April Ancestral Adventures

Apologies for the recent lack of blogs. After four months, the overwhelming waves of post-Covid exhaustion are, I hope, finally abating but I still seem to be working at half speed. Apart from the gardening, of which more another time and some lovely beach-side walks, now it has, at last, decided to stop raining, there have been some family history forays.

In no particular order: I have been working on finishing off another book. This won’t see the light of day until well into next year, so I don’t want to say too much but I needed to find a case study of a Victorian midwife. This will be similar to the case studies in my Marginalised Ancestors book. Usually, you have to false start several possibilities before finding one that goes somewhere but this time I found a brilliant one first time. To be fair, I did put ‘midwife AND murder’ into the newspaper search but what a story. This lady claims to have been born in three different countries in the census returns and gave birth in a fourth country. She is also vague about her age and doesn’t always use the same forename. To add to the complications, there is another midwife, with the same, not very usual, name, well the same as one version of her name, who has a husband of the same name to boot. Once I’d realised that these were two different people I was away.

We’ve had another Forgotten Women Friday, which saw me tracing a staff member from the Fleming Children’s Hospital in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I’ve helped a member of my no longer quite so local, local history group take a dive into his ancestry and am hoping to find his ancestor’s parentage, despite the lack of a baptism.

Next, a brick wall to solve ahead of the August Devon Family History Society brick walls session. I only started this yesterday but I think I may have cracked it. It relies on signatures in marriages registers. Hopefully I can tie that one up today. Also yesterday, a history group outing to Coldridge; just possibly the resting place of Edward V aka the elder of the princes in the tower. Assuming, of course, that the ‘murdered by Richard III’, or even ‘murdered by Henry VII to discredit Richard III’ narratives are not true. The food provided by the local village ladies’ pop-up café was excellent, the company was good and the presentation in the church was thought provoking. I remain to be wholly convinced by the ‘evidence’, which is of the circumstantial variety but there are certainly several factors to consider. An interesting story if you are prepared to take it with a healthy dose of scepticism but also an open mind.

What else? I’ve led another cohort of Pharos online students through my ‘Writing up your Family History’ course. I’ve given several online talks, including the one about the Smith family of London. Excitingly, a DNA link, made just the day before, allowed another Smith descendant to attend. Mistress Agnes has chatted to a WI group meeting about her herb garden, with the bonus of being treated to an Elizabethan style meal. I’ve talked about Uproar and Disorder and Marginalised Ancestors and this weekend it is In-migration, with a dash of illegitimacy and Insanity on the horizon.

I’ve been creating a new presentation about surviving the sixteenth century, which will also be adapted to become surviving the seventeenth century. This is going to be an interactive experience. No spoilers but the audience probably won’t survive. Conversations such as, ‘bother I have six people left ……… not to worry they can get syphilis’, have been heard. Just a shame that I don’t think this one will work other than in person.

Sometimes people think speakers charge a lot for ‘one hour’s work’. Quite apart from researching and writing the talk in the first place, which will probably take several days, any speaker worth their salt will run through and tweak before every performance, checking slides, handouts and links. With this in mind, I’ve adapted my heirlooms presentation and also worked on one for the 50th anniversary of the Family History Federation, to deliver in person at their AGM. I wasn’t quite in at the beginning but I was at the 10^th anniversary, having already been involved in family history for seven years. How to make yourself feel old in one easy lesson.

I’ve had committee meetings, met up with friends and tried to learn Cornish (even after eighteen months I am still at the lots of words not many sentences stage – I did say that languages were not my forte). I’ve also had a visit from one half of my descendants, which involved extremely windy beach visits, guarding coats while they behave like ninjas (best not to ask) and building Lego, including the Lego family tree that was their birthday gift.

I guess, put like this, I’ve had a productive month but I am haunted by the twenty-five things still on the April to do list. I guess there’s always May, except I have a very full May diary (currently stands at one free evening), including a family reunion weekend and hopefully a trip to Kresen Kernow (Cornwall’s Archives), which means I need to prepare for said archive visit and then there’s the job we must not mention looming, a journal and newsletter to edit aka write much of and …. and ….. and…….   Good to keep busy I guess.

Up the Garden Path 6

We moved the shed into its new position! It was quite a performance involving crashing through undergrowth and nearly getting stuck behind the shed, as we attempted to get it as far back as possible, without knocking next door’s fence down. We had to do a bit of random shoving of bits of wood and stone under the corners to get the doors to open and close. There was plenty of ‘a bit more under this side’, ‘no a bit more under that side’, rather like cutting a fringe and trying to get things level. Getting the pipe we’d rolled the shed into position on out from underneath it was a challenge. It involved my trusty assistant manfully lifting one corner a fraction, me laying on wet gravel and risking life and fingers trying to shove the pipe sideways with a spade until it finally rolled out from under the shed. This is not the last of the shed moving saga, as it really is very wobbly and we should have constructed a better base. When we can face it, it will be emptied, moved a little and have slabs put underneath. It is also just a couple of inches too large to fit, so it does slightly cover the office window but I am going to live with that.

The shed is a must. Having just retrieved what I hope is the last lot of things from my old shed, that were being stored in a handy barn, there were a lot of diverse bits and pieces to fit in. Believe it or not, the shed contents was triaged and things were disposed of, before I moved. Nevertheless, I seem to have seven tin of brown fence paint and having just purchased two tins in sage green to repaint things, I won’t have much brown wood left, apart from the back gate. I could probably paint that every year for the rest of my life and not run out of paint.

I was asked where I would like to go to celebrate my birthday. My previous birthday was spent at a funeral, so the bar was pretty low. I opted for Trago Mills, hoping that their garden centre might provide cost effective plant, planter and potential replacement summerhouse buying options. It was Easter Sunday, so I checked online and was informed that it was open. After a forty mile drive we discovered that it wasn’t open. We were also going to walk round Stover Country Park but there was no space in the car park, so some frantic Googling of ‘garden centres near me’ ensued. The first one we tried, about six miles further on, was also shut, despite being advertised as being open. Returning to Stover to see if there was a parking space, we spotted Plants Galore, allegedly open Monday to Friday but with a discrete sign that said ‘Open Easter Sunday’. This was huge, with plants at very reasonable prices. I did go just slightly mad. Amongst the purchases was a wisteria, an apple tree, some hanging basket plants, three herbs, some lavender and tomatoes, peas and beans, because growing veg is always fun. As a bonus, we did manage to park at Stover, though the cold wind made it less pleasant that it might have been.

If you are thinking, surely she won’t have room for all those plants in her tiny garden, you would probably be right. We have investigated the lifting some of the patio option and it does seem particularly well concreted down, so I have ordered a raised bed instead. There is just enough earth beyond the patio, behind where the shed used to be, to plant the wisteria and apple tree. They are still waiting patiently because I want to paint the fence first and there hasn’t been a dry enough day to do that yet. I have also decided to go for the repairing the summerhouse option, as I prefer the shape and size of the one I have to any that are available. I am using the summerhouse as a greenhouse come potting shed. The search for fence paint and liner for the impending raised bed took me to other outlets where a clematis and some heather found their way into my trolley. So, some planting as been going on between showers but there’s still a long way to go.

Up the Garden Path 5

This is mostly the tale of two sheds but first, the other gardening news. I’ve been working on keeping the flowerbed, that has been cleared so far, in a reasonable state and I am pleased to relate that the bird table is back in situ and can be seen from my settee. The snag is that, now that it is sometimes a little warmer, I am opening the door between the living room and conservatory, which creates a different ‘view of the bird table’ obstruction. Not sure if it is best to move the bird table again or the settee. On the subject of birds, there’s been a great deal of interest in the two, very much past their best, birdboxes. I am optimistic that the great tits will be nesting in one.

I foolishly decided that it was warm enough to put the geraniums out. I don’t think I was wrong in terms of temperature. I planted them in extremely heavy concrete planters that came with the garden. Then I decided they’d prefer to be in the front garden where it is sunnier. We just about managed to move two out of three planters to the front. This was accomplished by my partner in crime lifting the ridiculously heavy planter and me running back and forth with the two concrete planter supports that each trough required, which had to be done one at a time because of their weight. This, dear friends, was not a good plan. Sunny the front garden may be but it is also exposed to easterly gales, of which we have many. Not sure about the survival rate for said geraniums and we can’t face moving the troughs back at the moment. I may be replanting any geraniums that have made it thus far.

There seems to be little professional interest in shed moving or grass reinstating and I am having second thoughts about the latter. It is very damp and shady and I fear any grass would quickly be reduced to moss or mud, so that idea is on hold. As I’ve mentioned before, removal of the wooden shed was a priority because the rain running off the roof ended up on the wall of the bungalow (for those in Australia, that’s a single story, brick-built house, not a glorified cabin). You’d think shed removal could be quite fun wouldn’t you? A few bashes with a sledge hammer and Bob’s your uncle. No such luck, my trusty assistant decided that one can never have too many sheds (note to reader – he has too many sheds) and decided that he wanted to preserve it for re-erection in his own garden. Taking it apart in a state that would potentially allow re-erection was not so simple. It seemed to have been very firmly erected, with every screw tightened with an electric screwdriver. Still, after much effort, there was a not shed where the wooden shed used to be.

At this point, in the absence of the ‘getting a man in’ option, moving the six foot by five foot six ‘tin’ (aka plastic) shed was going to wait until we had help in the form of muscles that hadn’t seen the best part of seven decades’ use (me), or eight decades in the case of the trusty assistant. We both claim that it was the other person who suggested this but somehow the sun came out this morning and it was decided (I am sure it wasn’t me) that, with the aim of some sturdy bits of tubing, we could move the ‘tin’ shed. I was particularly keen to see what was behind it and had envisaged moving it three or four feet forward so that I could investigate. Before I could draw breath, the plan changed to moving it fifty feet and turning it round through 180 degrees, so that it was almost where it needs to end up. It can’t yet be exactly where it needs to end up because it is a different shape to the now ex wooden shed and some work has to be done on a base.

Operation move the shed began. The first thirty feet were on paving slabs. Not too tricky once we’d moved random plant pots, the bird bath and various inherited garden ornaments out of the way. The shed was tipped back slightly, I risked life and fingers shoving a pipe under it, then we rolled it forward on said pipe, inserting an additional pipe when necessary. ‘This is how they built Stonehenge’, I remarked. We even managed the 180 degree swivel without too much of a problem. Then we reached the gravel. This was more complicated. As we pushed the shed forward it basically ploughed gravel up before it. It required a double tipping back whilst shoving manoeuvre. The garden now looks a total mess up one end but significantly larger at the other. The tin shed is now abandoned at the right end of the garden, waiting to go a further ten foot back and fifteen feet to the right behind the conservatory, when the base is ready. It is also on top of the hole for the rotary washing line. As I line-dry all my washing, it can’t stay there for long.

Whilst on the subject of sheds, there is also the rather battered summerhouse. I am debating whether repairing it, to give is a few years’ additional life, is worthwhile, or if I would be better going for a replacement straight away. I’ve been investigating possibilities. It seems that the same structure varies wildly in price depending where you purchase it; I some cases it can be ten times as much from one source compared to another. Some offer an installation service, which in many cases is more than the cost of the summer house. I was going to consider biting  this particular bullet but despite having had to swear never to by any more flat pack furniture ever again, it seems building a flat pack shed/summerhouse is a different matter and should be ‘simple’. Watch this space.

Reading the Signs – a family history story

This story relates to my 4x great grandfather William Seear. Marriage of cousins in two successive generations not only accounts for a great deal and makes DNA research ‘interesting’, it also means that William is my 4x great grandfather three times over. He is also an insurmountable brick wall and has been since I first discovered him more than forty years ago.

So what do I know? Ten children were baptised to William and his wife Mary between 1782 and 1797, nine in Stoke Newington, London and one middle child in neighbouring Hackney. Two of these children are my 3x great grandparents (one of them twice over). Some of the baptism records tell me that William was a shoemaker. I have William’s burial in 1821. He was buried in Stoke Newington but ‘of Hackney’ and his age at burial suggests that he was born about 1753.

There are issues with researching the Seear surname as there are so many variations. Firstly, there are the spelling variants, Sear, Seer, Seare, Seere, Seeare and all those with an ‘s’ on the end. William though rarely uses anything other than Seear. Then there are the mistranscriptions and mis-indexing errors result from reading a capital S as an L or T, giving us Leear, Teear etc. etc.. Then there are the ‘e’s that turn into ‘c’s and the ‘ee’s or ‘ea’s that become ‘u’s, so we get Scurr, Secar and other delights.

So could I find William’s marriage? The earliest baptism for one of his children, was Sarah, on 11 August 1782. There was however a burial in 1784 for a Sarah Seer, daughter of William, a shoemaker and Mary his wife, which stated that the child was seven years and ten months old, meaning that she would have been born in July 1776. Did this push the likely date of marriage for William and Mary back a few years, or did Sarah’s late baptism suggest that her parents weren’t married at the time of her birth? With Sarah’s birth established as being in 1776, there was a large gap between Sarah and the next eldest child in 1783. There was however a Thomas Seear who had been born in Stoke Newington about 1780, for whom no baptism has been found. I had long suspected that Thomas was another of William and Mary’s children and he would certainly help to fill that gap.

There is other evidence that Thomas belongs to this family, as a Thomas Seear is the witness to the marriages of two children of William and Mary, Thomas’ probable siblings. This signature is very similar to that of Thomas of Stoke Newington when he married in 1806.

According to a family bible, that is not in my possession, a T Seear was godparent to the children of another of William and Mary’s children. I also have DNA matches to Thomas’ descendants, so I am happy that Thomas is an elventh child of the family.

Back to the search for William’s marriage. The world and a large number of wives are convinced that William married Mary Stone in Aldgate in September 1776, which would be after Sarah’s birth and explain the late baptism. He didn’t. I don’t know who William’s wife was but I am as certain as I can be that she wasn’t Mary Stone.

The marriage record for William Sears and Mary Stone reveals a confident signature for William Sears.

William the Stoke Newington shoemaker witnessed the marriages of several of his children. Even allowing for the passage of years, the signatures are very different to that on the marriage to Mary Stone.

Note that no child of William and Mary, whose baptism has been found, was called William, so this is not a brother, unless there’s a missing baptism between Sarah’s birth in 1776 and Thomas’ in 1780 and I don’t believe this is the case, as there is no other evidence of a William who could be a twelfth sibling.

So no marriage for William and Mary, what about William’s origins. There are clues. One of William’s daughters marries a Seear who descends from the Seear/Sear family of St. Albans in Hertfordshire; surely there is a connection. There are several shoemakers in the St. Albans/Hemel Hempstead branch.

The Seears intermarry with the Smith family in three successive generations. The early Smiths were watermen in Ham, in Kingston, Surrey, before moving to Hackney. When searching for the Smiths, I came across the will of a Joseph Seear, a grocer of Ham, who mentions his niece and housekeeper, Charlotte Seear, his brother William Seear of Stoke Newington and a Jeremiah Smith, a waterman. Charlotte and (John) Jeremiah Smith, a waterman, are my 3x great grandparents. Another sibling mentioned in the will is a John Seear, who was a ropemaker of South Mimms. Even with three siblings to search, I am unable to find convincing parents for William. The will also refers to a brother and sister, whose surname was Steel. I feel these must be a brother-in-law and sister-in-law but I can find no marriage for Joseph to a Steel. His wife could of course have been a widow and married under another name but still there is nothing obvious in the records.

No great breakthrough in this story I’m afraid but it does illustrate that, if you have ancestors who could sign their names, looking at the signatures in marriage registers, of both the couple and the witnesses, can help to rule out the wrong entries, even if it doesn’t reveal the right ones. If anyone can find the right William Seear marriage, or the baptisms of brothers William c. 1753, Joseph c.1743 and John c. 1762, I’d be very grateful.

Up the Garden Path 4

Having acquired some plants more than a fortnight ago, rain and a bad back stopped play, so I am only just getting round to planting them. I did go to a willow weaving course to make bird feeders. This was great fun but I am not convinced by the scale of some of the feeders that resulted. Unless you have fat balls the size of footballs, or ostriches visiting the garden, I  foresee a problem. They will find a place nonetheless.

Before utilising said feeders, there was a plan to move the bird table. This was inherited and had been screwed to the wall that retains the raised bed. This is a good move, as a free standing bird table wouldn’t be standing for long when the Atlantic gales set in. Unfortunately, it was positioned so that the window frame blocked my view when sat comfortably on my settee. Not to worry, we can unscrew it and move it further along. Simples. Or not, as it turned out. Unscrewing was easily accomplished but the upright had been seriously chewed by insects. As of this moment, the bird table is lying on the ground awaiting repair and re-erection. We have put up two bird boxes that have seen better days. There isn’t much scope for birdbox positioning here  but I can hope.

I have joined the RHS and they have an app (it is probably an app) where you can add your garden plants and they you get ‘helpful’ reminders about all the million and one jobs that you should be doing each month. Gratifying that I can tick off ‘cut back winter jasmine’.

Yesterday was a glorious day so time to make more progress. The previous owners had put up a wire fence in front of the actual fence, which I think goes all the way along, we can’t get to the bit behind the ‘tin’ shed yet to check. This is all very well and great for growing climbers but it has been there for years, so some of the plants have grown round it and in a few cases the fence is firmly embedded in stems that have grown through it. This adds a whole new dimension to tackling the shrubbery. Nonetheless tackle it we did and another trailer load of winter jasmine is ready to go to the tip. Still not half way though.

Things are about to get serious as operation shed has begun. With all the rain, I discovered that the tiny wooden, gutterless shed, which is very close to the house, was causing rain to run off on to the house wall. With the amount of rain we get, this is not a good thing, so shed removal, which was always on the cards, has moved up to the top of the priority list. So far, the wooden shed has been emptied ready for removal. The next step will be to move the ‘tin’ shed to take its place but a little further from the wall. This will free up the sunniest part of the garden and I can hopefully create a flower bed. This is particularly necessary as I seem to have purchased quite a few plants that like full sun. Not sure how they will go in a garden that is really not sunny but as my mum would say, they will have two chances.

I have also, whisper it quietly, broached the topic of reinstating some lawn. This was not universally well-received and I have had to undertake the cutting of said lawn. As it will only be about 4×2 metres I can cope. In the first garden I owned, we cut a lawn that size with shears for three years. Mind you I was nearly forty five years younger then. I am still tempted by a wild flower lawn that won’t need cutting at all but not sure that that isn’t a bridge too far and dubious about its success in the shade.

We’ve started the great shrubbery clearance at the shadiest end, so some of my purchases remain in pots until we reach the end where ethe sone does venture occasionally. I have planted some foxgloves and cyclamen and risked a lupin and a clematis. I’ve repurposed one of the willow ‘bird feeders’ as an obelisk for the clematis. A honeysuckle and campanula that I brought with me have also been transferred from pot to ground. Next step will be to call in the professionals to turn some of the paving in to lawn.

RootsTech Round-up Days 2 and 3

I didn’t get the chance to watch as many presentations as I’d like on Day 2, as life got in the way but I have reduced my playlist to something more realistic, partly because some of the talks I’d earmarked are not available virtually and were live at times when I wasn’t available, or was asleep. It is great that so many can be watch online, especially as they are free of charge. So this is my round up of Days 2 and 3. I enjoyed giving my own Marginalised Ancestors talk live but remotely and thankfully the technology behaved itself. This is one that is available for you to watch when you have an hour to spare. It was so difficult to decide what to miss out and I have fun varying the categories and case studies each time I give this talk.

I watched Liz Craig’s second One-Place Studies presentation on studying a street; a great introduction and Liz’s enthusiasm is infectious. I saw the Impact Forum live, with several presenters discussing the impact of family history on resilience, metal health and a sense of identity. Also on my watch list was ‘Reconstructing the Lives of our Female Irish Ancestors’ with Stephanie O’Connell. Plenty there for those with Irish ancestry and it was good to hear the emphasis on the importance of the social historical context. I have squeezed several short, Ancestry-sponsored, case studies from television programmes into odd moments. These included Every Family has a Secret and Finding your Roots.

With my Smith ancestors in mind, I watched Shaunese Luthy’s ‘Finding your Common Name Ancestor’. She utilised the F(riends) A(ssociates) and N(eighbours) principle in her case study of the Brown family. My interest in the history of medicine meant that ‘Diseases our Ancestors Faced and how those Illnesses Changed our World’ from Gregory C Gardner, was a must-watch. This is highly recommended and covered UK and US records. I am very envious of the US mortality schedules.

‘From Research to Draft: Rapidly Writing Your Ancestor’s Story’ by Devon Noel Lee contained some interesting ideas for turning basic facts into a narrative, although using AI for this doesn’t appeal to me personally. Her marking-up technique is similar to the work that I do with my writing your family history students and I am looking forward to leading a new cohort of Pharos students through the writing process in a couple of weeks. There is still time to join in on this one.

I have some great RootsTech talks still to watch, including Nick Barrett’s ‘Researching English Industrial Labourers’. I may even catch up on some that are lingering in the playlist from previous years.

RootsTech Round-up Day 1

Day One of Rootstech is over and I have a bulging playlist that I want to work through. Fortunately, there’s plenty of time. I have to admit I do still have a few lingering in my playlist from previous years. I have my usual mix of presentations by people I know, topics that appeal and a few random additions to take me out of my comfort zone. My aim is to keep on top of the playlist so that it doesn’t get longer and longer, as I add recommendations from others.

I began with Nicholas Dixon’s ‘Metropolitan Ancestors: finding families in Georgian and Victorian London’, which contained plenty of useful information on researching in the capital and sits well with my own ‘London Calling: websites for researching London ancestry’ short presentation, which is available on demand. Next up was ‘Who’s my Ancestor? tracing individuals with similar names’ by D. Joshua Taylor. As I‘ve spent three fruitless days trying to untangle numerous Josiah Lamballs, this was very timely, although my Josiah still remains elusive. I have ruled out one of the wrong ones; perhaps more about that another time. This was an excellent presentation, essential listening for anyone with a brick wall, which is anyone who does family history. Despite the examples being from the US, the techniques described are applicable elsewhere.

I then listened to the first of Liz Craig’s One Place Study presentations ‘studying a village’, a great introduction and I even got a couple of honourable mentions; her other talk is on the list. I followed this with’ Little Known Free Sites for English Research’ by Jenny Joyce, again some synergy with my London presentation. Next, ‘Researching Modern Ancestors: unlocking the life of an English Rose’, from Diane L. Richard, which told the story of her quest to fill out the life story of her English mother and encouraged us to research our more recent ancestors, such as our parents and grandparents

I usually watch some presentations that focus on engaging young people, so I viewed ‘Toddlers to Tweens – Who doesn’t like to climb trees!’ with Megan Heyl. This was interesting and the handout had some useful charts that are worth downloading. It was more applicable to those whose ancestry encompasses an immigration story, with identifiable ancestors from a variety of countries. Finally for day one was ‘No Death Certificate’, in which Helen Smith provided a range of options when looking for evidence of death in the absence of a death certificate.

Today I am presenting live but virtually, at 8.30pm GMT, chatting about Marginalised Ancestors. I am also out helping Mistress Agnes give a live presentation so I may not have time for much watching but will report back on what I choose. You can join in the fun, for free, from home here.

Commemorating the Marginalised

Rootstech is round the corner and with it the option to see if I am related to any of the many lovely fellow-attendee family historians that I have got to know over the decades, both in person and online. Along with thousands of others, I am attending the mega international conference virtually, from the comfort of home and I’m looking forward to learning new things. As well as the ‘Relatives at Rootstech’ fun, there are options to see if you are related to famous people. Allegedly I have connections to a few. Most of these relationships are based on some seriously speculative genealogy. So, although I probably am Winston Churchill’s tenth cousin three times removed, I have serious doubts that the late queen is my 14th cousin, at least not in the way that is suggested. I suppose it would be mildly interesting to find that ‘Gateway Ancestor’ that leads back into royalty but even though I am about to enter my 48^th year of serious research I have never found that connection. Do I care? Not in the slightest. My interest is in all those ordinary ancestors whose stories will never be told unless I tell them.

I find marginalised ancestors the most fascinating of all. What circumstances led them to become stigmatised, or to find themselves on society’s fringes? Was this down to their own actions, or society’s attitudes? I love to find the lawbreakers, the sick, the poverty stricken and the ostracised on my family tree. Not in the slightest because I want to reveal their stories in some kind of version of the sensationalist press but because their lives are so caught up in the social history and mores of their times. They become much more ‘real’ as their lives are revealed and of course they may leave traces in the documentary record.

It was this interest in those that history forgets that led me to give talks on the subject and my Rootstech presentation this year is about just that. Entitled ‘Tracing your Marginalised Ancestors in Britain’, I will be delivering this remotely but live at 8.30pm GMT (London Time) on Friday 1 March. If you register you can listen for free from anywhere in the world. I believe the session may be available afterwards too but that is still to be confirmed.

A couple of years ago, as a result of a magazine article I wrote on the subject, I was delighted to be approached by Pen and Sword to write a book to help others trace their own marginalised family members. It seems like forever since I finished writing it last March but it now exists as an actual book and those who ordered pre-publication copies should be receiving them any day now. If you have ordered a copy, please do post a photo on social media when it arrives, as I love to see where in the world my books end up. I am supposed to take a photo of me with the book for publicity purposes. This endeavour is hampered by the fact that I am the least photogenic person in the world. To detract from unphotogenic me, I decided it would be a good idea to utilise some of the spectacular landscape that is on my doorstep. This of course means it needs to be dry and ideally sunny. The first attempt was Monday. Bright, rather than sunny but unfortunately also windy. My fine, baby soft hair looks windswept when the Beaufort Scale is at zero. Let’s just say this photo shoot was not a success. It may have to be the ubiquitous, in front of the library shelves shot. You can order copies directly from Pen and Sword.

On the upside though, I have just signed a contract to write another book that may be out next year, or the one after; the writing is well underway.

The study of the marginalised ties in very well with my work with the A Few Forgotten Women Team and I am looking forward to talking about Forgotten Women, in person this time, at the Alfred Gillette Trust in Street, Somerset, to celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March. A Few Forgotten Women will also have a small exhibition, tickets are available here.

Up the Garden Path 3

A drizzly Sunday morning, what better than a gardening update? This week has seen a couple of days when it was neither raining nor cold and windy, so we’ve begun to excavate the raised bed that runs the full width of the garden. At present the garden is distinctly lacking in flower planting potential so it was important to dispense with things that were no longer capable of meaningful life. Three or four large dead shrubs were destined for the chain saw and much as I like winter jasmine, I really can’t have it taking up 30% of my growing space, so that is being drastically reduced. I have been personfully assisted by my partner in crime who has sustained a minor injury during a battle with a large dead bush when chain sawing. Fortunately, he didn’t chain saw himself, so he still has the full complement of fingers. My nose did also have an unfortunate encounter with a springy dead hydrangea branch but no one said gardening was not a hazardous activity, Two trailer loads have departed for the recycling centre and we are about a third of the way along the raised bed, with still the bed down the side, which is even more overgrown, to tackle. I am really cross that my ‘before’ photos didn’t include one that really shows the state of the raised bed but never mind. I’ve included the best of the before pictures below.

There have been more discoveries, including what my RHS app tells me is a quince blossoming away like mad. I am very excited by that. There is honeysuckle, which I do want, climbing all over unidentified definitely dead stuff, which I don’t; untangling the two won’t be easy. There is now space to plant some of the things on my ‘plants I want list’. Sadly, I am not sure that all of the things on the wanted list are going to fit but I am going to do my best. I did purchase half a dozen primulas this week. Two have been planted in a hedgehog (one of the many ornaments inherited from the previous owner – along with the elephant also pictured). The others are in a concrete planter – one of four left behind. I was going to move this to the front garden but it needs someone stronger than me on one end, as it is ridiculously heavy.

After a great deal of measuring, remeasuring and false starts, the plan I was attempting to draw is sort of done, not helped by the lack of right angles in the garden, nor me failing to realise at first that the bungalow is not set parallel to the back fence. At the very least the edges join up now. You can also totally ignore the dimensions in my previous post, where I was clearly so overwhelmed by too much gardening to be able to add up. The plot behind the house is now officially 22 feet deep and 60 feet wide, so twice the size I was claiming – 146 square yards or 120 square metres ish. You do still have to allow for the fact that the conservatory takes up a fair bit of space, compensated for by the weird shaped gap between the garage and the bungalow. Apart from a three foot deep bed long the 60 foot side and down one of the short sides, every last bit is currently paved.

Now I am excited to try to purchase some of the plants on my list to fill the spaces we’ve made. Plenty of fork wielding needed first as the soil is compacted and full of winter jasmine root. A few brave bulbs have been revealed, so I am waiting to see what they are.

A Bit about Grass but Nothing to do with Gardening

There is life beyond the garden. I am three talks in to an eight talks in eight days marathon. Why did this seem like a good idea at the time?

Then, last weekend, we braved drizzle and bracing winds to take part in a harvest mouse survey in the nearby country park. Given that I had barely moved further than from chair to bedroom since New Year (thanks Covid), we decided to drive to the car park rather than walk, as we normally would have done. We had studied the risk assessment – we were therefore aware that we night get hit by a golf ball (it is near the golf course), or get sand in our eyes, or get kicked by a horse, or get spiked by spiky grass. Spoiler alert, none of these calamities befell us. A couple of dozen intrepid volunteers set out to ferret around in clumps of grass, on muddy terrain, looking for last year’s abandoned nests. As you can see from the photograph, these are pretty jolly tricksy to spot, yet within about thirty seconds one was found. As usual our luck with wildlife, or even evidence of wildlife, was out so, although we didn’t find any, in all the team located ten, a significant increase from last year, which bodes well for the population of our second smallest native mammal. Having wandered a couple of miles across the country park in our quest, we were very glad we’d decided to take the car, especially as, by the time we’d finished, the drizzle was seriously persisting and the wind was positively howling.

What’s this with the grass? You might well ask. Well, deep breath and bear with. In the new house the former garage has been converted into two rooms. What has become known as the ‘posh’ half has double glazed patio doors leading on to the garden and a smart light fitting. The un-posh aspect was the flooring, which was very bumpy, painted concrete and I clearly needed a floor covering. I wasn’t up for spending a fortune on a room that isn’t really part of the house, so I investigated the options. What might be described as a glorified shed really wasn’t suited to cream, deep-pile carpet, so I was looking for something rather more hard-wearing and dirt resistant. I headed off to the local carpet shop, thinking I might get some form of coir or jute matting. The first problem was that carpet tends to come in four metre widths. The room was 2.6 metres square, so I’d be paying for a lot that I wouldn’t be needing. They could order me the sort of thing I was thinking of but it would, at nearly £400, be a tad over budget. I looked at the remnants but again may of these were larger than I needed. Then my eye alerted upon a fake grass offcut. Hard wearing, cheap, fitting for what may become a garden room when it is no longer required for toy storage for visiting grandchildren.

I headed to the check out. Firstly my partner in crime asks if he qualifies for a staff discount. The assistant asks how long ago he worked for that establishment. He truthfully admits that it was fifty eight years, to be told his qualification for a staff discount must have expired the previous day! She tactfully describes my choice as ‘unusual’. I didn’t tell her that she was speaking to a woman who once papered a room with rolls of brown wrapping paper. A couple of days later the carpet was duly fitted and that’s another space almost sorted. The shelves still need to be arranged but I am pleased with the result. I’ll draw a veil over the condition of the adjoining half a garage, which currently contains everything that won’t fit in the roof or anywhere else.

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