Archive for February, 2009

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Beer and Skittles

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Whilst scanning oodles of old family photos (which you can see here) yesterday I came across a letter written by the above chap.  His name was Arthur, but he was nicknamed Bubbles.  He’s my nana’s eldest nephew (just ten years younger than her), cousin of my dad.  It took me a while to decipher some of the words (1940s handwriting, tsk!) and there were tears and laughter along the way.  His sarcasm, his dry humour and his ability to make me understand just how horrific the experience was, without going into any ‘gory detail’, reminded me that these were real men, with ordinary jobs and promising futures (on both sides) thrust into war and pain.

It seems a shame that this letter should just exist, so I’m sharing it with the world. 

200299 Lt. A O Humphreys

4th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment

BLA

Monday 16/10/44

 

My dear Glad [my nana Gladys],

 

I am extremely sorry to have delayed so long in my reply to your welcome letter, but there just hasn’t been an opportunity.

 

To Mother and Eileen [his wife] I try to make things appear as light as possible, but here I can say quite frankly that things have not been all ‘beer and skittles’ and I have seen real war, where a man’s life hangs on his ability to be just that little bit smarter than the other fellow.

 

No doubt you read the glowing account in the newspaper of how we battled our way into Le Havre.  That was a good show, and I quite enjoyed the spot of fun.  Then we chased the Boche [rascal] right across France and Belgium, having periods of fierce fighting whenever he tried to offer determined resistance, but all the time we continued forward.  Gee!  That’s a great feeling to be moving on always.  I’m not going into any gory details, but believe me Glad, it’s the weirdest life you can imagine.  Eileen and home seem to be in another world, which seems fantastically clean and decent compared with this.  Still, I’m happy and having plenty of fun.  Oh! Yes, it’s great fun to knife Boche, ‘cos they’re not human beings at all.

 

At present we are in a fairly quiet section, resting on our laurel’s and I had the luck to get a 24 hours leave back in Antwerp last week.  Can you imagine what a stupendous luxury I appeared to have – a really magnificent room (with bathroom attachment) in a first class hotel after living in holes in the ground for weeks.  I think I spent every possible minute eating ice-cream and fancy pastries – that certainly is the life.  Still, I’m not too badly off at present, but am all for getting the war over soon.

 

It’s good to know you all are keeping well, and I hope you’re having no buzz bomb problems nowadays.  No doubt you have heard that Eileen has gone to Birmingham for a while.  I don’t know which she disliked most – the bombs or the old man.

 

Please give my regards to Frederick [my grandad], and tell Brian and Doreen [my half-uncle and half-auntie] that I’m looking forward to some more fun with them soon.  I hope John [my dad, aged 2] is still doing well.  He must be a big chap now.

 

Well, I guess that’s all, so cheerio Glad, and all the very best.

 

With love, Arthur.

 

He was dead just one month later.  His obituary in the local paper stated, He will be remembered as an enthusiastic member of the Boy Scouts’ and Rovers’ groups attached to St. James’s Church, Clapton, as though that were the most important thing … *sigh* … But perhaps it was the most important thing; perhaps it proved that he wasn’t just a statistic in a rotten war.

 

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Posted in Genealogy | 6 Comments »

Dropping the name

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

Those pesky Internet Pixies have been playing with my blog … they stole my last post. 

*poof*

It’s just disappeared.  I know I wrote it.  I know it was commented upon.  Did it commit Blog Post suicide?  Is it in Blog Post Purgatory?  Or has it just gone wandering off in its own and got lost?  

Tsk, bloody Pixies. 

Valentine’s Day was lush chez KatieBlokey.  I got Cloverfield on Blu-ray, Lily O’Brien’s chocolates and wine with bubbles.  Blokey got CK One and marshmallows in the shape of hearts.  We’re just a couple of old romantics, dontcha know.

We toddled off to Nar’idge to spend the day in the company of my Baby Brother.  I used to live in Nar’idge, just down the road from the above cat, who certainly wasn’t gracing buildings when I lived there.  I had a fabulously quaint flat above a shop (a Happy Shopper owned by a man with the most pronounced Norfolk accent ever) just two minutes from the building where they used to film such delights as Trisha and The Matthew Wright Show.  Indeed, my early morning bus stop wait was always made worthwhile when Matthew Wright grinned and offered me salutations as he made his way from his (swanky) car to the building itself.  As an aside, Kate Silverton was a miserable bitch in comparison, and I never did see Trisha (fortunately.)

I’ve been back maybe three or four times since moving away in 2001.  I have a lot of sad memories of my two years spent living in one of England’s finest cities, but given the choice it’s the city I would probably choose to live in.  It possesses a vibrancy and happiness that maC lacks, and a culture that even the Town Hall steps in Gip will never be able to emulate.  The silence in some areas is almost deafening and stepping back into a bustling street can be skewy.

Besides, where else can you bump into Rick Wakeman looking like a tramp?

(Apart from everywhere else he turns up looking like a tramp, of course.)

I was introduced to the Internet whilst living in Nar’idge, and Katiefinger was (virtually) born there.   I had dozens of rats (well, two) and the most amazing hairdresser who I was sorry to leave behind.  I loved meandering along the cobbled Elm Hill and sitting by the river watching the ducks swim past.  I knew every single charity shop inside out and back to front and some pubs, too.

But that was a lifetime ago, and I can’t wallow in nostalgia for ever, so we came home and had a Chinese and beer. 

Yummy.

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Posted in Personal | 2 Comments »

Waiting for the rot to fall from the branches

Thursday, February 5th, 2009


 
Most people who know me know about my (unhealthy) obsession with all things genealogical.  In my own head I am perfectly capable of understanding why I’m so obsessed about it, and find it frustrating when other folk don’t get quite as excited as me.

I want to know where I come from. 

I want to know if my non-English ancestory is as far removed from being white as is possible (albeit perhaps just briefly … a hairdresser once told me my hair was ‘not-white’.)

I want to know whether the creative genes really come from the Workman’s and the depressive genes really come from the Shrubb’s.  I want to know whose nose I have and which long ago ancestor gave me little ears. 

I want to know the trivial little details, the aspects of my ancestors that made them think certain thoughts and behave in certain ways.  Because it’s impossible for me to find that information out I’m happy to settle for the facts that are presented to me through official documents.

My family history isn’t that interesting.  The oddest name isn’t particularly odd, it just happens to belong to a man when I would associate it with females (Fayth, 16th Century.)  My 2x Great-Grandfather was a stained glass window artist, but I don’t know which London churches he worked on.  The biggest skeleton in the family cupboard is that my 2x Great-Grandmother (on the other side) lied on her eldest daughters birth certificate (and we’re not talking little white lies … we’re talking humungous buggers) but I expect many unmarried girls did the same in the 1870s.  Another 2x Great-Grandmother was a desperately unhappy alcoholic (whose husband gave up a fairly wealthy lifestyle in order to father her many children, perhaps illigitmately.)

It doesn’t interest you, but it does interest me.  It’s little bits of history that eventually culminated in me.  I believe that to be important.

Yesterday (before the snow made its presence felt) I took Mumsy to visit the town of our ancestor Emily’s birth in 1851.  I wanted to see a house, but instead there’s just a very contemporary shopping centre (see above) in its place.  She was born in the same street as that George Vancouver chap (the one whose name graces a few cities worldwide) but I can’t claim she played with him because she was born ninety years too late for that.  But it was still fascinating. 

Did I walk in her footsteps?

Maybe I’m odd. 

One person I really ’miss’ is my grandad.  Not the grandad I knew (although of course I miss him and loved him dearly) but the grandfather I never knew, the elderly chap who married my nana (his housekeeper) when she was expecting my dad.  I would have liked to know him.  He was a frequent flier before holidays abroad became popular, flying regularly to places such as Austria and Switzerland during the 1930s.  I want to ask him if he thought that maybe one of his older boys was his youngest boys dad (my nana did have a soft spot for Jim), or if he minded the local children calling him Hitler because of his little moustache, or whether he truly did have a Swiss Bank Account (as my own father insists, but he [and I] have happily taken on my nana’s delusions.)

I will never know the answers.  I find that to be quite sad …

but terribly exciting too.

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Posted in Genealogy, Personal | 1 Comment »

Where is my snow?

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

I was promised snow today.  The weatherman looked me directly in the eyes and said there would be snow.  Later he said that the snow had come and it was causing major disruption.  I looked out of my window; there was a slight dusting of snow.  I sighed at the weatherman and waggled my finger a bit, sternly.

At work a student decided that making a miniature snowman was more fun than learning Maths.  It melted on the radiator.  We laughed (easily amused, me) when we should have been concentrating on real-life fractions.  I opened the blinds so that I could oggle the snow flurries, but the snow flurries were non-existent.  Instead there were occasional flakes, dancing in the breeze and refusing to actually reach the ground. 

But still, we were sent home.  I shan’t grumble

(much)

because it’s an afternoon off in the cosiness of my own home.  With Bailey’s.  And The Blokey got sent home too, so that was fandangly. 

Oh, some may chuckle.  But we’re not used to snow, we get it so rarely.  In other countries they put their snow tyres on in October and leave them on till March, but we don’t even know what snow tyres are. 

Now there is a steady drizzle of something.  The grass is white but the roads are soggy and full of puddles.  The snow we had in the 70s and 80s was proper snow.  This is just a pathetic attempt of something trying to be something it’s not.

*sigh*

(Not that I like snow - I tend to fracture my elbows when snow is even suggested – but if it’s going to snow I want it to put the effort in.)

I have a terrible feeling that tomorrow will see me slip-sliding to work, with the strong possibility of falling on my bottom. 

*ouch*

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Posted in On the Job, Personal | 2 Comments »

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