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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: River Tyne Lass on Monday 01 October 18 08:49 BST (UK)
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On a flight of fancy, I have been wondering which of my ancestors I could comfortably lifeswap with.
I know I wouldn't want to lifeswap with any of my many coal mining ancestors, as the work was very hard and dangerous and they would have lived knowing that each working day could be their last.
As much as I admire them, I do not think I could be one of the Tyne Pilots - this was another risky job and the prospect of going out to sea every day in possibly choppy or rough tides is something I would dread.
I also wouldn't be a blacksmith; doctor; soldier; licenced victualler; railway worker; coal merchant; farmer; haberdashery owner or a wheelwright - which various ancestors were.
I think I could be one of the 'dressmakers' if I was given a little training as I like hand sewing. I think I could also see myself as a maid like my bloodline ancestor Isabella Atkinson who worked at Meldon Park, a big country house in Northumberland, before she got married to Ralph Marshall who was one of my bloodline blacksmith ancestors. I like visiting grand houses (especially those with beds with lovely patchwork quilts on) and walled gardens and I think I would derive pleasure in working in such surroundings.
I also think a lifeswap with my traveller ancestors has appeal. Although, I have lived all my life in one area I do like gadding all over the place on an almost daily basis. Tracing my Irish traveller ancestors' lives I can see that they regularly zig-zagged over Northumberland and Durham and I think I would like that type of lifestyle. I like being creative and I know that they made besoms. I think that I would like to do this type of thing and go hawking my wares as they did.
So if I had to choose I think I could be a dressmaker but my top favourite choices would be either a maid in a grand country house or a traveller.
I do wonder if the ancestors we would choose to lifeswap with are the ones we may have inherited certain temperament genes from. I wonder if this may partly influence what skills and interests we may develop?
Which of your ancestors could you comfortably lifeswap with and why?
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An interesting thing to ponder TRL, however I think that being a maid in the big house would be as hard as any of the other jobs you mention. :)
I will return when I have given it some more thought (but it will have to be one who didn't have many children). ;)
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True Ruskie, but being in 'Downton Abbey' like surroundings would likely take my mind off it. ;D ;D. I am thinking of perhaps lovely four poster beds with beautiful patchwork quilts, walled gardens .. chatting to the gardener when I go out to collect the veg. This is a flight of fancy here I know ;D .. but if I had to change lives with an ancestor I think this might suit.
I sometimes do 10 and 12 hour shifts anyway so am used to hard work. I think this might be suited to my genes too. Grt x3 Grandmother Isabella worked in a 'big' house and my own Mother worked in service in such places. Oh! The stories she used to tell about those times. She once went out with the son of the manor into the orchard to collect apples. He was younger than my Mother but she had to address him as "Master Jim". He wanted to collect apples that day so he went up a ladder and she had to wait dutifully down below with a basket. She also had to iron the newspapers in the morning.
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Yes, I agree that the houses would have been fabulous, but I think I would rather have been a "Master Jim" than the maid. I think a lot would depend on the house and the management and how you were treated. ;) I think that Downton Abbey might have given viewers a bit of a rose coloured glasses view of working in service.
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I think I'm a lot like my paternal great great grandfather, so I might try swapping with him.
We grew up hearing that he was "in charge of" the Union House, a theater, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Then I found his obituary which said he was the janitor there. Next I found a picture of him holding a long pole, hanging a billboard for a coming attraction at the theater.
As someone who was college educated but spent most of my life cleaning other peoples' offices and windows, I kind of identified with him pretty quickly.
Add to that - he left his carpenter apprenticeship in Philadelphia just before its completion because of "mistreatment." He took off through Pennsylvania, and eventually worked on a riverboat on the Mississippi before eventually settling down in the Johnstown area.
More or less what I did after college, bumming rides back and forth across the US twice before deciding I had had enough and needed some stability.
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Assuming the life swap comes with the appropriate law degree, I think I might have enjoyed the life of my Victorian distant for bear, who was a successful solicitor in Austin Friars in the city of London. He had a magnificent house in southeast London.
My research has shown that one branch of my family were descended from two stonemason brothers in Durham in the late 1700s. The descendants of one brother were all very successful learned men, including the aforementioned solicitor, while all the descendants of the other brother became labourers, dockers and manual workers until my bank manager father broke the mould.
Martin
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I have been considering my options but I'm afraid I am struggling to think of any of my ancestors who I would be remotely happy to do a swapsies with.
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I don't think so. The miracles of modern medical science make now and the future as when to live. There's been a lot of long livers in my family, one 1660 to 1757 but I wouldn't want to be any one of them.
Take my avatar for instance. George and Ethel, married 1930. Good looking couple, he died of peritonitis 1935, She died 1979 I think. They had a daughter Sadie 1935 to 1998. We met her, lovely woman, died of cancer. Ethel remarried within a year much to the disgust of our family. For hecks sake she was pregnant or had a baby, who needs families.
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None of them. Mostly Fisherfolk, Weavers and Jute Mill Workers including the females.
I would love to time travel though and spend time with them and then return to the comforts of the 21th Century. Are there any vacancies on Dr Who ;)
Dorrie
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Well,my maternal grandmother.
12babies in 27 years. 1883-1910.
Losing 5 of them, three very young and two lovely girls.
Losing twin grandsons and her own last baby in three weeks.
Then adopting four children of a neighbour whose husband had beggared off and she dying.
Grandma dying at 67.
You do understand they are coming to take me away next week!
Seriously she was such s good woman absolutely adored and revered by her husband and children.(Granddad did quite a bit of adoring!)
Again seriously, a happy family.
She It was ,when a spiteful neighbour mentioned that she was pregnant again said “All my babies are born out of love and every one is welcome”.
I wish I had known her.
Viktoria.
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I'm not sure I would like to lifeswap with him, but I am fascinated by my 11 x great grandfather's place in history. Living in the little village of Tudhoe, County Durham, he took part in the Northern Rebellion of 1569 against Elizabeth I and was sentenced to death, along with many others in that area. In 1571 he was pardoned, but his lands were confiscated so he escaped with his life. Must have been an 'interesting' time. When he died he left to his eldest son, amongst other things, "All my farnitorye I give my son George that is to saye a bowe and a shaiffe of arrows a steel cap a sword." Interestingly, all the males that I know in my family have been interested in archery.
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Just to explain myself further .. what I really had in mind was not imagining a lifeswap completely but a life swap for a short period. Sort of along the lines of the old 'Wifeswap' programme. Perhaps I should have called this thread 'Which Ancestors Shoes Would You Feel Most Comfortable Walking In'. I am interested in knowing if anyone (like oldohiohome) can identify with their ancestors and who perhaps might imagine themselves being able to do similar things in the way of work or interests. I know I can't imagine myself wanting to do anything that could endanger life on a daily basis. That is why, as much as I admire both, I feel I could not walk in the shoes of my coal mining or sea/river pilot ancestors.
I can't imagine any of us would seriously wish to swap what we have today, - better health care, working conditions, education and life expectancy for what others had many years ago. I know it is sad whenever you learn about your ancestors having died of something which would likely be treatable today.
I think my travelling ancestors James and Elizabeth Conroy nee Fitzpatrick are the ones I most closely identify with perhaps because from what I have learned about them they would have been creative people, making their besoms and baskets. They also seemed to like to be on the move a lot, which is like me in the way that I always like to be out and about doing things. I wouldn't envy the predicament which they once found themselves in however. In 1855, their land lady Dorothy Bewick was murdered when they were away from home. However, because they had had words previously, these ancestors were immediately under suspicion of murder. They were kept in Morpeth jail for months until their trial the following year. Fortunately, they were acquitted. I do not believe they were guilty but no one was ever convicted of this crime which became known in the press as the 'Matfen Murder.'. I think if I had been in their shoes I would have been a nervous wreck, wondering if I might end up hanged for a murder I had not committed. I think even after I had been acquitted I would likely experience nightmares and never completely get over this. One of their children (my Great Grandfather Simon Peter Conroy) would have only been four years old when they were sent to prison. Who knows what happened to him during that time or what may have become of him if they had not, fortunately, been able to reclaim their family.
I am not surprised Greensleeves that male descendants of your notable ancestor have all been interested in archery. I do tend to believe that predisposition for various interests and abilities are inherited.
My son loves the sea and I have known him to be exhilarated at the thought of going off for the day in a fishing boat. This interest was never encouraged as some parents encourage children along certain paths. In his case I wonder if he may have inherited some of the make up of our Tyne Pilots genes.
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For this to work, the chosen ancestor would have to live your life for a while. I think most of them would find that very frightening, at least at first. We know a little of what their lives were like, or we can guess, but they would know absolutely nothing about ours.
Melbell
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I suspect that the only ones that I could manage are the shopkeepers. I doubt if I could manage to replace the tub thumping preacher and friend of Wesley in the pulpit let alone the various soldiers, sailors, whalers, grooms and ag labs for even a few minutes.
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I'd like to swap with Abraham Broadley my 6xggfather. He was carter to the Dunkenhalgh Estate in Clayton le Moors and I have read their accounts so I know he went shopping in Preston two or three times a week and would love to find out exactly what route he used. He was also sent round old ladies who had worked at the hall to take them money. He lived in a big house which had been a good one fifty years before so I imagine buckets to catch the drips. My main problem is that, although I like horses, I am severely asthmatic and would not have lasted long.
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If it was only for a short time, I'd swap with William Williams, my great great grandfather who was a horse-breaker.
As he died at 54, I'm glad this was only a thought experiment.
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Thank you for clarifying RTL, as you say most people really wouln't want to swop the safety of life we have now let alone the health care, education and few of us would survive as women with our laws and attitude now on equality, working in the world and making our own choices ( good or bad) in life.
There are several who I empathise with and proud of, who were certainly ahead of their time and 'broke' boundaries in commerce and the law (of the time)
My dad who unfortuneatly had a short life died when I was 17 yrs old, him being just 42yrs old. For years he was a retail grocer and then went into wholesale fruit, veg, flowers, at that time wholesale agents would bid at the docks on the landed cargo, have everything taken back to the wholesale market to sell to retail buyers, so they never knew what they would get or if they would get anything nor the prices and the same happened in the home market, growers auctioned off their produce locally, only the big canning factories purchased directly often having their own land/agr labs... so if you remember the "man from Delmonte" advert, that is what my dad was.
He agreed a price annually and directly from grower, world wide, so he was guaranteed a price, knew what he was getting and that also enabled him to sell directly to supermarkets Tesco was his first guaranteeing the same quality of goods, same price nationwide...of course they all have their own buying agents now but my dad was a trail blazer, identifying a gap and filling it, until the other wholesalers caught on and replicated it.
Another is Robert Kett a wealthy tanner, landowner and farmer of a 'noble' Norfolk family, along with his brother William who both go back directly to Toka the Francigine whose grandson was Harold Godwineson King Harold II of England. When the 'pheasants' revolted in 1549 and started to rip up the hedges because of the enclosure of land laws one of their targets was Robert Ketts land who, instead of resisting joined in ripping out his own fences/hedging and leading the revolt he was offered a pardon and rejected it and a week later he was captured, taken the the Tower of London, back to Norwich Castle and hanged from the walls along with his brother and several other members of the family so Ketts Rebellion was a very brave and principled step away from his wealthy life to help others who were not in the same position as him in life, so extreme action about his charitable belief of others less fortuneate than him...sure beats popping a coin in a charity box
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I would choose my maternal great grandmother who according to some old family letters was a very sociable and well thought of lady. She seems to have made friends wherever she went.
She married in 1896 aged 20 and by 1900 had 4 children - all born in Edinburgh. Her husband, my great grandfather had been a regular soldier from the age of 15 until just before their marriage. However after the birth of their 4th child he joined up again. He was posted to the Montrose area of Scotland and his wife and 4 children went with him. Another 3 children were born to them in the following five years. He now held the rank of Sergeant Major in the Royal Artillery. In 1907 he was posted to Bere Island, Cork, Ireland. Great granny and the 7 children went with him. By 1910 another 2 children had been born in Ireland. He was then posted to the Island Of Sanday, Orkney Islands where I found them in the 1911 census - mum, dad and 9 children. Whilst on Sanday she had another baby who sadly only lived a few short months. At the outbreak of WW1 they all moved to Kirkwall, Orkney. At the beginning of 1916 she came down to Edinburgh to give birth to her last child returning to Orkney until after the end of the war. That made 11 children in 20 years. She died in St Andrews, Scotland in 1936 aged 59. Her husband only lived another few months.
How she coped with moving around with all those children I don't know. It must have been like a military operation.
I have a great admiration for her and feel a bond although I never met her. She is buried in St Andrews and I have visited her grave to pay my respects.
Yes, I would like to experience what her life was like but not having all those babies.
Dorrie
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I'd certainly not wish to swap at all with any of my female ancestors!!
And the males all seemed to work until they dropped, as cabinet makers, ships' carpenters, joiners, painters and decorators, shoemakers, millers, farmers, and loads of other jobs needing skills but not making fortunes. A very few may have seemed to have excitement, border reivers, etc, according to family legend, but.... that wouldn't suit me. Too law-abiding by nature. Some were travellers to "distant lands" in past centuries ... but no, I don't like travelling even modern ways. I could get sea-sick holding a sponge.
Perhaps if I'd found a very wealthy and happy noble ancestor,swanning around her stately home, I might have been a little bit tempted, for a few hours???
-But no. I'd not be as comfortable as being me. That'll do me.
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What fascinating stories everyone has to tell, I am thoroughly enjoying reading them all. I can imagine a collection of such tales, put into order historically, would make a most excellent book. Sounds like someone needs to set up The Rootschat Publishing Company ;D
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My ancestors were either general labourers, agricultural labourers, seamen, or wives of the same.
My grandmother was the only one, I think, who was a servant - a cook, before her marriage.
I have the greatest admiration for them all, but I think what I would feel worst about in 'swapping' with any of them is being a working class and therefore second class citizen.
You have only to read a few books of the earlier period of the 20th century to see how working people were regarded with some disdain by some of their 'betters'.
Would I have accepted my lot, or would I have got very angry at it all? I know what my parents felt, and I would probably be the same.
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I can understand your feelings Igor. My father, when he left technical college, was apprenticed as a marine engineer in one of the northern shipyards where his father was a ship-plate rivetter. Come the Great Depression of the 1930s, his father lost his job and thus was on the dole. When my father's apprenticeship finished, he too was sacked. But in those days only one person in a household could claim the dole. So the only way he could get the dole was to live rough and claim a small daily allowance, so he and his friends slept on park benches when they couldn't find anyone to give them shelter.
Realising that there was nothing for him in that town any more, he joined the Royal Air Force in 1935, and never looked back. All his life he felt really bitter about the way he and his generation had been treated, which is hardly surprising really.
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I must say, I am enjoying reading everybody's stories on here, too Greensleeves.
I agree Igor that it seems that the working class were viewed as second class citizens. I read recently in a book about the Great War that cases of shell shock amongst the working class were not taken seriously until it was found that large numbers of the middle classs were also experiencing this. Until then this was often perceived as malingering or weakness almost due to being of an inferior class in society. In this same book, (the title escapes me but I remember it was by an author called Penny Starns) I read of the of the treatment given to such men. Apparently, one therapist gave electric shock treatment whilst shouting at the person to be a hero. Outrageous to think that these people had given and suffered so much and then to be subject to such barbarity! :o
I am so glad that so many people have fought down the years to improve the lot of the working class. My impression is that most people back then just had to accept bad conditions as par for the course.
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I remember an older relative on one line stating with pride that none of them had ever been "in service", when I was a child, and hardly knew what it meant. Having since then researched, she seems to have been right. Not surprised, most of the family seem to have been unlikely to tug anyone's forelock from choice, certainly not their own. The nearest seems to have been those who worked as farm labourer / agricultural labourer, and that was usually for their parents.
But none of mine ever seem to have had any really interesting stories like so many on here have. Very boring but steady!
TY
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I must say, I am enjoying reading everybody's stories on here, too Greensleeves.
I agree Igor that it seems that the working class were viewed as second class citizens. I read recently in a book about the Great War that cases of shell shock amongst the working class were not taken seriously until it was found that large numbers of the middle classs were also experiencing this. Until then this was often perceived as malingering or weakness almost due to being of an inferior class in society. In this same book, (the title escapes me but I remember it was by an author called Penny Starns) I read of the of the treatment given to such men. Apparently, one therapist gave electric shock treatment whilst shouting at the person to be a hero. Outrageous to think that these people had given and suffered so much and then to be subject to such barbarity! :o
I am so glad that so many people have fought down the years to improve the lot of the working class. My impression is that most people back then just had to accept bad conditions as par for the course.
......... and of course many were shot for cowardice.
Years ago ( decades ago) my in laws were moving house and I went round to help sort/pack and found her sitting in the bedroom with a box and reading a letter which she passed to me to read, it was from her dad sent while fighting in WW1, it was 'strange' reading and she went on to tell me her mum had told her he was never the same man when he returned after the war and lived in a lone world of his own. My MiL always said he was a cold man and never took on the role of a dad or husband, he was just there, she didn't know him before WW1 but that letter explained a lot and my guess is many suffered exactly the same 'feelings' the horrors, the fear, past events and expected to just get on with life 'normally' afterwards without any help or support
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That was very common,no one who had not served at the front could never know what those who had, had gone through.
Many writers recount how they longed for leave but the sense of complete isolation when home ,among people without any real understanding of the turmoil soldiers on leave felt often caused a sense of estrangement.
My Dad was one such.
He was never really close to his father,younger brother and young sister again.
His Mum died just as he was called up.
When during WW2his Dad was very badly burnt after his house was bombed I know my Dad did not visit him in hospital.
Granted the hospital was a very long way away in pre car days Dad was at Avro`s and on shift work.It was December 23 and 24 1940and my parent`s priority was to evacuate my sister and myself to Shropshire,where grandmother came from.
That was the 1940 Christmas blitz on Manchester.
At hisfuneral Dad didn't go to the service but was in the background at his interment.
I did ask Mum why the estrangement but all she sais washe was very badly hurt and upset after the last war.
So there we are.What a shame ,Dad did not st0p me from visiting they were not far away at all.
I am back on my laptop after a long stay away at the computer hospital
. It is rubbish,every other letter is a mistake!
Don`t look at me!-it is not me ::).
Vilktoria.
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If only for a short time, I'd like to swap with my g.gran. She and her "husband" had a Sweet and Tobacconist shop. I wouldn't mind a free supply of chocolates, but not the cigarettes but the reason I'd really like to swap is so I could ask my g.grandfather where he was really born and who is parents were.
I'd also like to swap with my dad's eldest sister after their mother (my gran died) just so that I wouldn't be so mean as to throw away all the photographs and paperwork which would have told me who my g.grandfather was. Instead, she destroyed the lot, telling her siblings "We don't need to know about that!". Of course, now I do need to know about that, he is my brick wall.
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Agree wth a lot of other posts that wouldnt want to have swapped all jobs as my family were miners worked in paisley mills agricultural labourers and fisherman or even a postman living in borough in london. Think wasnt much leisure time or money and lots of kids to look after and no healthcare or benefits meaning going to workhouse sometimes.
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I have remembered the name of the book I mentioned in post 22 - it was called 'Sisters of the Somme' by Penny Starns.
Iluleah that was such a sad and moving story you related. I have come across other similar ones mentioned by you and Viktoria. What a tragedy that there was no real help for those who survived physically but suffered so much afterwards in their mental health. I think detachment seems to have been an after effect. There was someone who married into my family tree and after the Great War he left his wife and five children and went to live in a completely different area from all his family even the family he had grown up with. He remained separate until his death in the 1940s.
This is why I have put that I could not follow in the shoes of those who were soldiers. Most of my ancestors who served in the Great War were killed. It is my view after reading and researching so much on the Great War that it is more true to say these men had their lives laid down rather than the phrase we hear so often that they laid down their lives. They didn't have much choice. If so many were happy to 'lay down their lives' why was there the need for conscription. I do feel for the poor men who may have reached breaking point with their nerves and who were shot for alleged cowardness. I am currently reading 'All Quiet On The Western Front' Which is a fictional story written from the German side. Very illuminating about how hellish the situation was in the trenches during the Great War. I have heard that Hitler issued a ban on this book. I think probably because it showed the realities of what this war entailed and what those who served on both sides really felt about it.
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I don't think any of us realise how difficult that time ( WW1) was for people unless we were alive at that time.
I spent lots of time as a child with my dads aunt and her husband, they never had children and she was very strict/rigid, he was such a kind and gentle man but I loved visiting them each and every Saturday on my own, having lunch with them, he taught me to play chess and encouraged me to draw. I always wondered why conversations stopped between he and my dad when I came into the room, later on to find out it was "WW1 talk". My dad died when I was 17, Great Uncle Fred lived for another 20 yrs it was only once I started FH I tried to find out/research his service records and found he was in some dreadful battles.... wish he could have told me.
.....and just recently I found an old local newsletter naming my maternal grandfathers brother and my great grandfather, he was asking for his son to be excused " as he was the only one on the farm who could work the horses" it was declined and he was told to sign up. Those snippets are a real window into day to day issues they faced.
Having previously researched animals in WW1 I knew many of those horses would have also been taken to use and most of them never came home, some eight million horses were used and only 60,000 returned. I know the horses on the farm were working and not 'pets' but they loved/looked after them and it would have been a huge loss to them.
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Yes, All Quiet on the Western Front illustrates so well the jingoism which whipped up patriotism.
Old men urging- by very underhand and devious means-young the young men to join up.
Siegfried Sassoon related how on leave in London he could still smell the stench of unburied bodies and could see mangled corpses on the streets.
I think after that he went tp Craiglockhart for psychiatric help with Wilfred Owen.
There is a poem ,not sure ,but Robert Graves I think,after some high ranking officer had passed along the road where the troops were footslogging .
I am open to correction but this is the best I can remember:-
He`s a doughty old fellow,
Said Harry to Jack,
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack
But he did for them all with his plan of attack.
Many mothers were really "patriotic"but when their boy had gone ,
Well--their urging and" sacrifice" shamed many boys into going and to their deaths.
Harry Patch summed it up exactly when he said that he had been sent to a foreign country to shoot men he never knew,whose language he could not speak and after so many many lost and ruined lives it was all settled over a table in a railway carriage.
What a sobering thought.
Viktoria.
Felt quite uncertain re the quote,so looked it up inAnthem for Doomed Youth and it is Siegfried Sassoon.
THE GENERAL.
Good morning good morning the general said
.When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are all of them dead
And we`re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
He`s a cheery old card grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack,------
But he did for them both by his plan of attack.
Sorry about poor punctuation .
Viktoria.
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There is a charity founded by two sisters who went to what was Mesopotamia where their brother had been killed and buried.
he was a mounted soldier.
They noticed some horses in very poor health with dreadful wounds. On examination they could just see faint numbers where they had been branded,they were ex British army horses.
The army or government deemed it too expensive to take the horses home so they were sold in Mesopotamia.
The charity is The Brook Charity.It is sometimjes on T.V now.
Many farm horses requisitioned were not returned,they were shot and so cruelly as it was done like a queue where soldiers got their inioculations.Those waiting could see.
The horses waiting knew what was happening,how needlessly cruel.Such patient loyal animals who had endured dreadful conditions and fear to be dispatched like that.
Viktoria.
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Oh Viktoria, that is atrocious! :o. How could they treat the poor horses like that! I think never mind the expense they should have found a way to return the horses home. What a way to treat these poor creatures after all their service - pure heartlessness! :o :'(
In my opinion both sides should have made an agreement to fight the war without any animals involved.
God bless those two sisters.
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I think the old way of each side appointing a Champion was best,,only the Champions fought and the side to which the winner belonged had won the war.
Hand to hand combat like gladiators,but both using the same weapons.
Better still if the heads of state did the fighting,that would make them think was it all worth it .
Trump v .Putin-----Just a thought after thinking about all the young men who were left in the ground in France, Belgium and
Near East and further afield in subsequent wars.
The numbers are unbelievable yet we know they are true.
How must it have been for those people who got the awful telegrammes at any time but such times as after the first day of the Somme,when in places like Accrington and surrounding villages and small towns there was hardly a street which did not have a telegramme and in some houses two or three when brothers and father were all lost.I have the Roll of Honour and more than one man in a house was not at all unusual .
No one would want to swap with those poor people and most of them could not afford to visit their lad`s graves.supposing they had one and were not just a name on a memorial.
Viktoria.
Viktoria.
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This gives some information, although my thoughts are not the complete truth of the reality of what really happened, such as lots more of them ending up on continental dinner plates http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zp6bjxs#zshr7ty
My grandfather who was too young to join up in WW1 he would have know, fed and handled his dads farm shires who were taken for WW1 and I was told by my mother that during her childhood in the 1940s he was the last farmer in the area to keep and work a team of shires on the farm. I remember a man who said very little, you listened when he spoke he was very "Victorian" and he cried when the ministry came to distroy his large diary and beef herds during the "foot and mouth"
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Programme on tonight,a Documentary at 8-30 ITV 3 about a vet who went to the front specifically to look after the horses.
Have plenty of tissues ready.
Viktoria.
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There was a TV Series in 2014 I think called The Passing Bells. It is very moving and tells the story of two young soldiers - one British and the other German.
It is available on DVD and although fiction is excellent and worth watching.
Dorrie
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What passing-bells for these who die like cattle ?Wilferd Owen.
Thankyou, I don`t remember that programme but will try to get it.
A family member phoned just as theWW1 programme about the vet was due to come on so I have missed it .
Cheerio. Viktoria.
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Thankyou ,I will try to get it
A family member phoned just as the one I mentioned was starting so I have missed that.
.Passing- Bells comes from a poem by Wilfred Owen,
"What passing bells for those who die as cattle.?"
I certainly would not like to change places with anyone who had a husband, son ,father or brother fighting in any war.
I was only thinking how my sons were not of the generation who had to do National Service.No Korea, Malaya,Cypress or any other places.I am glad they did not.
My O.H did but being an accountant he was desk bound when not playing football for his unit.
My sister`s husband was in Korea,just 18 .He never forgot it.
Goodnight. Viktoria.
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My late mum was born in 1918 to a single mum. Her father had been lost at sea early that year before they could be married. As there was no financial help in those days and no family support mum was fostered by a couple who could not have children. Sadly her foster father passed away in 1927 as a result of various health problems attributed to his service in the trenches in WW1. Over 80 years later mum would still speak of him and how she still loved and missed him. I have been lucky to find his service records online which include some very poignant letters written by him to the powers that be regarding his pension. He died a few months later aged 41. He is in our family tree along with her foster mother. My children and grandchildren know about him.
God Bless you William Stuart Lovell - born Reading, Berkshire on 3/9/1886 - died Bangour Military Hospital, Scotland on 9/9/1927 - You gave a wee lass a dad even if it was only for a few short years.
Dorrie
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This is a photo of William Stuart Lovell taken on Portobello Beach Edinburgh shortly before he died.
Dorrie
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Aw Dorrie...that brought a big lump to my throat reading that :'(
Carol
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Dorrie, this has also brought tears to my eyes too. :'( Your post with the photo is a very moving tribute.
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Before her marriage my several times great grandmother was a monthly nurse - I'm a midwife so that's probably closest to my comfort zone
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There was a TV Series in 2014 I think called The Passing Bells. It is very moving and tells the story of two young soldiers - one British and the other German.
It is available on DVD and although fiction is excellent and worth watching.
Dorrie
I remember it.
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Before her marriage my several times great grandmother was a monthly nurse - I'm a midwife so that's probably closest to my comfort zone
I suppose that would be when women were kept in bed for three weeks and then if they could afford it for the week after too.
Nowadays it is all so quick and whilst staying immobile so long is not good(it can cause lack of circulation in the legs can’t it,and a condition known as “white leg “can develop. )Girls expect to be back to normal far too soon nowadays.
Not many working class women could afford help but mother’s were often on hand and neighbours too.
Nice you have followed in her footsteps.
Viktoria.
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That is nice that you have followed in your ancestors 👣 footsteps and that this is in your comfort zone. I know that some of my ancestors jobs would definitely see me out of my comfort zone.
I have a bloodline ancestor called Mary Senior. In one census some decades after her husband Edward died I saw her in another household described as a 'sick nurse' and if I recall rightly she was in her seventies! Poor thing! Just at an age when it might have been nice for her to put her feet up after years of raising a large family and running a pub. I hope they didn't over work her.
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That is nice that you have followed in your ancestors 👣 footsteps and that this is in your comfort zone. I know that some of my ancestors jobs would definitely see me out of my comfort zone.
...and that goes into is it nurture or nature ( or a bit of both)........ do we carry genes from our ancestors that repeat their skills? I think we do, we certainly repeat patterns of behaviour of our ancestors, like marrying at a young age so why not their work skills or choices of work.
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I don't think I could comfortably lifeswap with any of my ancestors. Their lives were so very different from mine's I literally wouldn't know where to start. I also don't think I'd be capable of doing the things they did.
I have one x x grt aunt (can't remember exactly how many greats of the top of my head), she became a nun and took herself off to Spain during the civil war to nurse people from both sides, she died out there.
Then there was one of my 3x Great Grandmother who was widowed at a young age leaving her with 3 children under 5. She took over management of the family farm, running it single handed until my grt grt grandfather was old enough to help. While doing this she educated her children at home to a level her obituary described as "as if they had been to a very good school". She also ran the Sunday School and sat on local committees. Apparently she was renowned for being someone you could go to for advice.
Another 3x grt grandmother survived being widowed, then being abandoned TWICE. Time in prison (10 years) for getting desperate and steeling some food, outlived 4 of her 8 children including one who died while she was in prison.
So much stronger than I have or could ever be.
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None of 'em. I need electricity and central heating to survive in my mature years
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None of them. I am happy with the modern ways of living as opposed to living in a cramped London tenement with 8 people in 1 room, washing in a tin bucket and using an outside loo. Or even a remote rural cottage in Suffolk with only oil lamps and a fireplace for light and warmth at night/in the winter.
But I would spend a few hours with some, ask them questions on their heritage (James Smith, Matthew Bradford, Sarah Coombs) then say "I have to go back to the future".
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Wouldn't mind Switching with my ancestor Sir Thomas Halford 2nd Baronet, At least I would get to live in Wistow Manor and a Comfortable Life, Gorgeous House which still stands today. I wouldn't mind switching with my 4th grt grandfather Henry Ellis who was a Game Keeper for Lord Stamford in the 1850s-1880s afterwards lived comfortably on a pension from the Estate and his personal Wealth. Or perhaps any of my Dudley ancestors, all fairly Wealthy Farmers and Land Owners who had the status of Gentlemen and one was sent to Oxford University.