Genealogy-more

Genealogy – more

My earlier comment about Scandinavian ancestry has been corrected. Ancestry continually update their DNA records and the latest information is that I’m pretty much 100% English. I don’t know whether to be pleased or not.

My distant cousin, Marion, is a genealogical fanatic. Now retired she appears to spend almost all her time researching our family history. She is descended from one of the brothers at the sale of the Fradswell farm and I’m from another. It is the third who was the most successful eventually having a mini mansion near Fradswell.

There is, I suppose, some comfort in knowing I come from good yeoman stock. As I said previously our records fade away beyond the 16^th century. There is a hint that our name derives from the Norman French le Hore. People of that name did arrive with the Norman conquest and did settle in N Staffordshire. However this is essentially speculation and we will never really know.

Marion visited us recently and I was hoping she would be able to give me more insight into the meaning of my DNA results. Other than identifying my nearest DNA contacts as folk with whom she already had contact she is pretty  much as puzzled as I am. She was however more  able to help Annette.

Annette is curious about a relative who emigrated to America about 1880. Marion was able to show us how to track him via US census records. As is typical of families of that era there are many children and the trail has run cold for the present.

Annette’s father was the youngest in his family. Her aunt married a Canadian soldier after WW1 and went to Canada. She is now deceased but there were contacts until quite recently. We also had an Australian contact although the Australian person has now died and we haven’t tracked any descendants.

While tracking ancient genealogy is reasonably interesting they are largely names and dates and we know little about the people and their life. It is the more recent where we have some reasonable chance of discovering more about the person. The very frustrating part is that my parents sometimes talked of their relatives and antecedent’s. As a child and young man this rolled over me but how I wish now that I could have them back for even half a day to hear those stories again.

It was particularly in wartime that otherwise ordinary people did extraordinary things. My aunt Win who had not long obtained her nursing qualification was driving an ambulance in the Coventry blitz. Annette’s uncle drove a bulldozer constructing airfields for the US during the Pacific campaign. I would love to know where, and how this came about, but everyone who might have known is now dead.

My family after  very large families in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries contracted right down. I have only 3 living cousins on my father’s side and one of those has no family. My mother’s side is even worse with only two living cousins and again one with no family.

I have a slight hope that our grandchildren will find our research interesting. I fear it won’t be until their middle age before they discover their interest which will be too late for me. I am just slightly disappointed that our children now take only a minimal polite interest.

Genuine note to milkman

Dear Milkman. I’ve just had a baby. Please leave another one.

Information Science

Information Science

I have probably mentioned before that I started my career in Information Work for Unilever Research. The objective was to have a small group of scientists who looked for and disseminated information relevant to the scientists they were supporting. While I had been job hunting in a desultory way Unilever advertised positions in Information Science at all their UK research labs. The Port Sunlight portion mentioned adhesives among a whole series of other areas. As I spent my industrial year with an adhesives company this alerted me.

I didn’t enjoy practical work, I had a wide range of general knowledge, I thought I could find my way around a library so with my ( very limited ) experience in adhesives I applied. The Unilever interviewer soon showed I knew much less about adhesives than I thought. However the real interview came during a tour of the whole lab with someone who I later found was the de facto head of Information Science.

During the tour it somehow emerged that I knew enough about surfactant biodegradation to know the difference between hard and soft surfactants ie.. the difference between those that biodegrade and those that don’t. I recall I was also asked to explain the working of an electronic valve. I remember driving home and reflecting that the great enthusiasm of the tour guide  attracted me but I didn’t think I would get an offer. Well I was wrong and although there were other offers I had little hesitation in accepting. What hesitation I had revolved around my lack of understanding of the ranking system. I was very slightly put off to be offered the position as “unestablished” scientist which carried the connotation of temporary in my mind. I later found this was quite wrong and it was a desirable grade.

I duly started on the 27^th of September 1965. The personnel manager casually said the few days pay would be added to the following month. I was stony broke but I lacked the confidence to demur. We had been searching for accommodation and we chose an upper floor flat in a large house looking out over the Dee estuary. I was completely ignorant about the area and the estuary looked formidable as an expanse of mud and grass as far as one could see over to the Welsh side. However walking along the nearby Parkgate front I saw a notice which said “next boat 3pm” Aha I thought, this is just a trick of the tide and the sea would come right up to the seawall. I soon found the notice was a joke and it was a very exceptional  when the sea came in, maybe a couple of times a year. For the remaining time the estuary was exactly as I first saw it.

We did find our way out to a temporary sandy stretch about a mile out one summer but the estuary was otherwise rather treacherous with many deep channels. For a brief time that summer we enjoyed the “seaside” feeling but the sand disappeared by the next year.

I enjoyed the work. There was an air of enthusiasm and interest in the section. We were encouraged to get out and about in the lab to find out exactly what the scientists were doing and what their needs were. I soon found that the lab was 90% soap and detergents  ( in many guises ) and that all other interests were a small part. The interest in adhesives was vanishingly small.

One area I found very interesting was an engineering group who were trouble shooters for the whole company. As part of this they had a great interest in corrosion and much later in life I became involved myself in anti-corrosion coatings.

While the Information Section was very much concerned with servicing the needs of the laboratory there was also a lot of interest in developing Information Science- in fact a team of two were devoted to precisely that task. There was a lot of emphasis on using automated and computer methods which I found fascinating. I soon found that Unilever led the whole new field of Information Science.

I left initially on secondment which evolved into permanent transfer into the mainstream lab where I worked on a variety of projects for over ten years before I left Unilever Research. The experience was invaluable. As a development scientist I was allowed time and space to learn my craft but I always looked back fondly to my time in the Information Section. This had a curious corollary. Frances went into scientific librarianship and I think that my accounts of my early days had some influence on this. She has moved on to a somewhat more managerial role but I still marvel at how things have changed. Her new library is rather luxurious although the principle of making knowledge accessible remains the same.

A man in a ski-mask ran into a bank pointed a banana at the cashier and yelled “this is a cock-up”
“Don’t you mean a stickup “ asked the cashier
“No” said the robber” it’s a cock-up. I forgot to bring the gun”

Genealogy

Is much on my mind at present. A rather fanatical relative encouraged me to take a DNA test from Ancestry.co.uk. Frankly this has given a mass of information which I’m very uncertain how to interpret. My interest, indeed our family interest, dates back over 20 years.

When Alison was in her final school years she entered the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme. Among the tasks was to develop an interest. She decided on genealogy. There was a story within my family that many lived for centuries in N Staffordshire near Stowe by Chartley. We investigated with her and found the actual location was a hamlet nearby at Fradswell. Looking at the churchyard immediately gave a trove of information as there were Hall gravestones going back centuries.

After Alison left for university Annette, who had always been interested, did a lot of further research. It soon transpired that the family in Fradswell had occupied a farm until the middle of the 19^th century when on the death of the patriarch the children had sold up. There were a large number of girls and three boys. My great grandfather  used his substantial inheritance in an unusual way. Although married with a child he travelled to the Americas, we don’t know where, and lived there for several years. We can only presume he intended, if successful, to bring his wife and child to re-join him. In the event he returned to England and his family, fathering  nine girls and two boys.

It is just a little later that a central puzzle in my life begins. My paternal grandmother for some reason, presumably severe post natal depression, handed over her first born to her mother-in-law. Although my grandmother had several more children her first born never returned. This first born child was my father. Family stories have it that my great grandmother, a very maternal woman. had pleaded for the baby to stay with her. This plea was reinforced as her own two youngest died young.

Thus as my father put it he was “Granny reared”. The main consequence for me was that he was always close to his younger aunts who had effectively been big sisters to him. I never understood this as a child and I always thought it slightly odd. My father lived with his grandparents and then with his grandmother until her death. He then lived with his aunt and uncle until he married.

It is my great grandfather who is of much interest to me. While still at Fradswell he was in the Staffordshire Yeomanry. This was a sort of Home Guard of its day. I have his cavalry sword as an heirloom.  Although this was after the Napoleonic Wars there was great fear that revolution would spread to  England. The Yeomanry was more of a support to the civil power as they were not contracted to serve outside the county. He returned from the America’s with a limp which was said to be the result of falling off his horse. When he returned he had a life as a farm bailiff prior to eventually becoming the licensee of a public house. My father was raised at this pub which is ironic because he was at another pub while living with his aunt and uncle.

My DNA results show as close relatives only the three I already knew about. The DNA appeared to show a strong Scandinavian decent ( 29% ) which I supposed could support the family story that my distant ancestors came to England after the Norman conquest. It was said they were in the retinue of Earl Ferrers and he gave the land which was subsequently held for centuries. We can trace my ancestry back to the 16^th century but beyond that is virtually impossible as written records are very sparse.

My only male cousin has no heirs so it will be up to Alex ( my grandson ) to continue the family name.

Based on the family probably still living in N Staffordshire Annette advertised in a Stoke on Trent newspaper. This was very successful as we found several distant relatives. Inspired by the fanatical genealogist we met up a couple of times. We are all descended from the final Fradswell family. The expert genealogist wrote a paper about our family for a genealogical journal.

Why don’t owls mate in a storm?

Because it’s too wet to woo

Birmingham Proms

Birmingham Proms

The Promenade concerts are a series of relatively inexpensive concerts held continuously over several summer weeks. The idea was introduced in the famous London Proms at the Albert Hall initiated by Sir Henry Wood. Regional centres also hold their own smaller and less well known concert series. I have previously recounted how my first concert visit had been a huge success. It had enhanced my standing with a girl on whom I was rather keen.

Going into Birmingham for some other reason we saw that there was to be a Birmingham Prom concert season largely given by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra ( CBSO ). At that time ( the summer of 1961 ) concerts were held in Birmingham Town Hall as Symphony Hall was only a distant pipedream. We had money to attend five concerts in the three week season. As I recall this season was rather earlier than the London one. Money was a big issue as we needed not only the ticket price but the travel cost also. I still had some money left from working for Lewis’s Department store in their January sales. That had been an interesting experience. I was sent to the dress fabrics department. I became quite expert in advising buyers what quantity to buy for skirts or dresses. If memory serves two and a half yards for a skirt and four yards for a dress ( the fashion at the time was for very full skirts )

We chose the five concerts. Frankly I don’t particularly remember the basis of our choice. As our knowledge of music was minimal I rather suspect it was fairly random. I certainly had little basis for choice; in fact one  main reason for going was to spend time with the girl. We did choose the last night as I had watched the Last Night high jinks at the London proms.

I don’t recall much about the series. One night was given by the visiting Czech orchestra. They got a rapturous welcome I thought this was rather exaggerated as they seemed to my ears no better than the CBSO. I think there was an element of pleasure that a foreign orchestra had made the trip, and one from behind the Iron Curtain.

For the last night we were in the orchestra gallery. I had wondered what this was. It turned out to be a few tiered seats behind the orchestra. Thus were looking down on the orchestra and over their heads to the majority of their audience. As far as I recall there was little of the practical joking and general high jinks of the London last night. We sang along to “Land of Hope and Glory” which was a traditional part of the last night repertoire. I don’t recall properly whether the arranged sea shanties featured- I rather think they did. Their rhythmic tunes lend themselves to punctuations by a boisterous crowd. The London series traditionally ends with a short light hearted speech by the conductor. This did not happen in Birmingham.

Later living om Merseyside we attended some Liverpool Philharmonic orchestra industrial concerts. These were intended to pull in an otherwise untapped audience although my recollection is they were little different from the usual. One welcome feature was visiting the Philharmonic pub nearby. This was very much in the Victorian style with copious etched glass and baroque decoration. Some other traditional pubs in the city had similar styles but this was easily the best.

So what about the girl. Reader, I married her.( I’m sure I have pinched that phrase from a classical work of literature but I don’t remember what )

What do you call a Frenchman who wears sandals?

Philippe Philoppe.

Little Jim

The cottage was a thatched one
The outside old and mean
Yet everything within that cot
Was wondrous neat and clean

The night was cold and stormy
The wind was howling wild
A patient mother knelt beside
The death bed of her child

The dying child was Little Jim and the whole poem was a hit in Victorian England. The author, Ned Farmer based it upon real events as he visited Polesworth.  He was passing through in the course of his railway work when he sought succour on a wild night at a cottage with a lighted window.

The poem recounts in mawkish detail the death of Little Jim, the only child of a collier and his wife. This pandered to Victorian sensibilities which tended to the morbid and sentimental. I had never heard the full story until I read of it in the local paper. Little Jim's cottage was later bought by someone who tended both cottage and wonderful garden.

When I was a boy my father took me on a bicycle ride to see the cottage. At the time it didn’t mean a lot to me although he told me a little about the background. Sadly the cottage suffered a major fire in 1971 which led to its demolition. My father was nearly a Victorian himself being born the year after Victoria died.

Although he wasn’t a morbid man my father also took me a bicycle ride to visit a gibbet post. This was in North Leicestershire not too far from Twycross and near Bilstone village. A gibbet post was where a hanged man was displayed. The internet tells me it was erected in 1800 after a murder nearby although it had disappeared by 1988.The post was totally unremarkable just by the side of a country lane. Thinking it a local curiosity likely to interest young boys he later took me again with my friend Anthony. I recall Anthony was more interested in his new bike of which he was very proud so that on our return journey he raced ahead.

The countryside is full of strange and macabre stories. One I remember refers to Hangmans Corner near Shuttington. I’m not sure if this is in south Staffordshire or North Warwickshire. The story is that a thief stole two sheep which he slung together by rope over his shoulder. Stopping at the corner to rest by a gate he strangled himself by the rope after putting the bound sheep over the gate top. This all seems unlikely but I suppose there must be some reason for the name.

Features in the landscape often have a shrouded history. One which I visited as a boy was the motte ( or mound ) of a castle at Seckington in North Warwickshire. This known locally as Rose Hill. Lying very near the village this commanded extensive views to the north, east and west. Apparently it dates from the 11^th century. At primary school nearby we made an expedition to the mound although frankly at the time I didn’t really understand why.

An elderly man went to a station ticket office and asked for a return ticket. “Where to” asked the clerk. “ Back to here of course” was the reply.