silly sad old fool

[jbml]

I think a large part of the difference is accounted for by the fact that in those days wills were generally made on one's deathbed, whilst nowadays we make them when in rude health and stash them away somewhere "just in case". So we are much more clinical about it all. (That and the fact that the lawyers have lost their souls, and rely upon standard form precedents with tried and tested expressions which may be guaranteed to work, but don't really express the true sentiments of the testator ...)

I have an ancestor who made a will ... and then recovered and lived another 8 years or so. Will not revised. Result when he died ... the grandson who was left an inheritance to pay for an apprenticeship was already apprenticed when he inherited, and the three further grandchildren born since the will was made got nothing. Not sure that was what he really intended ...

[coombs]

I love reading wills. I have found one relative who was a baker say "I leave to the poor of the parish of St Stephen Norwich, 20 loaves of bread". Other rellies have left a chunk of their estate to the poor and needy of their parish.

As we know genealogy gets harder the further you go back. And wills can help make it a bit easier if the parish registers do not survive pre 1740 for the parish in which you know they lived in.

[Greensleeves]

From the Will of my 11 x great-grandfather, Henry Sidgwick, who died in Tudhoe, County Durham, in 1587:

"All my farnitorye I give my son George that is to saye a bowe and a shaiffe of arrows a steel cap a sword."

[[Ray]]

Hi       

My attention was attracted to this thread by my new name "Silly Old Fool"     

and Gazunder, Chamber Pots, etc     


We had an outside loo, full of spiders, no light, don't remember a loo roll !!!!!!     

 We had a holiday caravan and it had better "facilities" than at home ( a battery-powered light )     

I could "go" AND read the beano, NO interruptions ( they too scared )     

Even though the loo was a plank and had a seat next to you ! ! ! ! !

Mind you, the runner beans were fantastic !     

       
:-)

[Viktoria]

As a child I lived in rural Shropshire, no running water,no mains drainage and the loo was a little hut right down the garden with spiders like Jack Russells.
A three holer but even then the smallest was too big for me and I had a horror of falling down the hole.
This was wartime and one evening when it was pitch black I needed the loo.
I went outside and quailed at the thought that a)there were those spiders,
                                                                   b) I might fall down the hole
                                                                     c) there might be a German lurking.Of the three I’d say the spiders were the worst.
Soooo, I did not go right down the garden path but spent my penny at the top imagining no one would ever know.
However—— next morning there it was,a damp trail all the way down to the bottom. A dead give away that I had not actually been to the loo but  had chickened out at the top.
My auntie asked me but I knew it was no use fibbing so I admitted it but said I was afraid. I was not yet five as I remember and I wonder at my kind auntie not realising it was an ordeal for a young child.
I can see it now ,rather like the Mississippi delta,I still
feel guilty.
                Viktoria.