One Thing Leads to Another ... Thankfully!

Pride is a sin, they say, so I hope you'll forgive me for saying that one thing I pride myself on is that, as a former professional driver, I can settle my car into a parking space pretty well centred within the white lines.  Imagine my shock, therefore, when yesterday I did what I thought was just that on arrival at my favourite supermarket store, only to get out and find that I was only an inch or two inside the line on my driver's side.

As I walked to the store, I realised that not only the car to my left, but the next four cars along, were all parked very close to the line on their right side.  Only the one at the end of the line was in the middle of its space.  This taught me two things.  First, that my immediate reaction - to blame the car next to me - was most likely unjustified, and secondly that, as stated in my title, 'One thing leads to another'.  Of course, I don't know which car arrived at the store first.  I can only say that the circumstantial evidence points to the second car in the row being the cause of the problem, causing the next four to follow suit.

Thinking further along this track, I recalled - as I often do - the happy years I spent behind the wheel prior to my retirement.  Inevitably such memories are accompanied by thoughts of the relationship that developed between me and my boss, from the day when I first arrived in his office - as I thought, for an interview - to the day when it was announced that he'd sold the business to a national company and was heading for a few years of relaxation and family life.

I laugh as I remember that first arrival.  I had responded to an ad in the local paper for drivers.  My expectation of an interview was met by the briefest of conversations, and the invitation to 'come along on Monday and see how you get on.'  I duly turned up, not really knowing what to expect, and my first job was to collect some paper from a local firm (now long gone) and deliver it to an industrial estate in Newmarket.  I had no idea whereabouts in Newmarket this address was to be found so, on the way, I bought the first of what quickly became quite a library of street maps.  Those were the days - not all that long ago - before SatNav, of course.

There were a few 'interesting bloomers', of course.  One Friday afternoon, I went to the wrong Sandhurst, arriving about 6.0 pm, and spent quite a while looking around this Kent town for the address, before giving up and going into the local pub to ask for directions to Morrisons.  One of the customers asked to see my paperwork and quickly pointed out - to my chagrin - that I was in the wrong place to find a store with an RG postcode!  Feeling a complete failure, I made my slow way around the M25 and eventually arrived at the right place ... after the store had closed!  There was only one thing for it.  I slept in the car on their car park, and made my delivery as early as I could find someone there on Saturday morning.

It was a lesson learned, and there were many more in that steep learning curve.  But I soon realised the enjoyment of this new life and bought a van for the purpose.  I was a quick learner and the outcome was that, before long, I was recognised as a reliable driver when some of the more prestigious or demanding jobs came along: like the surprise check of my reg. no. before being assigned a London delivery, and later finding myself at the door of 10 Downing Street; like returning to the office one Friday lunchtime, to be offered a jiffy bag with the challenge, 'can you get this to Edinburgh by 8.0 tonight?'  In it was a ring that had been repaired by a local jeweller and was wanted for a wedding the following day.

The other day, I reacted to Facebook's announcement that it was my former boss's birthday, and posted a suitable greeting, expecting nothing more in return that the customary 'like'.  Not so.  In a comment, he thanked me for the greeting and enquired how my new life was going.  I was both surprised and warmed by this, and was pleased to summarise for him the last nine months, "Settling in slowly but successfully; spending much time at the computer screen. Getting to know my way around the locality."

As I look back over my working life, I can see how many of my jobs gave me new or increased skills and abilities that helped me in later situations, or now in retirement.  Even this week, I have drafted a report aimed at the reform of our local church's finance systems.  It's hard to look at my present activities and assess these links but, in general, I'm convinced that there is a fundamental truth at work now, as in the past, that one thing does lead to another - even down to the basic recognition, looking around my home, that many of the little things around me wouldn't be here had it not been for my spotting them as I worked in the charity warehouse prior to my move.

Sometimes consequences, from personal to international, are bad rather than good: such as punishment for behaviour causing harm or offence; the unconsidered outcomes of Brexit; or the terrible consequences of the Russian leaders' insecurity or greed, whichever it was that prompted the present conflict in Ukraine.

What in your life would have been different if it hadn't been for ... something specific a while previously?

The Newspaper adds Life to a Deathly Tale!

I've written here before about the hard life that was the lot of women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Large families were the norm and, of itself, this must have sapped the bodily strength of many, while it was also they who bore the burden of running house and home.  If they could do something else to bring in a few shillings towards feeding the family, that was a bonus.  I learned recently of one whose burden was harder than many, and ended in tragedy.

Betsey Muddock (not to be confused with Muttock or Murdock!) was born in the Suffolk village of Redlingfield in the summer of 1854.  She was the third daughter and fourth child of a farm labourer, in a family that eventually grew to ten children.  She lived in an age when many young women of her years had left their family and were in service, learning skills that could lead them towards either marriage or a fulfilling independent adult life.  

By contrast, the 1871 census shows that Betsey was still at home. She contributed to the family budget by her work as a charwoman.  As a sixteen-year-old, she was perhaps glad that she could gain her essential skills helping to look after the younger members of her family which, in the last year, had grown by two more: her own son George had been born just three months before her youngest sister. 

The following summer, when she was barely eighteen, Betsey married my first cousin three times removed, John Churchyard.  Whether or not he was the father of her child, we can't say, but he was willing to acknowledge George as his son at the next census, the eldest of the five children listed.  

John was known as a good, kind and sensible man, 'a better or more peaceable neighbour could not be found'.  These descriptions, however, were all circumscribed with the phrase 'when sober', for John was a slave to the bottle.  On such occasions, he was a beast, and threatened or ill-treated his wife on many occasions.  Sometimes she would have to leave him and take refuge with her father, who was still living in Redlingfield, some three or four miles away from their family home in Cross Street, Hoxne.

As well as, or possibly as a result of, his alcohol problem, John wasn't a good provider for his family.  Known to be lazy and dissolute, he had no regular employment.  In 1881 he was described as a bricklayer, in 1891 as a ratcatcher, and four years later as a warrener.  In situations such as these, it's hard to distinguish between cause and effect.  Was it the drink that deterred local farmers from setting him on, or did the fact of his not being able to find regular work lead to feelings of inadequacy and turn him to drink?  Betsey, on the other hand, was hardworking and industrious and earned a living charing or doing other work.

On 27th September, 1895, she came home from her work at the local pub in the later afternoon, gathered up some washing and went indoors.  John roused himself from the couch where he had been for some while, it seems, took his gun from its place and told her 'I will shoot you.'  He did so, and then turned the gun on himself.

The local newspaper, as was the custom, carried all the gory details of the tragedy, but also confirms the shape of the family, as gleaned from the formal records.  Two particular items are of genealogical interest.  One is in regard to Betsey's age.  In 1881, this was given as 28, some two years more than her actual years, and in 1891, 39.  John was born in 1845, so was about nine years older; did he know how young she was, and adjust her age to look a bit more 'respectable', given the age of their oldest son?  The civil record of her death shows her age as 45, which concurs with the census.  However someone knew otherwise, despite some of their children stating that they didn't know their parents' ages, for the burial register gives her age as 39.

The other curiosity is that the youngest child who, at the age of six, had the traumatic experience of seeing her mother killed, is named in the newspaper as Elizabeth.  Her birth was registered as Honor Louisa, and the 1891 census refers to her as Lucy, presumably a corruption of Louisa.  My guess is that the reporter heard her being referred to as Lucy and, having mis-heard this as 'Lizzy', decided to formalise this for publication.  Her mother's birth was registered as Betsey, and she was known by this name at each census; the newspaper account avoids any difficulty by referring to her as 'Mrs Churchyard' or 'his wife', while her death was registered as Elizabeth.

The 1901 census reveals that, after this ghastly episode, the family was scattered to the four winds.  Young Elizabeth - maybe my name-corruption theory had taken effect long before ever the newspaper got involved, for she was still known thus - was living with one of Betsey's married sisters in Church Street, Stradbroke.  Fred and Frank by then were working as farm labourers, and living with another aunt and uncle in Mendham, on the Norfolk border beyond Harleston.  James, who had been living across the road from the family home at the time of his parents' death, was married within weeks of that event. In 1901, he was living with his wife and three children at the windmill in Stradbroke Road, Hoxne, where he worked as a carter.  Another miller's carter, Albert Rowe, lived in Cross Street, where he and his wife provided board and lodging to James's brother John, who worked as a farm labourer.

Florence, almost 20 at the time, was described in the newspaper as 'having been away from home for a couple of weeks'.  If she had been living there, she might have left for her own safety, for she was already a mother herself, having given birth to a daughter earlier in the year.  She had already left home before the previous census, at which time she was a general servant to farmer John Bolton at the Grove in Upper Street, Billingford.  By 1901 she had established herself at Norton in West Suffolk, where she and her brother Leonard, along with her two daughters, were living with Charles Laflin, whose wife was another of the late Betsey's sisters.  Florence was described as a monthly nurse, while Leonard was a farm labourer.

I could find no reference in the 1901 census of Betsey's eldest son, George, born before her marriage, nor to her son Charles, born between Leonard and Frank.  As is often the case, certain details of the story either don't fit exactly together, or are missing and have been guessed at.  In particular the ages of the aunts with whom the children were found didn't exactly match their appearance in the censuses of 1861 and 1871, and the birthplace of one is given as Southwold instead of Redlingfield, but relevant marriage records serve to confirm their status.

[Sources: Census records as found on Findmypast, and the report in the Diss Express of 4th October, 1895.]

An Anniversary in the Irish Fashion

The events of Monday 24th April 1916 and the days following are commemorated in Ireland not by date but by occasion.  For this was Easter Monday and, whenever that may fall - any date from 23rd March to 26th April - it is on Easter Monday that the Easter Rising is remembered.

Having justified my title, I'll turn to the start of my story.  For many years, I had lived a contented life as a same-day courier.  I was a self-employed, owner-driver, and was provided with work by a local company.  I worked long hours, often starting in the early morning or returning late at night, sometimes both.  There was insecurity, in that if I didn't work I didn't get paid.  But there was happiness too, to be found in a variety of friendships at work, at church and with the local bell-ringers.  I had no need, no desire and no intention of moving from this pleasant life in England's First Garden City.

One day my van stopped working ... at least, it became suddenly and significantly unreliable and, according to a plan I had outlined well in advance, I declared my innings at an end, and retired both the vehicle and the way of life it had sustained for the last 300,000 miles.  Over the next few years, a new, retired life-pattern emerged.  I helped at a weekly drop-in run by the Salvation Army, and later took up voluntary work for the local hospice and, in between, spent many hours researching my family history, adding about 2,000 names to my database in that time.

Then Covid-19 arrived.  The drop-in ceased to function, church life ground to a halt and, initially, I had to rely on friends to do my shopping.  As things began to open up again during the latter part of 2020, work at the hospice warehouse started once more, but was intermittent, churches opened again, but with very inhibiting restrictions, and there were strict limitations on the ringing of bells.  After a health emergency that November, it was detected that I had an irregular heartbeat and, although I suffer no obvious ill effects from this, I decided that, whenever ringing should eventually return to normal, I would not continue that activity.

And so we come to Easter Monday.  My Bible reading that morning was the story of Mary Magdalen at the tomb (John 20:11-18).  The commentary that I follow regularly was written by John Grayston, a teacher whom I greatly admire.  He explored the idea of a changing world order, in particular observing that Mary's life would be different from that point on.  "Mary wants things to stay as they are." he wrote, "She must learn to relate to Jesus in a different way."  He concluded that "holding on to yesterday's understanding and experience may hold us back." 

As I reflected on these words, I saw how they could apply to me at that particular time.  So many aspects of the life that I had enjoyed up to that point had either stopped, or were sufficiently different as to be unsatisfying compared to previously.  In complete contrast to my previous attitude to staying in the Garden City, I realised that there was now nothing holding me there any more.  The key thought that I took from that morning was, 'There's no reason not to move away.'

I concluded that God was telling me that He wanted me to move.  Without knowing where, I began immediately to fillet some of my shelves.  I filled bags with waste, and collected other items to take to the warehouse for fund-raising in one way or another.  It wasn't until the next week that, as my packing continued, I began to plan where I might move to, confident that, if I pushed some doors, God would close wrong ones and allow the right one to open for me.  My general aim was to move north, where I might find greater space for a lower financial outlay, and I searched for a house with the desired accommodation in a broad arc from Wrexham to Hull.

Little by little over the next few weeks, I was guided to the south Yorkshire area, and eventually went to view a terraced house in the small, former mining town of Goldthorpe.  Strangely, the young lady showing me around was persuading me that this place wasn't for me, but at the end of the visit she directed me to another one just a short distance away that would be much better, although it was not yet on the market.  I walked round and looked at it. It was being refurbished, but I could see straight away that it would be much better than the one I'd just viewed, and just what I was looking for.

From that point on, the process seemed fraught with delay but, as I look back, I realise that from inspiration to moving in, it was just on three months.  I later learned that, two days after I had signed the lease, the lady who had directed me here had - quite suddenly - left the estate agent's employment.  Was she an angel?  I leave you, dear reader, to speculate.

At the outset, I felt that God was leading me here because He had work for me to do here.  I now realise that it wasn't to use me, but to teach me.  I feel that I've learned much in the last nine months, and am certainly closer to Him than I had been before.  As this first anniversary approaches, I find that I'm quite content to let the future take its course.

Do you - Indeed, Can you - Open your Windows?

I've been thinking a lot about footnotes lately.   Both my present assignment from WEBBS, and the last one I worked on, involved them.  Indeed, the earlier one was exclusively devoted to them.  It was a project that had been completed some years ago, but now a different book had been found that included footnotes, and it was decided that these could prove very useful.  So a new project was commissioned to add these to the original output, which proved very fiddley.

The present work is based on a summary, rather than a standard scripture and doesn't easily fit into the software that we use.  As a workaround, the references are required to be added to every single footnote: a task that falls to me, along with the rest of my editing work.

So, what are these little 'ornamentations' that are so critical?  I like to think of them rather as windows.  You can ignore them, draw the curtains and live quite contentedly in a darkened room without them.  Or you can look through them to enjoy the scenery outside, or even throw them wide open and let in the fresh air to enrich your enjoyment of life.  Sometimes windows are of limited use, as if opening onto an alleyway so all you can see is the brick-wall on the other side or, worse, they might be darkened by a layer of grime that requires the attention of a window-cleaner, be this human or chemical.

Footnotes can be frustrating.  Like the windows that need cleaning, I've found some old books most annoying when the footnotes are written in the original language, with which I'm not familiar, or even in a different alphabet (e.g. Greek).  It suggests that the book wasn't written to be read by 'ordinary' people, but was published merely as a 'scholarly work'.

Footnotes can wander and be renamed as 'end-notes'.  Occasionally, there might be a whole chapter of these at the end of the book and you need to keep a bookmark there to read the interesting anecdotes referred to in the main text.  More often these simply provide a bibliography, or list of sources that the author has drawn upon in compiling his work.  In this case, at least you know that they can be ignored so far as adding to the plot is concerned.

You can tell that I like historical books, and the sort of footnotes I really appreciate are the ones that overflow onto the next page, and relate something more about a character in the book's subject matter ... something that is, probably, quite irrelevant to the theme but is, of itself, an interesting anecdote, a juicy tale, or maybe identifies someone relatively obscure in the present consideration as a key player in later life.

I'm very pleased that my new home is double-glazed.  However, most of the windows have only small openable panes at the top, and there are times when it would be nice to have a big casement window that could be - as I put it above - thrown wide-open so as to enjoy the clean fresh air to the full.  The same could be said of footnotes, they can add so much to the enjoyment of a book, but this potential is often curtailed by obscurity, inaccessibility, or just plain irrelevance.

What do You Call a Thingumajig?

Some call it a snake, others say it's a sausage: opinions differ.  But let me begin at the beginning ... or at least at the start of the latest chapter.

A few years ago, I decided I would make a cover for the armchair that has graced my home for the last twenty years.  I measured, schemed and drew up a detailed plan for its construction.  Then, having procured the materials and implements, I began, slowly at first, to regain my long dormant crochet skills.

The technique was there in the far reaches of my memory.  But one of the great mysteries of my life is ... when did it start?  Where and when did I first learn to crochet?  I know I could do it when I was living on my own in Diss, for I have memories of making some big squares ... although I have no idea what happened to them.  One day I asked my daughter if she had passed it on to me but, amazingly, she said that it was I who had taught her!

Elizabeth Thrower, née
Churchyard, c.1839-1934,
known to my father as 'Granny Thrower'

The obvious source would be my mother: she was always knitting: my hand-knitted sweaters of various colours (but always to the same pattern) are something of an embarrassing memory.  But I don't recall that she ever crocheted.  Incidentally her name for the snake or sausage was roly-poly (and it wasn't a steamed pudding!).

One of the very few pictures I have of my great-grandmother, shows her seated on a couch as if interrupted from crocheting a lace table mat.  Could it be her, I hear you ask?  Most unlikely, I have to say, since she died almost sixteen years before I was born ... unless I have inherited some peculiar 'crochet-gene'.

After the attempt at making the chair cover had lain unfinished for some while, I picked it up during last autumn, and converted its strange form into a conventional blanket or throw, about the size of a double bed.  It's now parked once more to await a useful future home.  In so doing, I found that there were almost enough of the small squares that made it up, and I had only to add about half a dozen more.

That's enough waffle.  What is this un-named object?  Before I identify it, let me just say that that word 'enough' is woven through this story.  I decided that, with the upcoming dramatic increase in energy prices, and since there was a detectable draught coming under the outside door of my lounge, it would be a good idea to make something to lay at the foot of the door to stop the draught.  

At the end of the chair cover-cum-blanket project, lots of wool was left over.  (So much for the detailed planning!)  I had used three  colours, and at the end there were two almost new balls and one that was almost exhausted.  When I came to the end of making the snake/sausage/roly-poly, that almost exhausted ball had managed to survive until only a few inches remained. 

And then there was the question of stuffing it.  A couple of weeks ago, when I visited on the occasion of her Emerald Wedding Anniversary, I mentioned this to my cousin who produced a boxful of rags and said, "Here's a bag, help yourself"  I quickly half-filled the bag and decided that that ought to fill the as yet unfinished article.  When it came to stuffing it earlier this week there was - you've guessed it - just enough, and none left over!

You could also say that, with the change to colder weather this week, and the energy price increase taking effect this weekend, there was 'just enough time' to get it finished.