Out and about and a memory...

The Man has bought himself a new toy…

No not of the bedroom variety…It’s a metal detector. 

Well he’s been looking for  something apart from me to occupy his time when we do finally get back to new Zealand. So to that end he’s been reading and talking to people about these gadgets before finally making a decision about which one would best do the things he wants. All he needs now is a few fine days to get out in out communal back yard to practice. 

What better thing to do on a very chilly Friday evening than to wander around the London  Ice Sculpting festival. It was a shame that the breezy evening followed a relatively mild day which had the ice melting way too fast and rounding the sharp contours of the creations.

It was a beautiful blue sky day when we, or should I say I got up leaving the Man to snooze a bit longer. So while he snoozed I hit the computer and got on with writing about my grandfather’s war. I don’t have his personal diary, that would be too much to ask for. What I do have is a copy of  the diary of his regiment, and from that I am building a picture of what his time on the western Front might have been like. But you’ll have to wait a bit longer to read about that 

Later we went to Bromley to do a bit of shopping . The bus went past a  pub called The Pawleyne Arms…really it is spelled like that. Doesn’t it look odd.  We also went past a little Chinese takeaway called Auntie Mays…Goodness that brought back a memory. No not the takeaway, the name.

Back in the dark ages when TV was in black and white there was  TV commercial for a brand of cakemixer called a Kenwood. It had a couple of kids in it who were looking over a table full of goodies created using the mixer and the catch phrase was ‘I like going to Auntie Mays.’ Well when my father’s run brought him past our house, he was a driver at that time he would drop in for morning or afternoon tea. If I’d been baking, and I often did back then, that’s what he’d say that to me.

It wasn't over by Christmas

This is part of a writing exercise for a course I am doing. It's looking at the effects of WWI on my ancestors

It’ll be over by Christmas

"Well that’ll do us no good he said, flinging the newspaper down onto the table. No good at all."

"Ere, lookout that’s all my nice clean washing you’re muckying up."

"Never mind your washing Mother there’s gonna be a lot a things more muckyed up than just your clean washing".

"What’s it say now then, them papers is full of all sorts of rubbish these days, never know what to fink anymore."

"Well she said," turning to look at her husband, "you gonna tell me what it ses I aint no mind reader you know."

Daily Mail June 29 1914.

Murder of The Austrian Heir and His Wife.

We regret to state that the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his morganic wife, The Duchess of Hohenberg were assassinated yesterday.

On the first of August 1914 Germany declared war on Russia then on the third of August it declared war on France. Germany’s demand of unrestricted access through Belgium, so that it could invade France was refused. The Belgian government looked to Britain for support. Britain chose to honour the entente cordiale it had signed in 1839, and when Germany ignored warnings not to set foot in Belgium Britain declared war on Germany it was Wednesday August 4^th 1914.

To many it must have seemed an exciting time, and when the government asked for 100,000 men more than 750,000 eager men answered the call in just one month.  

 “I just don’t want to miss anything Florrie” he said swinging her around excitedly “Look” he said proudly pointing to the muscles on his arms, “…it’s gonna be good strong men like me that win the war. It’ll be all over by Christmas just you see if it aint.”

“…and besides, my country needs me”. His parodying of the words of the recruitment posters that were everywhere did nothing make her feel any better. 

“Aw c’mon Florrie gel, all the blokes are off to enlist and I’m not gonna be left behind a wishing I had gone too”

George’s laughter died as he looked into her eyes ‘Ah Florrie girl you’re the love of me life you know that ’ then taking her hand in his, he dropped to one knee ‘Marry me Florrie…say yes…please say yes’

He enlisted on September 21^st  1914 just a couple of weeks after his 24^th birthday. George and Florence were married that October.

The following are extracts from the regimental diary of the 11^th Essex regiment

21/8/1915: About 12 noon received confidential instructions from 71st Brigade to commence mobilisation with orders for a probable move to France in about a week…during this time the battalion was having four days leave at 15% at a time. This was curtailed to 48 hours.

23/8/1915: Battalion spent the day at Cobham Common and a lot of the night digging and improving of trenches was continued

26/8/1915: Battalion marched to Cobham Common, 200 strong and filled in the trenches previously made.

28/8/1915: A party consisting of 103 men, transport and horses left at 6pm for Southampton.

30/8/1915: The Battalion less the other party that left on the 28^th, entrained at Brimley Station, 26 officers and 839 other ranks…left for Folkestone, then by transport to Boulogne. Moved to Ostrohove rest camp arriving at about 2pm 30/31 August.

Speechless for a change

Forecasters are predicting that tomorrow, Monday, we are in for some pretty nasty weather. Right now though it’s just a bit breezy and there’s spit or two of rain in the air.

Our day had an interesting start, after what we thought was a relatively late brekky we took the train down to Surrey Quays to do a bit of shopping. Unusually for that time of the day, almost 1200, there was a crowd of trolley pushers lining up to get into the Mall through the large revolving doors.

When The Man asked one of the security guards what it was all about he said that it was always like that at opening time. We must have looked a bit puzzle because he went on to add that daylight saving time had ended and the clocks had been put back last night.

There was a definite sound of a penny or two dropping…

So with plenty of time to spare The Man and I found a comfy seat in the nearest Starbucks and wiled   whiled it away over latte and muffins.

I’ve been reading an interesting book called ‘Silvertown, An East End Family Memoir’ by Melanie McGrath.  Silvertown is the registration district listed on my father’s birth certificate.

This industrial district sits on the north bank of the Thames; it was named after Samuel Winkwoth Silver’s rubber factory.

McGrath’s account of the day of her grandmother’s seventeenth birthday left me speechless, I expect it will do the same to you…

After work that day Janey (the grandmother) is taken out by Sarah (her mother), but not for a pleasant evenings celebration. After a bit of a walk Sarah leads Janey to a dirty shop and leaves her there in the less than capable hands of the shop owner.

The stout man…goes to the back of the front door and takes down a butcher’s apron.

It takes three hours to pull out all the teeth in Jane Fulchers mouth. Three-quarters of a century later she will still recall the head-popping splintering, like the sound of the earth cracking open. She will remember the blood and ruby spittle and the fragments of tooth falling from her lips, the mouth jammed with metal and the butcher’s foot on her chest as he digs out the molars. The pain begins a slow howl somewhere beneath or behind her stomach, which leaks into her extremities and finally wraps itself around her like seaweed, dragging her down into the pitch dark of nightmares.

The butcher’s favourite tool for this operation is a monkey wrench, more commonly used for unscrewing rivets and rusty bolts. There is no anaesthetic. Jane is strapped into the chair with docker’s belts. Every so often an old woman appears and offers her a jar of cheap hooch and tells her to drink deep and stop making a fuss.

about a month after her birthday a comment by her friend Dora stuns her.

… Janey isn’t sure she understands. Does Dora think that Sarah and Frenchie (Janeys father) had their daughters teeth removed to save her future husband money?

Her friend looks at her with a mixture of astonishment and guilt.

Well why d’yer think?...

Such a rite of passage must have been all too common back then.

Write on...

Today I’ve had a very interesting day.

Unusually I’ve been out without The Man, even if he had been able come with me he’d have been bored out of his tree.

I’ve been to the society of Genealogists rooms to part one of three day long sessions about writing family history. The next was in a couple of weeks and the third about four weeks after that. We’re not a big class and the 30  odd of us were divided up into groups of four.

I’ve been on writing courses before and enjoyed them, but this one is specifically aimed at turning all our dry dusty genealogy information into a readable and hopefully entertaining thing.

Apart from talking about structure and showing not telling we had a couple of exercises to write then read out to the others at our table and have them critique it.

The first one to was write a small piece introducing one of our ancestors.

He was my mother’s father Herbert Henry Hall.  He was my moustachioed grandfather who never refused my request to be read to. He was also the only grandfather I knew. But he was other things too.

He was a merchant seaman. I still find it hard to associate the much younger image of him wearing a flat cap and standing on the steps of New Zealand’s Nelson Cathedral with his crew mates from the ship Port Kembla.

He was a stoker, a noisy dirty sweaty job that was part of the power that drove the ship.

In September 1917, the date written across the bottom of the postcard the Port Kembla hit a German laid mine and sank. Importantly there was no loss of life.

After lunch we had another writing session, this time the tutor asked us to write about the ‘prompt’ that we had been asked to bring with us.

The sepia tinted photograph is a postcard. Iron framed beds, corners neatly mitred run down either side of this ward in the Edmonton Military Hospital. The patients are all casualties of what became known as The Great War, WWII, though there is nothing great about war.  It dates to about 1915 -16 the time that my paternal grandfather was wounded and probably invalided out of the army.

Just three of the beds are occupied by what look like pyjama clad men. The remainder of the inmates wear the hospital ‘uniform’, trousers and jackets in what looks like a fits all size as some of the trouser and jacket cuffs are turned up. The men are also neatly attired in shirts and ties.

Only the three capped and long aproned nurses are smiling.

From the right of the postcard the long thin face of George Arthur Harvey, my paternal grandfather, looks solemnly at the camera. Behind him against the wall is a pair of crutches Are they his I wonder.  I remember Mum telling me that his wounded ankle never healed properly leaving him with what sounded like ulcers that needed to be dressed daily.