Today there has been much preparation for the morrow, which will be a day of healthy self-inspection and enjoyment within our church community, involving some teaching, along with a variety of activities, communal eating and, finally, dancing.  Of course there will be lots of things to get ready and, as one of the designated 'shift and arrange' team, I shall be exercising in that direction shortly.  As Health and Safety Officer, my morning has been diverted to examine and approve risk assessments for some of the activities as well as following a recommended course myself.

As one of my friends has said, many times, 'It's all go here!' ... but I don't think I'd swap it for being back on the road.

... and Bristol Fashion

Things are very calm and quiet chez moi at the moment.  Over the last few weeks, as I've reported here, one aspect after another of my life is being tidied up.  After the advent of the new cleaner and the re-shaping of the bedroom, this week saw something of a spring-clean of (at least part of) the kitchen.  The dresser that I so fortunately got on Freecycle a year or so ago, disguised as a small bookcase, was beginning to look dusty.

The action of unloading it onto the dining table reminded me of an occasion in my childhood, when - I suppose I was about seven or eight - I was engaged to help my mother by clearing things from the pantry onto the kitchen table for just such an exercise ... although today we seldom have a walk-in pantry, and many kitchens are far too small to accommodate a table! However, once the whole worktop on which the dresser stands had been cleared, cleaned and replaced, a number of small items were found to have taken lodging there without purpose, and have now been Freecycled away.

The desk too, metaphorically at least, is getting clear.  Earlier this year, after my completion of the twin family trees for my cousin's golden wedding present, I had some 500 new people to enter properly to my genealogy database; this number, if not in single figures, is now at least below 20, and - as I reported recently - the transcription exercise I had been working on for FreeCen was completed after eleven months.

As the new term starts at schools and universities, my decks are clear for new tasks and challenges.  Some, like the next district of the FreeCen transcription, have already started.  The men's breakfast at church began on Monday - that 6.0 alarm was familiar, but not really welcome - and there's also a plan to organise the distribution of the church Christmas cards across the parish, which I'm working on with a colleague.  To this end, I've possibly aroused some suspicion as I've been walking the streets with notebook in hand, locating an amazing quantity of missing house numbers.  I'm surprised how many numbers have not been used in our streets.  The odd 13 is often absent for superstitious reasons, but these are sequences sometimes of 20 or more, including one where no. 73 is followed by no. 111!

I can't help thinking this week of calm is preparing me for something different, and I confess to being excited to find out what it is.

You might be puzzled by my title this week.  Like many of our sayings, it has a nautical origin, and the first part of this one is more familiar: 'Ship shape', meaning all neat and tidy.  The connection with the sea is not out of place this week.  Pictures of the devastation left by hurricane Irma look like something out of this world.  The thought of 95% of an island country wrecked is almost beyond imagining.  I looked around my 'neat and tidy' realm this morning and wondered how I would cope if such devastation were to hit my home.  In our fair and pleasant land, it's hard to think how this could happen, but ... Grenfall happened!

On the Brink

I expect you've noticed how certain dates and anniversaries are ingrained in your memory.  I remember, for example, the date on which my erstwhile girlfriend relinquished the shop that she and her husband had been running before his death.  I had a great uncle, whose birthday heralded a month to go until Boxing Day, and I know that when my dad's birthday came around yesterday it's almost back-to-school time.

So, now I've left school <pause for applause> I'm reminded of other things, such as a new term of home-group meetings at the church.  This year this calendar-mark carries a greater responsibility for me, since I shall be leading six of the studies between now and Christmas and my aim is to have them all prepared in advance, so there are no last minute panics.  That is fairly well on target, I'm pleased to report.

What else has been going on this week, then?  The bank holiday was spent as usual with my cousin.  The highlight of this one was the freedom to spend several hours ploughing through her box of family archives, making lots of notes with which to enrich the family history.  Every family acquires these, of course.  First that come to mind are the birth, marriage and death certificates, whether those issued at the time of the event, or copies obtained later for a variety of administrative requirements. Then there are the deeds and agreements that accumulate as a result of all manner of situations that involve legal arrangements and dealings with strangers ... like, for instance the purchase of a house.  Legal affairs inevitably bring letters from solicitors, and at the end of the day there is always a long invoice, in which the solicitor details exactly what he has done, down to the very last letter of that sinister closing phrase, "and to accounting to you for the same ..." followed by an unacceptably large total!

To most people these are just the nitty gritty of everyday life, or else the legal dross that is left after some great upheaval in life that now needs to be overcome or lived with, but to someone like me they are like gold dust, every last detail to be savoured, examined and tossed this way and that to see how it fits into the glorious picture that we build ... a picture that will never be completed because, even after a death, family life goes on.

I came home from my trip away to other signs of life going on.  My diary showed me one end of a chain of reminders, telling me to send an e-mail to someone giving her warning of something I shall need in a few weeks' time, so that she can fit its preparation into a busy schedule.  It's now in her diary instead.  A letter waiting on my doormat for my return told me that my flat is soon to be inspected to make sure I'm looking after it - echoes there of last week's post!

It seems incongruous that, in the midst of this fine and sunny weather, the 2018 FA Cup campaign is already into its third weekend of fixtures.  This afternoon, after scrutinising the list, I was able to fulfil an ambition of several years' standing.  Occasionally, one come across two churches in one churchyard;  I know of only one place - no doubt there are more - where two football clubs playing in the national pyramid have completely separate and independent grounds next to each other.  Today I visited Bedford Town, not to be confused with neighbouring Bedford FC, who play two steps lower down.

The visitors were a team I have seen in this area before, when they played a pre-season friendly match at Hitchin a few years ago.  Known as the 'Trawlerboys', Lowestoft Town brought with them a great footballing history, stretching back well over 100 years.  Their latest move was relegation from the National League North to play one level above today's opponents in the premier division of the Ryman League.  They scored - or rather were gifted an own goal - in the 27th minute, and matched this by scoring another in the second half.  Although the home side piled everything into their opponents' half in the last half-hour, the match was destined not to provide even one more goal, much less the three they would need for a home win, and the Suffolk team went home with a ticket into the draw for the next round.  Who knows where that will take them?

And who knows what I shall be writing about here next weekend?  We'll all have to wait and see.

Three Girls

This week, after almost a year, I completed my first transcription assignment for FreeCEN, the project to make all census returns for the nineteenth century available for researchers to search on line without cost.  It was all very interesting, because the places and many of the family names were familiar to me from childhood.  Not until it was finished did I learn that I’d been ‘thrown in at the deep end’, with one of the largest Pieces, well over 7,000 individual entries, covering ten towns and villages.  The last section was the easiest, because there were fewer items of information for each individual, but at the same time it was one of the saddest ... it covered the workhouse at Stradbroke.

It was certainly a place that no one wanted to go if they could possibly avoid it.  It was made so deliberately, to discourage people from taking advantage of ‘something for nothing’; if you’ve ever visited one of the workhouses that have been preserved as sites of ‘educational  tourism’ - for example those at Gressenhall in Norfolk or Southwell in Nottinghamshire - it’s easy to imagine how well they fulfilled that aim.

As I wrote down the names of the 160 people recorded in this particular institution in north Suffolk, and against each one noted their marital condition, their gender and age and the sinister word ‘inmate’, I found myself wondering why it was each was there.   I spotted the odd married couple, but most of them were either widowed or were quite young, or children.  Had they just fallen on bad times, unable to get work, or were there more acute reasons?

One trio in particular stuck in my memory, and once the task was finished and submitted, I decided to do a little digging into the records in an attempt to piece together the story of these three girls named Roberts.  Clara was 4, Mary 3 and (the one that caught my eye in the first place) Eliza, only 12 days old.  There was nothing on the page to indicate that they were sisters ... just the fact that they were all together.  Where was their mother ... their father?  Had they parked their children there because there was no one else to look after them while they tried to provide for their tiny family?  With no obvious answers I came back to the fact that, only twelve days ago, this young woman had given birth.  She wouldn’t be out working .. but she wasn’t there in the workhouse either.

Finding baby Eliza’s birth registration on the GRO’s new birth register search website told me her mother’s maiden name – Moss – and the marriage register index showed that George Roberts and Eliza Moss had married in the June quarter of 1860.  There was no sign of them as a family in 1861’s census, however.  I did find Eliza, living with her parents and two young siblings in the village of Wingfield, conspicuously under her new married name and described as ‘married’, but with no husband present.  She was described as a ‘dealer’s wife’.  I couldn't find any trace of George after his marriage.

I found the family again in 1871, still in the same place: Eliza’s parents, her young brother now a 12-year-old scholar, and an Emily Roberts, described as ‘granddaughter’, aged 9.  This Emily was shown as born in her grandparents’ village, The workhouse entries showed Clara and Mary born in nearby Syleham.  No birth registration could be found for any of these three: Emily, Clara or Mary.  However, each was baptised in Wingfield: Emily at ten days old, Clara and Mary together when Mary was about three months.  In each case the child was described as the ‘daughter of George and his wife Eliza, late Moss’.

Childbirth was a hazardous business in those days.  If Eliza had been living apart from the family with her two younger daughters, making her own living as best she could, her body was probably not in the fittest condition to survive another birth.  I checked the death registers; sure enough, her death was recorded in the June quarter of 1871, aged 29.  The burial register confirmed my suspicions.   It showed that she was buried in Wingfield on 25th March, just four days after her little girl was born.  My guess is that she never recovered from the birth; the workhouse authorities probably had her parents noted as next of kin, and the burial took place as soon as arrangements could be made.  The register gave her home as Syleham.

There is a happy ending to the tale, however.  I decided to see what happened to the three girls in the next ten years.  In 1881, I found them in the nearby village of Weybread at the unlikely - but clearly identified - ‘Holiday House’.  Here lived James and Anna Ablett, tile maker and laundress, along with their nephew, George Leggett, also a tile maker.  Living with them were Mary Jane and Eliza Roberts, aged 12 and 10, described as orphans and scholars.  And who should be visiting on census night but Clara, described as a 17-year-old domestic servant (although she was actually only a month over fifteen .. not an infrequent occurence).  Eliza’s birthplace was correctly shown as Stradbroke, but the other two gave Wingfield, their grandparents’ home ... putting the past behind them?