Sadly I am now finding out things about my mother, father and grandparents that I didn't know when they were alive. For instance I was aware that my grandfather, who died before I was born and whom I obviously never met, had a sister. But I never realised that Laura Dew was alive for the first four years of my own life. I was never aware of this and my mother and grandmother never spoke about her. indeed I was of the opinion that she had died as a young girl but I now realise that she not only lived into her late 70s but was married with at least one son.
It seems incredible to me that nobody ever spoke of her, although they never mentioned my grandfather much either and now I'm trying to piece together the pieces to make up a rather large jigsaw of family life. I have got a number of things wrong including the fact that I always thought my mother was born in Great Yarmouth but this week, with a simple search that I had never bothered to do before, I find that she was born in Cardiff Street in Norwich. I assume that in the year of her birth which would have been 1921 most births would have been at home. So I now have an address to visit. I know that my mother was christened in Holy Trinity Church in Trinity Street in Norwich which is just a stone's throw from where she lived.
All the time I knew my grandmother, she lived in Rupert Street which is also very close to Cardiff Street. Somehow between living in Cardiff Street and Rupert Street my grandmother and grandfather ran a fish and chip shop in Woodcock Road. I know nothing about this either but it has given me plenty to research.
It amazes me that my parents and grandparents had so much information about the lives that they never imparted to anyone. Today it's a very different story. So many of us leave details of our lives and events that will be readily available to all descendants. In the past this was not the case however and as a result we have lost so much first hand information on the two world wars and what life was like in the late 19th and early 20th century. It does mean, however, that we have the enjoyment of researching their lives as best we can and putting together a kind of biography of what went before us.
My grandparents could have given me first hand knowledge and memories of their own grandparents which would have meant I could have gone back four generations and the people who were my ancestors would have come alive much better than they do through researching documents and on the internet. I could have learned how they spoke, how they dressed, what they did for a living and what kind of people they were.
It is difficult to comprehend that when Norwich was being bombed during the war in what became known as the Baedecker Raids. My mother would have been in her early twenties and probably could have remembered the bombs falling over Norwich. This was a piece of important history that she never mentioned to me.
I received an interesting message following my comments about Carol services. Doesn't memory play tricks on us? One of my regular readers AB reminded me of a rather dubious appearance at a carol service in Hethersett.
Every year in those days now long gone, the local schools put on a joint service and this particular year Hethersett Old Hall School, Hethersett High School, Hethersett Middle School and Hethersett Woodside Junior School shared the service which would have been in our Parish Church. Apparently according to AB I did a reading in a broad Norfolk accent whilst wearing a Norwich City green and yellow scarf. I cannot remember a thing about this which is surprising because I seem to remember most of the things that have happened in my past. I will be searching my diary around the relevant times to try and find something as AB points out that it was during my time as chairman of governors of the middle School, which means he is probably correct .
I do remember one particular service in the parish church when I was asked to be part of the Rector's sermon. The Rector at the time was the Rev Di Lammas and she asked me if I would be part of that sermon. She asked if, during her talk I would make my mobile phone go off and would stand up and talk into it in a very loud voice pretending that I had been called out on some pretext or other. Her message was a simple one that people's lives were far too busy to reflect on themselves or others. So I activated my own phone, stood up and spoke very loudly into it and then turned round and hurried out of the church. Of course it was all part of the talk and I soon returned as she explained that I wasn't really being rude.
I did this kind of thing to good effect also in a talk to a men's group at the Methodist Church. I wanted to illustrate the importance of listening to others irrespective of whether you agreed with them. A friend who was in on this at a certain point was primed to ask me a question which upset and annoyed me. I pretended to be angry and stormed out of the room.
I stood close to the door so that I could see and hear what was going on and they seemed shocked at what I had done. I heard someone in the room say "what are we going to do now?"
I have to say I had a little titter and if you've ever had a little titter you will know how I felt. Of course once again I went back into the room and explained just what had happened and why I had put on mock anger. Both of these things were fun to do but also had a serious message.
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I have been having fun with a Facebook page about Coronation Street which you all know I have watched since it started in December 1960. This Facebook page is dedicated to comments and discussion about the soap. Many contributors seem to feel that it is real life and not just a play. They often ask questions like "why did he or she act in that way?" or "Why did he or she behave in that manner?" My answer is always the same, "it's because the script writers decided that they would."
It always amuses me when they warn before the programme starts that some viewers might find some scenes upsetting. Again I want to shout out "it's not real life."
Anyway one of the characters Fizz Brown has been out of the show for quite some time which is due to the fact that in real life the actress has had a baby. In the programme she has moved to Norwich with work connected with the Underworld knicker factory. People on the Facebook site have asked why she would go to Norwich and why she didn't come home at the weekends. I was able to point out that we do not have a knicker factory in Norwich which means basically that we all go knickerless down here.
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I have long learnt that I have to allow much more time to do anything in the village because I'm always being stopped by people I know which is great and something I love. Take yesterday for example. I spent quite a bit of the morning addressing Christmas cards and needed to go to the Post Office which just happens now to be in the library. I needed 36 second class stamps and so, after taking out a mortgage, I grasped the nettle, purchased the stamps and sat and stuck them on the envelopes. There were a number of people to chat with and it all took much longer than I expected. It did mean I still had a short while before meeting my mate Mel at the Queen's Head for a much later lunch than normal. Usually we meet up at midday but today we could only get a table for 1.30, not that we were complaining as it's good to see business booming with Christmas parties.
One of the Post Office volunteers was somebody I've known virtually since moving to the village and we talked about our family and hers and received the good news that her son has just been appointed head of a school in North Yorkshire where he has lived for many years. We talked about Yorkshire in general and then she went to look after somebody in the post office. I started reading a book, when a complete stranger started talking about Yorkshire and just mentioned that she came from Liverpool or had lived in Liverpool, I'm not sure which. So we got talking about Liverpool and The Beatles and Shane McGowan of The Pogues and much much more. She reckoned that Norfolk people are nowhere near as friendly as people up north. I told her this wasn't necessarily so and illustrated this by having to hurry down the road to get to the pub for the allotted time after spending some time chatting to her. It's great how you can have a really interesting conversation with somebody you've never met before.
And that as they say is certainly enough for today. Tomorrow it's back to Carrow Road for football. I know a number of people who have been trying to get rid of tickets for this game and haven't been successful. That is a comment on the dubious football that we are seeing at the moment. Let's hope things improve today. Before going to the football we must buy a Christmas tree before it's too late. We always buy a natural tree from the local farm and just hope they have some left. People do seem to be buying them earlier and earlier.