I wouldn't be here if..........

[Jang]

Great topic!

I wouldn't be here if my 2g grandfather hadn't signed on as surgeon on the "Argyle" to Port Phillip in 1841, leaving his wife and family behind in Dublin. He met my 2g grandmother on board and had 4 children with her in Australia, until his Irish wife tracked him down and joined him there.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I bet there were some fireworks when she arrived!

[Viktoria]

What interesting stories, and mine are all so boring, the Baptist \ Methodist
influence was obviously so strong they all stayed on the straight and narrow!
Mind you it was harder for women wasn’t it ,if they strayed any children they had could be taken from them, so the poor things stayed in loveless violent msrriages.
No help from anyone ,not even The Police ,who never interfered in “ a domestic”.
I love reading them.
Viktoria.

[Redroger]

What interesting stories, and mine are all so boring, the Baptist \ Methodist
influence was obviously so strong they all stayed on the straight and narrow!
Mind you it was harder for women wasn’t it ,if they strayed any children they had could be taken from them, so the poor things stayed in loveless violent msrriages.
No help from anyone ,not even The Police ,who never interfered in “ a domestic”.
I love reading them.
Viktoria.

Remember my "dismembered" great grandfather was part of a Baptist congregation, so anyone who had an interesting life they slung out!! And, ofcourse, there was no television to fill the gap!
Interestimgly enough I just wonder what effects Covid19 will have on the birthrate, we shall see in about 5 months onwards, 7 months here in UK.

[pharmaT]

What interesting stories, and mine are all so boring, the Baptist \ Methodist
influence was obviously so strong they all stayed on the straight and narrow!
Mind you it was harder for women wasn’t it ,if they strayed any children they had could be taken from them, so the poor things stayed in loveless violent msrriages.
No help from anyone ,not even The Police ,who never interfered in “ a domestic”.
I love reading them.
Viktoria.

Remember my "dismembered" great grandfather was part of a Baptist congregation, so anyone who had an interesting life they slung out!! And, ofcourse, there was no television to fill the gap!
Interestimgly enough I just wonder what effects Covid19 will have on the birthrate, we shall see in about 5 months onwards, 7 months here in UK.

I think there will be an increase in the birth rate after October into early 2021.  So if this thread is repeated in say 30 years time there may be people saying they wouldn't be here if it wasn't for a global pandemic.

The book I'd been reading (well listened to) that sparked the conversation my daughter and I had had a chapter claiming it was Scotland's fault.  So we ended up having a lot of fun blaming people for us being here.  At one point me managed to blame Prince Albert.  So here was how it went: When the Hanovarians came to the throne having German staff became fashionable but became less of a thing as time went on.  When Victoria married Albert there was an upsurge in interest in German and other continental staff.  This led many London hotels to employ people from the Continent as wine and Head waiters.  My daughter's 3x Grt Grandfather, from the Rhineland-palatinate area took a job in London.  It was there he met a young Irish girl who was in domestic service and they married.  They temporarily returned to Germany but he could make more money here at the time.  This meant that when their son was an adult they were still living in London where he met a girl from an old English family (I've traced them back to 1500s).

[IgorStrav]

Well that's interesting Pharma, and has reminded me that I wouldn't be here if there hadn't been considerable industrial unrest in the cigar-making factories in Europe in the 1870's, when my great grandfather Victor Desire Van Steenhoven was working in the industry in Belgium.

Frederick Engels even wrote about Cigar making and the importance of workers' unions across country borders as Factory Owners were prone to secure replacement workers from other countries who'd work for less money and boost their profits.  In my research I found that Cigar Makers were respected as generally better educated than other factory workers, as they customarily clubbed together to pay the wages of one of their colleagues who would read to them as they worked.  They took it in turns to do this, apparently.

Anyhow, great industrial unrest in the industry in Brussels in the 1870's and my great grandparents came to the very worst bit of the East End of London to continue to work in the many cigar factories there were there at the time.  My grandmother, born in London, also was a cigar maker, though I've no proof (and never asked her  ) if she rolled them on her thigh - as Carmen was reputed to do 

She met and married my grandfather in 1902.  He was of English extraction (so far as I've been able to establish - a nightmare line to research), a boot maker from very much the same area of London.

[coombs]

In regards to the covid 19 pandemic maybe creating a new wave of births in 2021, well, "During the coronavirus" is an Albert Trotter style meme that has been doing the rounds in the past 2 months on social media.

I doubt I'd be here if my ancestor Francois Fradin had not been released from French prison (for crimes regarding religion) circa 1750-1751 and moved to London, one of the last Huguenots to move to England.

[ms_canuck]

Thanks for starting this thread!  Many of the stories gave me a real good laugh...

I wouldn't be here if my mother had not been evacuated out of London in Sept 1939 (age 18) and up to her aunty in North Wales.  Out for a stroll one day with the aunty, she passed a young man who was on a ladder doing some house painting...

I also would not be here had my Dad not survived having his anti-aircraft gun emplacement blown up in Palestine... he did a bit of basket weaving in a hospital on the Mount of Olives afterwards and returned home safely.

Ms_C

[Redroger]

Personally I think there is likely to be aelump in the birthrate worldwide starting in China around October, but time will tell.