And I can trace my history...
...to one of our submarines.
One of my all-time favourite films is Blazing Saddles. Watch out for the nod to it later on in this post.
I haven't previously been too concerned with my family history. My grandfather on my father's side was a worker in a castle in Kent, who lived in a tied cottage and worked his way up to become Head Gardener, so in a way that makes my new career a move which closes the circle. My father was taught piano by one of the maids at the castle, then taught himself the church organ, and rose to moderately lofty intellectual heights before dying early of cancer. I haven't risen so high, and am now not even as high as head gardener, but I can always hope.
The only strange thing I knew about my grandfather was that he was wounded in the leg by a bayonet during a charge in the first world war. The reason I say that was strange was that he was a conscientious objector, and served as a stretcher bearer. However, a bit of research showed that the stretcher bearers went over the top with their less-conscientious pals and ran forwards through the wire and bullets without even a gun to fire back with.
One of my brothers has been far more diligent in his research on the history behind my father's side of the line, and has found that we descend from one of the signatories to the death-warrant for Charles the First, so we can count regicide amongst our traits. This ancestor was also clever enough to die before Charles the Second could exact revenge on those who ordered the pruning of his father's head, so I'm going to add a sense of timely departure to the traits of the line too.
On my mother's side, things were less clear. There was a hint of Welsh ancestry somewhere in the past, so that added to the list "Short, dark and hairy, and always sings flat". I hope not, but then you can't choose your past, you either learn to live with it, or try to forget it.
My mother had discovered a possible long-lost cousin a few years ago. I remember vaguely hearing something about it and losing interest rapidly because of a pre-occupation with motorsport. But I got a chance to meet this other side of the line last weekend, when long-lost relative came to stay with mother for a few days and we all went out for a meal.
I sat there across the table from her, thinking that she didn't look Welsh at all, not realising just how much worse it was going to get. She and my mother had each been trying to research their past, and had each gone back through the records to find a certain-named person in Gainsborough in 1840 or thereabouts. Originally believing they were much closer than it actually transpired, they got in contact with each other and made a trip to Gainsborough to examine the church records. There, they discovered that they actually descended from two brothers, each having the same name as the other, but differing in ages by about five years. They were part of a family which fled Ireland after the great potato blight.
Oh no, not the Irish! (There's the nod).
I perked up at the Gainsborough connection and mentioned I had sojourned not far North of there for a few months. I named the village and long-lost relative confirmed that she knew it. We agreed that it wasn't the best of the fenland villages, but by no means the worst.
She had, it seems, bought a pub in Lincolnshire some years ago, intending to turn it into a restaurant. The man who had owned the pub also owned some nearby land which he had turned into a caravan park, to which he now retreated, leaving this lady with the pub, her plans, and a condition that he would not develop a clubhouse in the caravan park which might compete against the established business of the pub.
Her first two weeks went well enough, until a bank holiday weekend. Then, she found the pub overwhelmed by miners and steelworkers bringing their families from Sheffield and Rotherham for a weekend break in the caravan park. They played darts all day long, with their dogs on leashes tethered to chairs snapping and lunging at each other across the narrow spaces seperating the tables. Their children took over the function room and snapped and lunged at each other across the tables and seats, effing and blinding amidst the splutter of exploding bottles of pop. Their wives took over the public bar, laughing loudly in between occasional spats when small groups of them would snap and lunge at other small groups, effing and blinding almost as well as the children in the adjacent room. Through all of this trooped fishermen in muddy wellingtons coming in from the nearby gravel pits for half-pints of mild and the odd plate of fish and chips.
She took stock after the weekend debris was cleared away, and wondered about her dream of a restaurant with a named chef and suave patrons. The first signs began to go up; No Children, No Dogs, and No Fishermen. That caused a mild complaint, and was negotiated downwards to No Wellingtons, and it became easy to spot a certain type of person in the pub on account of their feet, clad only in socks.
She had got all of these measures in place for the next bank holiday weekend, anticipating a few explanations, but feeling confident that she would smooth it all over. The weekend came and went, and on the whole, or at least by most of the patronage, her new conditions had been accepted peacefully; but she found herself faced with having to put up one further sign, or take other measures. The sign would have read No Women.
Think back to the Celebrity Big Brother fiasco last year, when England and India nearly stopped talking to each other. Who was it caused all the trouble? Not Leo Sayer, not any of the males, bar perhaps one, and he was easily lead, or at the very least as forced to follow a certain allegiance. It does explain why so many Working Men's clubs forbade ladies. They just don't know how to argue mildly, or when to shut up and let it go.
As it was, she found a better way out of the problem. after a few discussions with the ex-owner, the clause forbidding him from opening a clubhouse nearby was withdrawn by mutual consent. She got her restaurant, they got their club with dartboards, children's room, and dog-lunging avenues. Perhaps that's an illustration of the luck of the Irish. As it was, I found myself admiring her for her sheer bloody-mindedness in taking over a successful pub and effectively wrecking it in order to do what she felt like doing instead.
Perhaps I should accept my Irish ancestry gracefully after all. If nothing else, they have produced three of my most admired literary men, James Joyce, J P Donleavy, and Flann O'Brien..
One of my all-time favourite films is Blazing Saddles. Watch out for the nod to it later on in this post.
I haven't previously been too concerned with my family history. My grandfather on my father's side was a worker in a castle in Kent, who lived in a tied cottage and worked his way up to become Head Gardener, so in a way that makes my new career a move which closes the circle. My father was taught piano by one of the maids at the castle, then taught himself the church organ, and rose to moderately lofty intellectual heights before dying early of cancer. I haven't risen so high, and am now not even as high as head gardener, but I can always hope.
The only strange thing I knew about my grandfather was that he was wounded in the leg by a bayonet during a charge in the first world war. The reason I say that was strange was that he was a conscientious objector, and served as a stretcher bearer. However, a bit of research showed that the stretcher bearers went over the top with their less-conscientious pals and ran forwards through the wire and bullets without even a gun to fire back with.
One of my brothers has been far more diligent in his research on the history behind my father's side of the line, and has found that we descend from one of the signatories to the death-warrant for Charles the First, so we can count regicide amongst our traits. This ancestor was also clever enough to die before Charles the Second could exact revenge on those who ordered the pruning of his father's head, so I'm going to add a sense of timely departure to the traits of the line too.
On my mother's side, things were less clear. There was a hint of Welsh ancestry somewhere in the past, so that added to the list "Short, dark and hairy, and always sings flat". I hope not, but then you can't choose your past, you either learn to live with it, or try to forget it.
My mother had discovered a possible long-lost cousin a few years ago. I remember vaguely hearing something about it and losing interest rapidly because of a pre-occupation with motorsport. But I got a chance to meet this other side of the line last weekend, when long-lost relative came to stay with mother for a few days and we all went out for a meal.
I sat there across the table from her, thinking that she didn't look Welsh at all, not realising just how much worse it was going to get. She and my mother had each been trying to research their past, and had each gone back through the records to find a certain-named person in Gainsborough in 1840 or thereabouts. Originally believing they were much closer than it actually transpired, they got in contact with each other and made a trip to Gainsborough to examine the church records. There, they discovered that they actually descended from two brothers, each having the same name as the other, but differing in ages by about five years. They were part of a family which fled Ireland after the great potato blight.
Oh no, not the Irish! (There's the nod).
I perked up at the Gainsborough connection and mentioned I had sojourned not far North of there for a few months. I named the village and long-lost relative confirmed that she knew it. We agreed that it wasn't the best of the fenland villages, but by no means the worst.
She had, it seems, bought a pub in Lincolnshire some years ago, intending to turn it into a restaurant. The man who had owned the pub also owned some nearby land which he had turned into a caravan park, to which he now retreated, leaving this lady with the pub, her plans, and a condition that he would not develop a clubhouse in the caravan park which might compete against the established business of the pub.
Her first two weeks went well enough, until a bank holiday weekend. Then, she found the pub overwhelmed by miners and steelworkers bringing their families from Sheffield and Rotherham for a weekend break in the caravan park. They played darts all day long, with their dogs on leashes tethered to chairs snapping and lunging at each other across the narrow spaces seperating the tables. Their children took over the function room and snapped and lunged at each other across the tables and seats, effing and blinding amidst the splutter of exploding bottles of pop. Their wives took over the public bar, laughing loudly in between occasional spats when small groups of them would snap and lunge at other small groups, effing and blinding almost as well as the children in the adjacent room. Through all of this trooped fishermen in muddy wellingtons coming in from the nearby gravel pits for half-pints of mild and the odd plate of fish and chips.
She took stock after the weekend debris was cleared away, and wondered about her dream of a restaurant with a named chef and suave patrons. The first signs began to go up; No Children, No Dogs, and No Fishermen. That caused a mild complaint, and was negotiated downwards to No Wellingtons, and it became easy to spot a certain type of person in the pub on account of their feet, clad only in socks.
She had got all of these measures in place for the next bank holiday weekend, anticipating a few explanations, but feeling confident that she would smooth it all over. The weekend came and went, and on the whole, or at least by most of the patronage, her new conditions had been accepted peacefully; but she found herself faced with having to put up one further sign, or take other measures. The sign would have read No Women.
Think back to the Celebrity Big Brother fiasco last year, when England and India nearly stopped talking to each other. Who was it caused all the trouble? Not Leo Sayer, not any of the males, bar perhaps one, and he was easily lead, or at the very least as forced to follow a certain allegiance. It does explain why so many Working Men's clubs forbade ladies. They just don't know how to argue mildly, or when to shut up and let it go.
As it was, she found a better way out of the problem. after a few discussions with the ex-owner, the clause forbidding him from opening a clubhouse nearby was withdrawn by mutual consent. She got her restaurant, they got their club with dartboards, children's room, and dog-lunging avenues. Perhaps that's an illustration of the luck of the Irish. As it was, I found myself admiring her for her sheer bloody-mindedness in taking over a successful pub and effectively wrecking it in order to do what she felt like doing instead.
Perhaps I should accept my Irish ancestry gracefully after all. If nothing else, they have produced three of my most admired literary men, James Joyce, J P Donleavy, and Flann O'Brien..
posted by Sopwith-Camel | 12:14 pm
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