It's something I've heard many times ... I expect most of my readers have, as well. In fact ... I wonder if they actually teach it in schools. Or perhaps they used to but, since it seems to be so self-evident, maybe they no longer bother. I'm talking (rubbish) about the idea that 'History repeats itself'. I believe there's an American Indian saying, "Only an idiot does the same foolish thing a second time hoping for a different outcome!" It says much the same thing, I think.
What's prompted this philosophical line of thought? I may have mentioned before an e-book that I'm reading called "Cat and Mouse" by Tim Vicary. It's set in the early months of 1914 ... a significant point in our history for many reasons. I continue to marvel at the ingenious way this author has planted his principle male characters into the two main concerns of the day (viz. the Suffragettes and their fight for votes for women, and the Irish home-rule crisis), and then linked them by their marriage to two sisters. I need give away no more of the plot than that to make my point ... it's a good read!
These two 'problems' had divided the people of our great nation. No matter where one looked, it seems, there would be some who supported women getting the vote, and many others who opposed it vigorously. Perhaps less on this island, but certainly on the other, there would have been a similar division of opinion regarding setting up a parliament in Dublin to govern the affairs of what geographically might be 'Lesser Britain' as opposed to 'Great Britain' (although I've never seen the former name in print).
And today, just over a century later, there are once more two great concerns in our land. There are many - a growing number, we are told - who would like to see the end of the present electoral system, with its 'winner-takes-all' principle that worked when there were only Whigs and Tories, but so often results nowadays in a disproportionate outcome when compared to the way people voted, and its replacement by a proportional system such as operates in most other countries, and in the devolved institutions here. The second current divider of our land goes by the name of 'Brexit' and is so often in the news that it needs no further expansion here.
In many ways the situation today reflects that of 1914. One contention concerns the governing of the country while the other is about the means of conducting elections; both have large swathes of the population in favour and against, and both campaigns are vociferous in nature and involve occasional localised violence.
In 1914, with the King's reluctant intervention, the Home Rule Bill was passed but its implementation was shelved owing to the brief international crisis that led to the outbreak of war. There was an ineffective rising in 1916, brutally quashed in the interests of focusing attention on the war, and once that was over, Ireland was torn apart by the War of Independence followed by a brief civil war.
After the suspension of Suffragette activities during the war, accompanied by thousands of women taking on what had been exclusively men's work to aid the war effort, it was seen afterwards - whether correctly or not - as a 'pay-off' when in 1918 women over 30 and younger ones who were property owners were given the vote. The remaining women had to wait another ten years.
In 1914, few ordinary people saw the war coming. A minor headline in June reported an assassination on the other side of the continent, but on August Bank Holiday people were sunning themselves on the beaches as usual. This week, a solitary District Council has passed a motion to set up a local commission to look at what Brexit will mean 'on the ground' ... just one, out of hundreds!
I can't help wondering at these comparisons ... and I'm praying that history doesn't, in this instance, repeat itself!
Friday, 28 September 2018
Friday, 21 September 2018
The Rich Variety of Life
It's good that my life includes a variety of both routines and exceptions that, in juxtaposition, can provide both pleasure and adventure. After a very enjoyable weekend, the highlight of which was an unusual celebration, this week has seen an exciting new development.
The routine of the weekend was a 'normal' Sunday, with bell-ringing, helping with the singing and other rota duties at the church service and an afternoon and evening listening to radio and clicking away at the computer. The complementary excitement came on Saturday afternoon, when I joined in an rare event being celebrated by one of my friends from church. This week marks the twentieth anniversary of my friend's putting into effect her decision to come and live in this country. In that time, she has developed - to a remarkable extent, in my opinion - her skills in our (very strange!) language, found a husband and become a very settled mother-of-two and significant contributor to our church family life.
The test match series might well have finished, but the cricket season is far from over. While I was working, the radio would be on all day and, during a test match, it would be tuned to Test Match Special so long as I had a radio that would receive it. Since my retirement, I hadn't listened to very much cricket, despite having a DAB radio on my sideboard. This year, though, my interest has been re-kindled and I think I have listened to at least part of every day of the five-match series against India. Alongside this, I have discovered that this wonderful facility is not confined to the test matches but, with all-day network links that rival those for coverage of League football at the weekend, all the Spec-savers Championship games have been broadcast live on local radio and relayed - according to which matches are most exciting - on TMS!
So I've been filling my listening hours by following this in-depth commentary on a sport that I never played apart from as a very green schoolboy ... with skill that eventually led to my being appointed scorer for the school team! As I've done so, I've discovered that there is a very definite distinction between things I can and cannot do while there is cricket commentary in the background. Something that involves intricate work with a spreadsheet is quite feasible, for example, while anything that requires reading and/or thought has to be postponed. As a result, on occasion, I've spent long hours playing sudoku or snooker on my phone while other things have been 'parked' ... and then felt guilty about wasting my time!
A few months ago a friend made a passing reference to her voluntary activities in connection with a well known hospice based in our town and tossed out a comment about the variety of 'jobs' that are available there for willing volunteers. Following my abortive exploration of a part-time job with my former boss the other week, I remembered this conversation, and decided to 'push another door'. After a couple of misdirected phone calls, I struck lucky on Monday, and accepted an invitation to pop in for a chat. After a description of all that goes on in their warehouse and a conducted tour, arrangements were made for me to go along for a 'taster' shift this morning.
So far as I know, the operation is entirely self-funding, and to raise the necessary finance, the nearby towns support a chain of shops which both receive and sell a broad variety of donated goods. As well as providing storage facilities, the warehouse is a base for distributing the goods between the various shops, so my chance to see the system in action involved being a working passenger on a van visiting a couple of the outlying high-street stores. Next week, I shall hand in my application forms and decisions will be made whether, and in what way, I might make a regular appearance there.
The routine of the weekend was a 'normal' Sunday, with bell-ringing, helping with the singing and other rota duties at the church service and an afternoon and evening listening to radio and clicking away at the computer. The complementary excitement came on Saturday afternoon, when I joined in an rare event being celebrated by one of my friends from church. This week marks the twentieth anniversary of my friend's putting into effect her decision to come and live in this country. In that time, she has developed - to a remarkable extent, in my opinion - her skills in our (very strange!) language, found a husband and become a very settled mother-of-two and significant contributor to our church family life.
The test match series might well have finished, but the cricket season is far from over. While I was working, the radio would be on all day and, during a test match, it would be tuned to Test Match Special so long as I had a radio that would receive it. Since my retirement, I hadn't listened to very much cricket, despite having a DAB radio on my sideboard. This year, though, my interest has been re-kindled and I think I have listened to at least part of every day of the five-match series against India. Alongside this, I have discovered that this wonderful facility is not confined to the test matches but, with all-day network links that rival those for coverage of League football at the weekend, all the Spec-savers Championship games have been broadcast live on local radio and relayed - according to which matches are most exciting - on TMS!
So I've been filling my listening hours by following this in-depth commentary on a sport that I never played apart from as a very green schoolboy ... with skill that eventually led to my being appointed scorer for the school team! As I've done so, I've discovered that there is a very definite distinction between things I can and cannot do while there is cricket commentary in the background. Something that involves intricate work with a spreadsheet is quite feasible, for example, while anything that requires reading and/or thought has to be postponed. As a result, on occasion, I've spent long hours playing sudoku or snooker on my phone while other things have been 'parked' ... and then felt guilty about wasting my time!
A few months ago a friend made a passing reference to her voluntary activities in connection with a well known hospice based in our town and tossed out a comment about the variety of 'jobs' that are available there for willing volunteers. Following my abortive exploration of a part-time job with my former boss the other week, I remembered this conversation, and decided to 'push another door'. After a couple of misdirected phone calls, I struck lucky on Monday, and accepted an invitation to pop in for a chat. After a description of all that goes on in their warehouse and a conducted tour, arrangements were made for me to go along for a 'taster' shift this morning.
So far as I know, the operation is entirely self-funding, and to raise the necessary finance, the nearby towns support a chain of shops which both receive and sell a broad variety of donated goods. As well as providing storage facilities, the warehouse is a base for distributing the goods between the various shops, so my chance to see the system in action involved being a working passenger on a van visiting a couple of the outlying high-street stores. Next week, I shall hand in my application forms and decisions will be made whether, and in what way, I might make a regular appearance there.
Friday, 14 September 2018
September Mourning
It seems that, when September comes, it brings with it each year pretty much the same emotions about life's journey. There are the annual pictures of little ones being left at the school gate with shiny new bag - or elder sibling's hand - clutched tightly, leaving a tear in mother's eye as another milestone in the life of her child passes, never to return. Further down the line are similar, but perhaps more easily stifled, responses to later transitions: to a new school, or college or leaving for far-off parts as they put into practice those rudimentary aims for a 'gap year'.
Mother Nature is ever quick to respond with what my English teacher used to describe as 'her sympathetic background'. We notice the browning of leaves as they prepare to line gutters instead of branches, and with advancing age comes the earlier noticing of lower temperatures, the need for an extra layer of clothing ... along with the frustration of its not being required during the middle of the day when that lingering sunshine still bears some power.
One thing I noticed this year was the dormant spider hanging motionless for days on end, suspended in the large web on the outside of my kitchen window and looking for all the world as if it has passed its allotted life-span. Then along comes the shower that I thought would be nature's undertaker, washing away the cadaver, only for me then to see that it has sprung to life once again and has scrambled to the security of the frame along which the edge of the web had been fastened.
This afternoon I attended the funeral of someone whom I had the privilege to know only for a small proportion of his nearly 87 years and, in the wake of this (sorry, no pun intended), it's easy for me to move my thoughts on from the autumn of the year, to the autumn of life itself.
Yesterday morning I found myself quite alone on arriving at the Salvation Army hall. As I erected tables and spread a gingham check cloth on each one, something triggered recollection of a passing comment made to me by my mother (now dead these fourteen years) that she would like to have owned or run a small roadside tea-shop. I thought of her 'looking down' at her son, performing the same tasks that would have suited that occupation.
I can't recall now when it was she told me this, nor - perhaps more significantly - at what phase of her life she had had this unfulfilled desire. Did she consider this in her early adulthood, after a short while in domestic service, followed by a succession of jobs in retail? How advanced, if at all, were her plans when they were possibly kicked into the long grass by the outbreak of war? Or was this an ambition of more mature years, possibly with a prospective husband in mind? Was it before or after she met my father?
So far as I remember, the matter was only mentioned once and I can only imagine that my response was simple acknowledgement, with no attempt to draw out any further detail. The matter-of-fact attitude that I had to life in those days would probably have not considered it important enough to follow up. Indeed it's taken me twenty or thirty years to remember it at all! How different my life would have been if it had become reality! One thing is certain ... I wouldn't have been writing this blog today!
Mother Nature is ever quick to respond with what my English teacher used to describe as 'her sympathetic background'. We notice the browning of leaves as they prepare to line gutters instead of branches, and with advancing age comes the earlier noticing of lower temperatures, the need for an extra layer of clothing ... along with the frustration of its not being required during the middle of the day when that lingering sunshine still bears some power.
One thing I noticed this year was the dormant spider hanging motionless for days on end, suspended in the large web on the outside of my kitchen window and looking for all the world as if it has passed its allotted life-span. Then along comes the shower that I thought would be nature's undertaker, washing away the cadaver, only for me then to see that it has sprung to life once again and has scrambled to the security of the frame along which the edge of the web had been fastened.
This afternoon I attended the funeral of someone whom I had the privilege to know only for a small proportion of his nearly 87 years and, in the wake of this (sorry, no pun intended), it's easy for me to move my thoughts on from the autumn of the year, to the autumn of life itself.
Yesterday morning I found myself quite alone on arriving at the Salvation Army hall. As I erected tables and spread a gingham check cloth on each one, something triggered recollection of a passing comment made to me by my mother (now dead these fourteen years) that she would like to have owned or run a small roadside tea-shop. I thought of her 'looking down' at her son, performing the same tasks that would have suited that occupation.
I can't recall now when it was she told me this, nor - perhaps more significantly - at what phase of her life she had had this unfulfilled desire. Did she consider this in her early adulthood, after a short while in domestic service, followed by a succession of jobs in retail? How advanced, if at all, were her plans when they were possibly kicked into the long grass by the outbreak of war? Or was this an ambition of more mature years, possibly with a prospective husband in mind? Was it before or after she met my father?
So far as I remember, the matter was only mentioned once and I can only imagine that my response was simple acknowledgement, with no attempt to draw out any further detail. The matter-of-fact attitude that I had to life in those days would probably have not considered it important enough to follow up. Indeed it's taken me twenty or thirty years to remember it at all! How different my life would have been if it had become reality! One thing is certain ... I wouldn't have been writing this blog today!
Friday, 7 September 2018
Celebrations, but Alongside Disappointments
A few weeks ago, still dazed by the surprise, I described the remarkable circumstances that had led to the discovery of my second cousin's fiancée. On that occasion the main topic of conversation was the detail of his relationship to me, partly in order to establish my own bona fides, and to convince this lady that I was no ordinary 'stage door lounger'. Consequently I came away knowing very little about her other than her name.
Last Saturday was their wedding day. I hadn't expected an invitation on the strength of nothing more than that encounter, and so had gone to watch an FA Vase tie at Ely, where the local team were playing Norwich United, a club that has fascinated me ever since I first learned of their existence some eight years ago. I'd never seen them play, but as a Norfolk boy myself, I was hoping they would win. Amidst groans from the home fans, they scored the first goal and were 2-1 up at the interval. Ely then scored again after the break, making the scores equal after 90 minutes and extra time was called for, during which three more goals left the home team 4-3 winners.
I returned home to restore my spirits by taking advantage of arrangements that had been made to stream the wedding on Facebook. Thanks to the consideration of a musical couple who were well aware that there would be many friends and relatives for whom distance and/or space in the hall would preclude attendance, I was able to sit in rapt enjoyment, a virtual fly-on-the-wall for an hour-and-a-half, absorbing and vicariously sharing the happiness of their afternoon. Little did I know that more delight was even then being prepared.
All that I had been able to glean about the bride from the internet since our encounter had been purely speculative. On Monday and Tuesday, Facebook carried a number of individual collections of photos from the nuptials and, from the various comments on the pictures, I was able to confirm some of my findings and refute others, and to build up sufficient detail to enable me with confidence to add her to my family tree records. I had been quite amazed by the streaming of the wedding ceremony; on Monday I discovered that the same means had been used to provide a couple of hours viewing of an entertainment that this enterprising couple had devised for the Saturday evening! Some of the photos also revealed the ritual disfigurement of the going-away vehicle, which had required some cleansing activity to make it legal to drive!
On Tuesday evening, football once more took pride of place in my activities. Ten days before, I had been at an FA Cup match that had had to be abandoned after 58 minutes (with my favoured team 3-2 ahead) because of serious injuries to two of the visiting players. This Tuesday saw the re-match, which started off well, but the strength of the opposition was too much and I left after watching a 5-3 demolition of the locals' Cup hopes.
All was not lost, excitement-wise, however, for there was more celebration to come last night, when our church saw the installation of the lady who is now (I almost wrote 'to be', which has been the case since her selection some months ago now, and has become habitual) our new Vicar. Although her authority takes effect at a specific moment - like when at a wedding the priest says, 'you are man and wife' - she has been 'on the scene' for a few weeks since moving into the vicarage. During this time the family have been settling in and undergoing the same transitions that anyone does on moving house. Meanwhile, there has been infrequent, informal contact with key people in the church in order to make various necessary arrangements. In no way did this detract from the sense of occasion when the Bishop proclaimed, 'You have a new vicar!' and the clapping, cheering and whooping would have rivalled that at many a stadium to greet a winning goal!
Sadly winning goals didn't figure in my diary this week, but there has been more than adequate compensation!
Last Saturday was their wedding day. I hadn't expected an invitation on the strength of nothing more than that encounter, and so had gone to watch an FA Vase tie at Ely, where the local team were playing Norwich United, a club that has fascinated me ever since I first learned of their existence some eight years ago. I'd never seen them play, but as a Norfolk boy myself, I was hoping they would win. Amidst groans from the home fans, they scored the first goal and were 2-1 up at the interval. Ely then scored again after the break, making the scores equal after 90 minutes and extra time was called for, during which three more goals left the home team 4-3 winners.
I returned home to restore my spirits by taking advantage of arrangements that had been made to stream the wedding on Facebook. Thanks to the consideration of a musical couple who were well aware that there would be many friends and relatives for whom distance and/or space in the hall would preclude attendance, I was able to sit in rapt enjoyment, a virtual fly-on-the-wall for an hour-and-a-half, absorbing and vicariously sharing the happiness of their afternoon. Little did I know that more delight was even then being prepared.
All that I had been able to glean about the bride from the internet since our encounter had been purely speculative. On Monday and Tuesday, Facebook carried a number of individual collections of photos from the nuptials and, from the various comments on the pictures, I was able to confirm some of my findings and refute others, and to build up sufficient detail to enable me with confidence to add her to my family tree records. I had been quite amazed by the streaming of the wedding ceremony; on Monday I discovered that the same means had been used to provide a couple of hours viewing of an entertainment that this enterprising couple had devised for the Saturday evening! Some of the photos also revealed the ritual disfigurement of the going-away vehicle, which had required some cleansing activity to make it legal to drive!
On Tuesday evening, football once more took pride of place in my activities. Ten days before, I had been at an FA Cup match that had had to be abandoned after 58 minutes (with my favoured team 3-2 ahead) because of serious injuries to two of the visiting players. This Tuesday saw the re-match, which started off well, but the strength of the opposition was too much and I left after watching a 5-3 demolition of the locals' Cup hopes.
All was not lost, excitement-wise, however, for there was more celebration to come last night, when our church saw the installation of the lady who is now (I almost wrote 'to be', which has been the case since her selection some months ago now, and has become habitual) our new Vicar. Although her authority takes effect at a specific moment - like when at a wedding the priest says, 'you are man and wife' - she has been 'on the scene' for a few weeks since moving into the vicarage. During this time the family have been settling in and undergoing the same transitions that anyone does on moving house. Meanwhile, there has been infrequent, informal contact with key people in the church in order to make various necessary arrangements. In no way did this detract from the sense of occasion when the Bishop proclaimed, 'You have a new vicar!' and the clapping, cheering and whooping would have rivalled that at many a stadium to greet a winning goal!
Sadly winning goals didn't figure in my diary this week, but there has been more than adequate compensation!
Friday, 31 August 2018
Facing up to Reality
There comes a time when you have to face facts. What's gone is gone ... lost and gone forever! Such a time came for me this week. It's over two and a half years now since that memorable Friday in December, when I had great difficulty starting my van after I'd fuelled up for two deliveries in Norfolk. As I carried out those final duties, it became apparent that the end had come. My friendly garage confirmed my suspicions that, if I wanted to use it any more, that van would need considerable investment. It was time to stop work and enter full-time retirement.
As I've responded to friends enquiring about my coping with not driving, I miss it. I don't miss the actual work: kneeling in the van, neatly packing boxes of print to get another job on with them, dropping something heavy on my finger as I try to unload it, or scouring Google maps before going to bed so I would be able to find a faraway factory at 6.0 in the morning. What I miss is the good bits: eating a meal at a truck-stop amidst other drivers after a long day on the road, the excitement of getting on or off a ferry, and the midnight magnificence of topping a rise of an up-and-down road and coming face to face with the full moon to show me the way home.
When I learned last spring that my former boss had started a new company that basically re-kindled the business he had sold three years before, I wondered about driving for him again. After briefly discussing it with friends, I did nothing about it, but it's a thought that has haunted me ever since, until last weekend, when I decided it was time to 'kill or cure' the ghost of the past. With the general idea of dedicating a day a week to the project, I e-mailed Dave asking if we could 'explore the possibility of my rejoining the team' and on Wednesday I paid him a visit in his smart new office ... which stands on the site of a factory where, some ten years before, I had collected plastic mouldings for delivery.
After the anticipated greetings from all around, we talked seriously about my requirements and it quickly became clear that, while I would be most welcome to return on the same basis as before - i.e. as an owner-driver - there was no opening for a one-day-a-week driver, and the expense of hiring a van, or buying and insuring my own, for that level of activity would result in a negative rather than positive impact on my financial situation.
So where does this leave me? Certainly with no resentment; it's financial common sense. To spend more than I earn would be folly, and I couldn't expect any favourable guarantee of the most profitable jobs to cut my loss, but should have to take my chances alongside the regular drivers. I still yearn to travel and see familiar if distant places, but these appetites will have to be confined to holidays and kept within the mileage limit that applies to my new car.
As to the use of that 'spare' day that I would have offered to Dave, I feel that I'm being nudged towards following up possibilities of other voluntary work in addition to my support for the weekly drop-in where I help on Thursday mornings.
As I've responded to friends enquiring about my coping with not driving, I miss it. I don't miss the actual work: kneeling in the van, neatly packing boxes of print to get another job on with them, dropping something heavy on my finger as I try to unload it, or scouring Google maps before going to bed so I would be able to find a faraway factory at 6.0 in the morning. What I miss is the good bits: eating a meal at a truck-stop amidst other drivers after a long day on the road, the excitement of getting on or off a ferry, and the midnight magnificence of topping a rise of an up-and-down road and coming face to face with the full moon to show me the way home.
When I learned last spring that my former boss had started a new company that basically re-kindled the business he had sold three years before, I wondered about driving for him again. After briefly discussing it with friends, I did nothing about it, but it's a thought that has haunted me ever since, until last weekend, when I decided it was time to 'kill or cure' the ghost of the past. With the general idea of dedicating a day a week to the project, I e-mailed Dave asking if we could 'explore the possibility of my rejoining the team' and on Wednesday I paid him a visit in his smart new office ... which stands on the site of a factory where, some ten years before, I had collected plastic mouldings for delivery.
After the anticipated greetings from all around, we talked seriously about my requirements and it quickly became clear that, while I would be most welcome to return on the same basis as before - i.e. as an owner-driver - there was no opening for a one-day-a-week driver, and the expense of hiring a van, or buying and insuring my own, for that level of activity would result in a negative rather than positive impact on my financial situation.
So where does this leave me? Certainly with no resentment; it's financial common sense. To spend more than I earn would be folly, and I couldn't expect any favourable guarantee of the most profitable jobs to cut my loss, but should have to take my chances alongside the regular drivers. I still yearn to travel and see familiar if distant places, but these appetites will have to be confined to holidays and kept within the mileage limit that applies to my new car.
As to the use of that 'spare' day that I would have offered to Dave, I feel that I'm being nudged towards following up possibilities of other voluntary work in addition to my support for the weekly drop-in where I help on Thursday mornings.
Friday, 24 August 2018
Home is Where the Heart is
In the sunshine of Tuesday afternoon, I decided to go for a walk. Nothing unusual there, of course; I try to get out at least once a week, maybe walking to the shops or to sit in the park for a few minutes before walking back; on this occasion I decided to go to the Common. It's quite an extensive 'lung' in the middle of the Garden City, and its history goes back many centuries. In one part the ridges and dips that can be seen are understood to be evidence of a medieval strip cultivation system.
My walk took me into an almost totally enclosed 'meadow' area, with a couple of trees in the midst. Although quite close to the backs of houses that surround the Common, and within earshot of the open-air swimming pool, visually, I could have slipped back into a long-bygone age. Peaceful tranquillity only partially describes the feelings I experienced. From there, my chosen way home took me past the fragrant gardens of some of the early Garden City cottages, built just before the First World War.
Along the road, I noticed a sign I hadn't spotted before, indicating the presence of a playschool for the younger children living in that locality. Alongside thoughts of frenetic mums trying to occupy their children during the long school holiday, my mind went back to my own early childhood on a housing estate, and the variety of things that might have occupied my own early summer days. I muttered to myself as I walked along, 'Where is my home?' and then came the answer, 'Home is where the heart is.'
Perhaps it was with these thoughts still in the back of my mind that, the next morning, I realised that it would have been 75 summers ago that my uncle Charlie - whom I apparently closely resembled, as I had often been told as I grew up - had died while working on the Burma Railway as a prisoner of war. Something made me check the actual date of his death - 21st August, 1943. Tuesday was the 21st ... the anniversary.
Those walking thoughts now went back to a home that was a happy part of my childhood, not my own home, but that of my grandparents. I would often be taken there - their house was just round the block from ours - and I came to look forward to such visits because it was quite likely that my cousin would be there as well, and we were often left to play together, while the grown-ups, our two mums and their mum, would get on with 'adult business' ... which was, of course, the real reason for the journey. I believe that expression, 'Home is where the heart is' was originally '... where the hearth is'.
And Nanna's hearth was always a homely and welcoming place. Beside her armchair was the wireless and above that, fixed to the wall, some bookshelves that could be accessed by climbing children willing to risk adult wrath! Such exploits were sometimes rewarded, however, by being allowed to have some of the books down to read. Although little of the contents would have been understood or appreciated by our young minds, the ability at least to read them was of no small benefit when we went to school!
As I look back I realise that, little more than ten years on from his death, there would still have been many memories in that home of our late uncle, plucked by the war from its midst in his early twenties. One I clearly recall was a fretwork picture that he had made of RMS Queen Mary, although I don't remember where it used to hang. He had built a cabinet for all his woodworking tools, which found its way into my teenage after the grandparents' home had been cleared.
Although Charlie died long before his sisters married, and many years before I was born, I can't remember a time when I was unaware of his existence. The great loss they felt when he didn't return with his comrades at the end of the war was possibly prolonged because the three had been so close. In a sense, he was still a very real part of their lives as I was growing up, and I'm sure that my physical resemblance to him played a significant part in my early life. I have often said that my life began some years before I was born!
My walk took me into an almost totally enclosed 'meadow' area, with a couple of trees in the midst. Although quite close to the backs of houses that surround the Common, and within earshot of the open-air swimming pool, visually, I could have slipped back into a long-bygone age. Peaceful tranquillity only partially describes the feelings I experienced. From there, my chosen way home took me past the fragrant gardens of some of the early Garden City cottages, built just before the First World War.
Along the road, I noticed a sign I hadn't spotted before, indicating the presence of a playschool for the younger children living in that locality. Alongside thoughts of frenetic mums trying to occupy their children during the long school holiday, my mind went back to my own early childhood on a housing estate, and the variety of things that might have occupied my own early summer days. I muttered to myself as I walked along, 'Where is my home?' and then came the answer, 'Home is where the heart is.'
Perhaps it was with these thoughts still in the back of my mind that, the next morning, I realised that it would have been 75 summers ago that my uncle Charlie - whom I apparently closely resembled, as I had often been told as I grew up - had died while working on the Burma Railway as a prisoner of war. Something made me check the actual date of his death - 21st August, 1943. Tuesday was the 21st ... the anniversary.
Those walking thoughts now went back to a home that was a happy part of my childhood, not my own home, but that of my grandparents. I would often be taken there - their house was just round the block from ours - and I came to look forward to such visits because it was quite likely that my cousin would be there as well, and we were often left to play together, while the grown-ups, our two mums and their mum, would get on with 'adult business' ... which was, of course, the real reason for the journey. I believe that expression, 'Home is where the heart is' was originally '... where the hearth is'.
And Nanna's hearth was always a homely and welcoming place. Beside her armchair was the wireless and above that, fixed to the wall, some bookshelves that could be accessed by climbing children willing to risk adult wrath! Such exploits were sometimes rewarded, however, by being allowed to have some of the books down to read. Although little of the contents would have been understood or appreciated by our young minds, the ability at least to read them was of no small benefit when we went to school!
As I look back I realise that, little more than ten years on from his death, there would still have been many memories in that home of our late uncle, plucked by the war from its midst in his early twenties. One I clearly recall was a fretwork picture that he had made of RMS Queen Mary, although I don't remember where it used to hang. He had built a cabinet for all his woodworking tools, which found its way into my teenage after the grandparents' home had been cleared.
Although Charlie died long before his sisters married, and many years before I was born, I can't remember a time when I was unaware of his existence. The great loss they felt when he didn't return with his comrades at the end of the war was possibly prolonged because the three had been so close. In a sense, he was still a very real part of their lives as I was growing up, and I'm sure that my physical resemblance to him played a significant part in my early life. I have often said that my life began some years before I was born!
Saturday, 18 August 2018
Lose (Loose?) Ends
After an interval of some months, I wrote on Wednesday evening to a not-to-distant cousin, (either genealogically or geographically ... she's only a second cousin and lives in the London area). By way of a 'catch-up', I listed some of the technical and technological upheavals that seem to have bedevilled my life this year. Looking back after two days, I realise that the first of this chain had evaded my memory - having to replace my SatNav back in February - and that, had I delayed my e-mail until today, I could have added the need to replace my printer ... the complete exercise of selecting collecting and installing of which occupied the whole of yesterday morning.
It occurs to me that the fact of my writing the e-mail at all is a reflection on a far greater loss of ends. I have written many times previously on this blog (the latest of which was here) about my great-uncle George and the family that he raised in Ireland towards the end of the nineteenth century. He was the second in my great-grandfather's family of ten children and, as I think of my father's awareness or otherwise of his Irish cousins, I mustn't lose sight of George's older sister, the first of the family, who lived in Lancashire and married there before my grandfather's eighth birthday - a story for another day.
The cousin to whom I wrote this week is the granddaughter of my maternal grandfather's sister. That family comprised eleven children: nine boys, of whom my grandfather was the eldest, and two girls, who were the second and third in the sequence. This was the first of three second cousins I've discovered in this family in the last two years. I've recently made contact with a grandson of the youngest brother, and last summer I discovered a granddaughter of the second son (i.e. fourth child), who has the unusual distinction of also being related to another distant branch of my family ... albeit only through a brother's marriage!
The trouble with those large families of past generations is that one end's children get involved with the other end's grandchildren ... like a constantly-running roundabout!
We genealogists certainly discover tangled webs ... although it's doubtful whether they were ever intended to deceive! Robbie Burns would have had a field day!
It occurs to me that the fact of my writing the e-mail at all is a reflection on a far greater loss of ends. I have written many times previously on this blog (the latest of which was here) about my great-uncle George and the family that he raised in Ireland towards the end of the nineteenth century. He was the second in my great-grandfather's family of ten children and, as I think of my father's awareness or otherwise of his Irish cousins, I mustn't lose sight of George's older sister, the first of the family, who lived in Lancashire and married there before my grandfather's eighth birthday - a story for another day.
The cousin to whom I wrote this week is the granddaughter of my maternal grandfather's sister. That family comprised eleven children: nine boys, of whom my grandfather was the eldest, and two girls, who were the second and third in the sequence. This was the first of three second cousins I've discovered in this family in the last two years. I've recently made contact with a grandson of the youngest brother, and last summer I discovered a granddaughter of the second son (i.e. fourth child), who has the unusual distinction of also being related to another distant branch of my family ... albeit only through a brother's marriage!
The trouble with those large families of past generations is that one end's children get involved with the other end's grandchildren ... like a constantly-running roundabout!
We genealogists certainly discover tangled webs ... although it's doubtful whether they were ever intended to deceive! Robbie Burns would have had a field day!
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