Bit of a 1950s Sunday today, but without the church.
Normal service tomorrow. Anyway, here’s a picture of my dad, probably in his early twenties, with the Fleet Air Arm in the Med. Butter wouldn’t melt, etc. I always remember Dad with side-parted hair, but here, and in another pic. my sister sent me, he has it back-combed, presumably under a sea of Brylcreem. As with every picture posted here, click to enlarge.
Also, here’s an old (2009) post about that time I went to a meeting of the HMS Ocean Association in Scarborough.
Music: Lindsay sent me a playlist of stuff to put here. I’ll plunder it in later days. One of the songs was this as sung by They Might Be Giants, but instead I’ve gone for this hidden track from an Elizabeth LaPrelle CD. This is Elizabeth and her mum : Istanbul
Today was a bit of a non-event, begun by sleeping in. Just like the last couple of days, I was down a family history rabbit hole for a lot of the morning and afternoon, doing a basic check of censuses for a branch of the family I haven’t looked at before. The great thing about records now available online is that I got back to the early nineteenth century quite quickly–certainly quicker than when I started on this in the early nineties. This is all on my mum’s side of the family, and it reinforced for me the extent to which I/we am a product of the railway age in late C19/early C20 Derby, just as my dad’s line is dominated by mining in Durham and Northumberland.
This has left me doing less editing than of late, but the benefit is that, by thinking about something else, it left my subconscious free to figure out a problem with the writing that I hadn’t put my finger on before. That is an undoubted good.
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Otherwise, not a lot to report. No telly watching, no exposure to the news, no regrets.
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Music: another one from a list of suggestions by my daughter. Mika : Elle Me Dit
Friday means WandaVision, that has, for the last 8 weeks, teased and encouraged fan theories about what’s going on, only to knock them down again with evident glee. Episode 8 this morning finally revealed that the story was about something entirely other than what viewers have previously thought. Great writing, production and execution throughout.
Earlier, I was listening to a podcast interview of Russell T Davies, which was interesting for many things, one of which was his admiration for WandaVision (and also The Mandalorian). He said WV was ‘the most imaginative thing… Who thought Marvel Television would turn around and produce something that strong, that mindbending?’
Only one episode to go, and I’m happy to go into it next week with no pretence of knowing how they’re going to wrap it up.
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I had an unexpected but delightful conversation with my Aunt in Edmonton, Alberta earlier. She phoned me in response to an email I sent. The ostensible reason was family history stuff, but actually we just spent nearly an hour chatting and laughing. There were some family odds and ends, but mostly it was just reminiscing and comparing Covid notes.
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The main political story of the day in Scotland is the escalating warfare between the current First Minister and her predecessor, who had his moment at Scottish Parliament today, or rather five hours in front of it. I haven’t said too much about it here for various reasons, but the phrase it brought to mind was Mutually Assured Destruction from the Cold War. I detest nationalism in all its forms, and in other times it would be entertaining to watch, except it has all become about the accused rather than the accusers, and is happening in the middle of a pandemic.
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Music: when my Aunt and Uncle first emigrated to Canada in the early sixties, they first went to Regina in Saskatchewan. I do not know if she ever hoisted the Jolly Roger on Regina’s mighty shore, but I did think of this.
The Arrogant Worms : The Last Saskatchewan Pirate.
I fell into a family tree shaped hole today, picking up my notes from a year ago to see if I can make sense of them. what I really need to do, I suspect is to go old-school and lay things out over the floor with bits of thread linking them or something. I know I can do that with software, but there’s something about having it laid out in front of you that’s helpful.
The focus is on my mum’s side of the family which has some knotty growth to untangle. I suggested to my sister that, if I can get enough information (and photographs) I’ll try and put something together that I could circulate in draft then maybe self-publish. I think that will take a while, though. All of these projects depend on the quality of the records and indices and the willingness of ancestors to play ball. To make it work, it helps to be able to build pen-portraits of people. That one of my C19 ancestors on Dad’s side was invalided out of the Dragoons because he got too fat to sit on a horse is far more engaging than the dull facts of his birth, christening, marriage and death.
Having said that, I wonder what the cut-off date is for stories; at what point does the privacy of the subject fade sufficiently into the past to remove inhibitions from what I might write?
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I took a walk earlier, ostensibly to buy some stamps and post a letter, but it extended somewhat. It was nice to be out in the sun, but the wind was bitter. I didn’t check in on twitter or the news headlines, but I did spot this, which is the most significant story of the day:
I woke this morning from a fever dream of walking down the Royal Mile in the sunshine, wandering in and out of used book and record shops, knowing the pubs are open for a swift pie and pint. I don’t know where these fantasies come from.
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A year ago I was researching family history stuff. Despite having a lot of free time in the intervening months, I have pretty much done nothing about it since then. I remembered it today because I spent most of the afternoon on the phone to my sister and my niece talking about it, and about ways of getting more information in the form of gossip and stories. The problem I was stuck on when lockdown hit was:
My ancestor, James Morton, was born 24 April 1845 in Carrington Street, Parish of St. Peter’s, Nottingham. James was the illegitimate son of Ann Morton, who was the daughter of William Morton and Catherine Lane (m. Nottingham St Mary’s 16 February 1816).
James Morton is described as a cabinet maker, and had at least two children: George Lawrence Oliver Morton and Percy (James?) Morton. I am descended from George. According to the 1871 and 1881 census, and George LO Morton’s birth certificate, James was married to Elizabeth Faulkes (various spellings, ch. St Luke’s Hickling, Notts. 21 Jan 1850.) However, on the 1891 census James is said to be married to ‘Emma’. I’m pretty sure Emma was a widow, born Emma Mills and her later married name was Emma Jordan, though I haven’t traced this fully yet.
My problem: I can’t find any record of James actually marrying either Elizabeth or Emma, and I can’t find anything to indicate Elizabeth’s death between 1881 and 1891. So either there is a problem with the records and I just haven’t found what I’m looking for, or there were shenanigans. My money would be on shenanigans.
I ought to get back to that.
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Music : another synthpop classic, from 1980. Martha and the Muffins : Echo Beach, one of many I associate with the jukebox in Potterrow Student Centre.
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