Cousins or Not?

In a hypothetical encounter between a genealogist and someone who isn't one, the most likely question of the latter to the former would be along the lines of 'What's all this about different grades of cousins and their removal?'  Let's face it, it's confusing enough for those of us who know about these things.  One definition would be the relationship between two people who share a common ancestor two or more generations older than them.

There are all manner of charts that attempt to explain the 'grades and removals'.  For my part, I prefer to find that common ancestor and work forward.  I'd probably do this on the back of the proverbial envelope (once I've removed the Christmas card, of course).  I work down the generations counting, 'Siblings, first cousins, second cousins, third, fourth fifth ...' and so on, until I arrive at one of the candidates, which will define the 'grade'.  I then carry on, now counting, 'Once, twice, three times ...' until I get to the other candidate, at which point I've determined how many 'times removed'.

To get the 'feel' of the relationship once I've defined it, I try and think of people I know, or have known in the past.  When I was very young, for example, if I were not at school on market day when the buses came into town from the surrounding villages, we might be visited by 'Cousin Emma', sometimes accompanied by her widowed sister, 'Cousin Mary'.  These venerable ladies, who looked terribly old to me, but were in fact less than 70 years my senior, had come for a chat and a cuppa (and no doubt a toilet break) before catching their respective buses home.  My relationship to either of these would be first cousin, twice removed, for they were, in common parlance, my grandmother's cousins, and our common ancestor was one William Brickham (1806-1889), who was their grandfather and my great-great-grandfather.

Another personal example features someone whom I knew long before I discovered we were related.  This lady, Elaine, was a skilled musician, and took over from my wife as the church organist when my daughter was born.  Occasionally, she would bring with her a wizened older woman who was her mother, and sometimes referred to as 'the princess'.  I gave her no thought at all until, many years later, I discovered that Elaine and I were related, and I found that her mother really was a princess: that old lady's father was the last Crown Prince of Burma, when it became a British colony in the 19th century.

The common ancestor who relates me to Elaine is one William Bootman (1768-1848), my great-great-great-grandfather, and we are fourth cousins, once removed.  What tickles me most about this discovery is that, in addition to being the church organist, she later became a teacher at the local high school, and my daughter, who was her fifth cousin, was one of her pupils!

This brings me to another whole dimension of this subject of cousins.  If, for example two sisters marry, each would regard the husband of the other her brother-in-law; she would have no blood relationship or common ancestor with him, but he would be related solely by the legal connection of marriage to her sister.  And it's quite possible that, particularly if they lived in the same community, the two men would consider themselves to be brothers-in-law, although only related by two independent marriages.  So far as I'm aware, there is no such link, either formal or informal, between cousins and their cousins' spouses.  I can't therefore claim any personal connection to royalty as a result of this cousin-ship, for Elaine's father (my fourth cousin) had married the Princess Alexandrina Victoria Evelyn MOWNG LAT in Burma in 1931.  The very most I could claim - and it would be so pretentious as to be embarrassing were I do to so - would be that the late princess was 'my fourth cousin by marriage'.

Next, let me introduce another musical connection.  One of the consequences of large families is a noticeable difference in age between the two ends of the next generation.  I have a second cousin - whom I have never met in the flesh - who is a prominent brass player.  Our common ancestor is our great-grandfather, who had a total of 11 children, born between 1884 and 1907.  My grandfather was the eldest of these; his was the youngest.  Strangely enough, he was in my daughter's class at school, and may well have been taught by Elaine as well!  One day, I had the great good fortune to be in the audience of a concert at which one of the performers was introduced in terms from which I understood that she was his fiancée.  Afterwards, I announced my connection to him and we have shared correspondence and personal interest ever since.  She is my second cousin by marriage; we consider ourselves to be cousins.  Do we have that right?

During the autumn I received advice from Lost Cousins of a connection that I'm now in the process of following up.  It transpires that my first cousin, three times removed (the niece of my great-great-grandmother), born in 1860, married the brother of this woman's great-great-grandfather.  We have another, equally tenuous link, in that the uncle of these two brothers became the second husband of that same great-great-grandmother's sister-in-law after her brother's death in 1874.  I think the nearest I can calculate our relationship is fourth cousins once removed, by marriage.

I challenge you, dear reader, if you want a Boxing Day puzzle, to work that one out!  In the meantime, I ask once more, are we cousins?

A Much-Blessed Survivor!

You know how it is when you're doing something repetitive.  You wonder if perhaps there might be a better way of doing it that would save time or effort ... or both and, depending on the circumstances, possibly a whole lot of money, too!  I found myself in just such a situation some years ago, tried doing it a different way and realised that this wasn't the first time that week that I'd changed my method and improved the technique.  Observing that that particular task, once finished, was unlikely to recur, I coined the mantra: "By the time I've finished this job, I'll have refined to the utmost a skill that I'll never need again."

Once it was into my head, I've been astonished just how often this has proved to be true.  The latest example of this truism came this week.  Early this year, I joined an organisation whose aim is the provision of ancillary services to Christian missionaries, one of whose activities is the conversion of printed scriptures into a digital format for more modern and wider use in teaching people whose first language might be in common use by only a few thousand people across the world.

Apart from the basic typing operation, which I started with, there are other standard processes that lead to the completion of each project, and I've now progressed to the second level of this sequence that carries the label 'Editing'.  In addition to these standard processes, the same bespoke software we use is also able to tackle a number of 'one-off' tasks that particular projects require ... I expect you can already see where this line is going.  One such task came my way this week, a case of basic data manipulation within a series of  digital documents, each of which was a book of the Bible in the client language.

Along with a small number of fellow-editors, I was asked to perform this job using the program in whatever way we found it convenient to achieve the specified object, so long as the result still adhered to the printed original.  Needless to say, by the end of the task I'd tried several different approaches, at the end of which the same 'By the time I've finished ...' axiom had been proven yet again.

Some eight years ago, in my family history studies, I devised a check-list to make sure that all the various records that I keep had been completed.  The form itself has passed through seven or eight iterations, reaching what - for the present, at least - is the most useful document for the purpose.  Much of my spare time over the last year and more has been devoted to one particular branch of my family, about which I've occasionally written here.  My basic intention when I set out last autumn was to fill in some of the blanks in earlier data that more recent use of my document had revealed.

The 'Bullingham Project', as it became known, proved to be many times bigger than I first thought and, the longer it dragged on, the more I bemoaned the fact that I hadn't devised my checklist earlier.  I can relate the story of one particular young lady, whose family had fallen victim to just the degree of glossing over and oversight that the project was intended to overcome.  I might add in mitigation that more information has become available since original research announced her existence, but my checklist might have avoided some of the problems had it been in use at the time. 

This particular woman delighted in the distinctive forenames 'Alice Octavia'.  Alice was the youngest of a family of eight (as you might guess).  In 1901, her family appears in as correct a form as possible: father, mother, two sons and five daughters, listed in sequence, of whom Alice was the last-named.  With that name, Octavia, she had to be the eighth child, though.  Usually in these circumstances, my next step would be to look at the 1911 census, where the so-called 'fertility' questions would provide the precise boundaries for the research.  In this instance this facility was denied me, however, since the mother of these children died in 1903.  (This resource isn't always as helpful as it might seem, either.  I remember looking at one family where the woman claimed to have had twelve children, of whom seven were still living.  However, apart from the seven living ones, I was able to trace only one more child who had been born and died between censuses, and therefore never been recorded.)

At the time of my original research, I had found one instance of a birth and death in the same quarter, and had included this child as the eighth one I had been looking for.  As I now looked at the page with fresh eyes, though, I was suspicious.  My cousin, Alice's daughter, had provided me with the precise birth dates of her mother and the six aunts and uncles she knew.  Her mother was born in November 1900, and her youngest aunt in July 1898.  The birth of the infant I'd found, who had died in the same quarter as she was born, had also been registered in the September quarter of 1898.  Although there was no note to that effect, I think I had previously thought of these two as twins, one of whom had died, and the other survived.

I felt I ought to check.  If this were the case, then their birth registrations would be identical (or would differ by one, if one child were the last entry on one page and the other the first entry on the next page).  In this case, Alice's known sister was registered with the number 974; the infant who died appeared under the reference 970 ... unlikely if they were twins.  Since that initial research, the Registration Office has released the new facility, where the mother's maiden name of each birth registration can be looked up on line.  This makes research of this nature much simpler.  I checked all seven of the 'known' children and found that the name applied to each registration was Bailey, confirming the family link.  The name for the child under reference 970 was ... Parsons.  She was clearly not the girl - or boy - I sought.

Next, I checked each year around the times these known children were born, right back to the time of their parents' marriage (and a little before 'just in case'), both in the Suffolk area where the family were living and also where the marriage took place, which was in London, Miss Bailey having been born in Kent.  Eventually, I came up with just one additional birth with the mother's maiden name shown as Bailey, and a quick check revealed that she, too, had died within weeks of her birth, and so missed any census record.  'Annie, born and died 1898' was quickly changed to 'Mary Jane, born and died 1890', and I noted with some satisfaction that this infant had also been given two forenames as had all of her siblings, except for two who had enjoyed the luxury of three! 

One of these - the firstborn of the eight - had his own distinctive name, George, to which had been appended both of his father's, Allen James, while the daughter born in the jubilee year of 1897 was called by the names of three generations of royalty, Victoria Alexandra May, these last two being the spouses of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) and the Duke of York (later George V).

My wonderful checklist (now identified as version 3.2), though tedious, is one I now use constantly, and has long surpassed its original inclusion in the 'when I've finished' category described above.

Am I My Brother's Keeper?

I've just bought a new pair of curtains.  I'm sure you all wanted to know that.  (In case you are interested, the colour is described - unnecessarily alcoholically, in my opinion - as 'champagne', and there's a picture below).  There's nothing unusual about that, of course, particularly with a new home to fit them into.  As it happens, it was one of three significant purchases this week.  Having done my research beforehand, I found I had to go to a second store for the curtains, but it was at a price that enabled me to make my two other purchases and still have 'change' from the price my research had indicated.

When it comes to things like that, things I could really make do without, I always feel under some obligation to justify myself.  After all, I've been living behind temporary window coverings for the last few months ... what was preventing my continuing to do so?  It's just that they were quite thin and I felt that something more substantial would make the room feel warmer for the winter ... and possibly reduce the (as yet unquantified) heating bills!

As I go through my post I put aside begging letters from charities with whose aims I agree.  Then, once a month, I go through these and decide whether to give them some money or, if not, whether the letter is recycled or left in the basket for another time.  Justifying the expenditure on curtains is part of that same agony over charitable giving.  

I'm not wealthy, but I can be comfortable ... within the general scenario that I have a finite amount of money that will have to keep me in whatever state I choose for as long as I have left on this earth.  It's all a matter of responsibility.  If I decide to splash out on a luxury cruise, for example, I know that it will reduce the amount of time I can spend in comparative comfort before I have to get out the begging bowl; if I make an elaborate gift to a charity, it will ultimately reduce what a handful of chosen institutions will share as the residue of my estate.

I've been reminded that 'Christmas is coming'.  I'm heartened to hear that increasing numbers of people are boycotting the annual expensive and meaningless exchange of presents: 'using money they don't have, to buy gifts that won't last, for people who neither need nor will appreciate them', as someone neatly put it.  If this process is stripped back to its essentials, it is fundamentally to satisfy the need of the giver to give ... or maybe, less altruistically, to be seen to give.  A pressure comes from outside of ourselves - some would call it God's hand, others would not - to respond to benefits we have received in the past year, maybe faithful service rendered, maybe some tangible gift received.

I spend very little on my festive celebrations - just a few luxuries I wouldn't have during the rest of the year - and allocate an additional amount to the 'charity basket'.  Ten or fifteen years ago, when I was a fan of Sir Terry Wogan, part of my Christmas giving went to Children in Need; other charities I've supported at this time of year are Crisis, Shelter and the excellent work of the Salvation Army.  This year, I'm thinking of pushing something in the direction of organisations trying to alleviate the suffering of starving people in Yemen, Ethiopia or Afghanistan, always remembering that, within months of His birth, our Saviour was a refugee.

It's not that my humble contribution to whichever charity receives it will achieve their aims overnight.  In the overall scheme of things, it might not make much difference at all.  A few weeks ago, I wrote here at the end of what I described as a 'political rant', referring to the wise saying of a friend on this matter.  It's not a question of how much good I'm doing, rather one of making a worthwhile response to that external pressure to give.

With Christmas in the air, it seems that the media have taken up cudgels on behalf of those who feel inadequately advised about Christmas parties.  There is much about our present government and its doings with which I would take issue; however, on this matter I'm with them.  The situation is clear.  While legislation only requires mask-wearing in shops and on public transport, it does not ban gatherings and parties (as it did last year).  Alongside this legislation is abundant advice about hand-washing and distance keeping; there is strong encouragement about being vaccinated and nothing to stop people wearing a mask in situations where they are not legally obliged to do so if they feel it to the advantage of others or themselves.  One politician even suggested refraining from 'snogging under the mistletoe'.

In the face of all this, I have to ask, "Have we forgotten how to make up our own minds?"  There are aspects of this advice to apply to the various features of most parties.  Surely we are capable of making sensible arrangements for our guests; if invited to join with our friends and families, to consider whether we are comfortable with the suggested entertainment; and if matters are not to our feelings of personal safety, to politely refrain and be understood in that?

And finally, for the curtain-curious:

Keep the Home Fires Burning

There can be few who are not aware of this song, so evocative of the First World War.  While we may not know the verses, like many songs of the age, we've probably heard at least part of the chorus.  It gives voice to the emotion of the families left at home while their menfolk were at the front, as it ends, "Turn the dark cloud inside out, till the boys come home."  How true were these words by Lena Guilbert Ford, set to music by Ivor Novello, for whom they were his first musical success?

For many returning it was a change of scenery, and a relief from constant shelling and danger, but it was a difficult rather than warming and welcoming home-coming.  One veteran of the conflict told of his first night at home for four years, "My mother came to wake me up in the morning and found me sleeping on the floor."  After so long a real bed with proper sheets felt so strange.  

Few, we're told, spoke about their experiences of the war.  Not only was this because of the inherent horror of the memories, but - as many found when they were home on leave - life in the safe and rosy countryside of England was so different from what had become normal for them, that there was no point where the two worlds could touch to form a basis for meaningful conversation.  I believe the same was true of the Second World War.  Of my closest relatives who served, only one survived, and he said very little about it, if anything.  

To those who weren't directly involved in these conflicts, the horrors of war were irrelevant.  To many, especially if they were fortunate enough not to have lost loved ones, the wars' greatest significance was as a measure of time.  I grew up in a home where the expression 'before the war' was common.  There was no need to specify which war.  If a period somewhat earlier was being referred to, the words were simply extended to, 'before the first war'.  Even today, it's common to refer to certain houses as 'built between the wars'.

The centenary of the First World War has, for me, brought that earlier conflict into sharper focus, and I've learned a lot about it that I hadn't known before ... having been schooled in the age when 'history ended in 1914'.  One thing I've realised about these conflicts is that both were truly 'worldwide wars'; scarcely a single country in the world was untouched by them in one way or another.

Now, we find ourselves in another war, that against Covid-19.  Like those other wars this, too, is a worldwide conflict, but sadly the nations are not co-operating as with a tangible enemy, and the richer nations seem reluctant to share their resources with others less fortunate.  

As in those 'real' wars, many people are 'on the home front'.  They find their daily lives are restricted by anti-covid measures, but they don't actually come into contact with the conflict.  They are - since I'm one, I should say 'we are' - just getting on with our own lives as best we can, and leaving the fighting to the 'soldiers' of the NHS.  There is a disconnect of real understanding that results from that lack of direct involvement.

The sentiment behind that song with which I began this post was 'when it's all over, when the boys come home, we can go back to how things used to be.'  Only it wasn't.  It wasn't 'over by Christmas', as some had hoped, or believed, it would be.  The 'homes for heroes' didn't materialise, at least not the way people expected: there was too much anxiety about finding a job, getting what war pension they could, and pretty soon there was economic depression.  

The same was true in the late 'forties.  Some would have liked the pleasant life of the 'thirties to return, but the world, technology and social climes had moved on in six years.  Genies were out of  bottles and weren't going back.  

And I wonder whether we shall ever again see 'pre-Covid' days?  So much of our world has changed since the end of 2019.  How long will it be before - indeed, it's already here - we're saying, as a measure of time, "before Covid ..."?

Domestic Development Aids Altruism ... and More Besides!

Yesterday, I was invited to "Consider the most important thing you have done this week" along with the suggestion that I should examine my motives for doing it.  Now, I confess, I probably don't reflect on my motives as much as I should.  But there was something about this challenge that alerted me ... stimulated my moral compass, if you like.  Not only did I consider my motives, but also what I had learned from the experience.

Probably the most important thing I did this week - until writing this blog, of course - was on Monday morning, when I drove to the suburbs of a nearby city to collect something that had been offered free on line.  I had taken a quick look at the map before leaving and decided that my destination was on a modern estate, having many residential avenues strung between principal roads that stem from a central roundabout.  Perhaps, in the overall scheme of things, this analysis was not far from reality.  However, my definition of modern differs somewhat from what I found, which was narrow roads between hedged gardens at the front of post-war houses such as the one in which I had grown up sixty-odd years ago.

So, the first thing I learned was not to be swayed by my interpretation of the map.  The next quickly followed when the volte-face of my opinion was tempered by what I found beyond the hedge of no. 25.  It was a well-established family home with a garden just on the wilder side of neat, and the story that I was told as the householder helped me load a dismantled desk into my car gave me the impression that children of teenage or a little bit more were on the brink of leaving the nest: 'It isn't used any more and my daughters just dump stuff on it.'

My reflective thoughts turned from the where to the what and the why.  In my new home is a second bedroom which - since I only need one for the conventional purpose - has so far not found a name, owing to a lack of definition of its purpose, beyond that of 'more space'.  In the last few months it has been a store room, a partial library, an office annexe, and a workshop, besides being a suitable place to do the ironing.  One thing it had thus far been lacking was the very thing that was described to me, viz. 'something to dump stuff on'.

There is a cabinet in the corner but, being in the corner it's a bit dark, and being a cabinet, it's awkward to sit at.  During the room's brief workshop phase, I used the ironing board, for want of something better, as a surface on which to cut wood.  Many years ago I acquired possession of a collection of microfiche copies of parish registers, followed quickly by a fiche reader; after negotiations with the family history society, last weekend saw the publication of my offer to do look-ups in them.  

While these enquiries may indeed be few, with many resources now being available on line, I need somewhere accessible to fulfil them comfortably.  Monday afternoon, therefore, was spent happily converting a car-load of 'jig-saw pieces' into a useful and mobile surface upon which not only microfiche research, but a whole variety of other 'incidental happenings' can take place.  

At the end of the exercise, I was able to send this picture to the former owner with the comment, 'no pieces missing, and no pieces left over'.  She was pleased to respond that it was good to see it had 'found a new home'.

So far my offer has enjoyed four take-ups: two successful and two not.  If anyone reading this would like to make enquiries about which 56 parishes this collection covers out of the hundreds there are in Suffolk, and whether or not their ancestor is referred to there, then please be my guest.  Requests can be made by comment below.

A Roof Over My Head

A few things this week have brought home to me the extent of my new role as a householder in contrast to the previous one as a 'flat-dweller'.  Formerly, my responsibilities ended at the flat door.  There was no garden to look after; the grass surrounding the block was cut regularly, even the hall outside the door was cleaned weekly by contractors engaged by the management.  Now, my responsibilities extend to the pavement at the front, and to the gate at the end of the garden path ...  in fact, just beyond that, since I have to wheel my bin outside the gate for emptying once a week.

The fact that both are rented properties means that some things are, of course, common.  Maintenance is a prime example.  Last year, when new regulations were introduced concerning electrical fittings, compliance with these was all handled by the agent and all I had to do was admit the electrician on the appointed day.  When I moved in here, certain aspects of the house were obviously sub-optimal [I've been longing to use that word ever since I heard it ... now I have, and got it out of my system, I'll probably never think of it again!] and it took little persuasion for the agent to arrange for them to be fixed.

It's a personal trait that I hate asking people to do things for me.  Take, for example the door that would only shut if upward pressure were applied to the handle.  I had tried tightening the screws in the hinge, but this made little difference.  However, I discovered that one of the three screws didn't actually 'bite', so it was completely useless.  When I withdrew it, however, I realised that it was at an upward angle.  This week, it was the work of only a few minutes to bring a stool to the place, pilot a new hole at the opposite angle and fix a new screw in place.  The door now shuts perfectly. 

Asking other people, though, has become easier, especially when it's for something that is obviously beyond my ability.  Soon after I arrived here, I went upstairs one rainy afternoon and discovered water running down the landing wall.  An instant call to the agent brought forth a roofing contractor to assess the problem.  A few days later he returned with ladders and a colleague and they made some repairs.

The other week, however, after a spell of particularly heavy and persistent rain, I noticed the same phenomenon.  Once more, the roofers came, and examined the problem, not only from the outside, but also, by peering into the loft, they were able to see daylight where rainwater was able to get in.  It was decided that, given the amount of repairs that could be seen up there already, a more serious attack was called for and, as I write this today, scaffolding has appeared outside the door in readiness for this work to be carried out.

In the overall scale of things, these practical matters are relatively minor and, however inconvenient, can fairly easily be put right.  I was listening to a radio programme the other day which told of a businessman who had taken action to help some refugees in his town.  He had obtained a large warehouse in which he had erected some glamping units producing, in effect, the temporary equivalent of a block of flats, into which 24 refugee families were now able to establish themselves, each in their own separate household and, as he emphasised, with their own front door.

Many have agonised over the plight of refugees, and we've been glad that, as a nation, we have accommodated some - albeit pitifully few - of these unfortunates in our communities, but it doesn't end there.  What this man had realised - and I suspect few others had done so - was that many refugees are caught in a vicious economic circle.  Upon arrival, they have been provided with temporary accommodation but are unable to progress beyond this stage.  Many want to, and are able to work to support their families, but can't get work because when a potential employer sees their address and realises their situation he is unwilling to take them on.  Without work and the income that it brings, they are unable to move out and find that permanent address that would make getting work easier.

What is important, as this businessman pointed out, is having their own front door, having an address that is unique to them and gives a potential employer confidence to give them work.  It also enhances their self-esteem, taking them beyond the feeling of a piece of property that has grudgingly been given storage space.

I have no idea of your circumstances, dear reader.  Maybe like me, you are limited in resources and abilities, but maybe you are able to go beyond mere sympathy.  Is there something that you could do to help restore the self esteem of someone who, like me, is reluctant to ask for favours?

The Past, the Present and Whatever Comes Next

Just before sitting down to write this blog on Friday evening, I stood outside for a few minutes - suitably protected against the cold - and took in the atmosphere.  There were at least three bonfires going on in the adjacent streets.  One was merely glowing above the rooftops, while two others were regularly accompanied by the flashes and bangs of fireworks and occasional brightly coloured displays in the night sky.  Who knows whether this might be the last time I can absorb first-hand these doings, what new regulations might be introduced, what financial constraints the nearby families might suffer, between now and a year hence?  Or, indeed, will I be in a fit state to perform such an act of witness?  

The backdrop for this moment of observation was the small cluster of back-to-back houses constructed around the turn of the twentieth century to house those involved in the developing coal mining industry of the Dearne valley, where I now reside.  In daylight these backways display a rich variety of material and colour, but at night the street lights pick out little more than the pointed façades of gable ends, each adorned by the twin black rectangles of bedroom windows.

It was the night to celebrate, if that's the right word, a treasonous attempt to blow up king and parliament some 416 years ago.  Fortunately the preparations were detected the previous night, the constitution preserved and the malefactors duly rounded up and executed in the most horrific manner that was, in those days, considered appropriate for their crimes.

This occasion is as much an annual part of our national culture today as it was when enshrined in law until 1859.  This year, however, it carries an additional significance, for its calendar appointment coincides with the COP26 event in Glasgow and, while the contribution of one night's national firework celebration to global warming will be minuscule, nevertheless there will be some effect, as there is from every incidence of consumption of fossil fuels.

But for me, standing by my back door just now, there is another historic link to COP26, as I've already mentioned.   The purpose that the town was expanded in this direction a century or so ago was coal.  While the occupier of this particular house in 1939 was a shop assistant, many of his neighbours were miners and I have no doubt that miners would have lived here, too, either earlier or later: possibly both.

So much for the general, the macro-connections.  What about the personal, the micro-involvement in this climate crisis.  Certainly, I can do nothing about the past.  If I had avoided moving here on the basis of the original purpose for building the house, but had instead gone somewhere else, it wouldn't make one jot of difference to the present situation.  Nor can any regrets about coal fires that kept me warm in past years.

I don't intend holding my own personal conference, either.  There would be little point - even if I had the resources of knowledge and information - in taking days, perhaps weeks, to examine every aspect of my daily life, analysing it in fine detail to compile a revised way of life to step into and abandon all I'm doing at present.  Many of the changes that such an examination might come up with will only be possible at some time in the future, and depend on local or national changes that won't happen for many years, while most of my life wouldn't change at all.

All I can do, I believe, is to be aware of what is implied in each step of my life that I can change.  When I realise that there is a greener option to something I'm doing or buying, I shall endeavour to make a change.  Meanwhile, my philosophy reflects whoever it was who said, "Worry is like a rocking chair - it gives your body something do to, but doesn't get you anywhere."