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.