The old boy: Sepia Saturday 165

This photograph was in my mother's collection. All the other photos were carefully named but this one had a question mark by it. "Who's he?" I said. "I don't know who the old boy is", she replied, "nan couldn't remember either, some relative of Tom's (my grandather)".

I know my grandfather's family were originally from Merthyr Tydfil, in South Wales and the family names were Price and Welch. That's all I know.

The photograph was taken at The Penton Studio in Pentonville Road and I have been able to locate some in a similar style here. They would suggest a date of between 1895 and 1903 and a photographer called Wilhlem Goebellhof.

Tom and the bird: Sepia Saturday 164

 

 

 

The prompt for this week shows an Australian soldier looking intently at his tortoise. It reminded me instantly of this picture of my grandfather.

 

 

I absolutely love this photo, and I present it to you as it was found; faded, wonky, tattered and blurred.  It shows him in just his vest, hair uncombed, staring intently at his budgerigar. He is standing by the back window, looking out into the garden as the sun streams in.

I can't remember the name of the budgie, in fact I think he had a few over the years and at least one of them could speak and sing. My grandfather loved music so I think he enjoyed teaching the budgie to sing along with him! On one occasion my father looked after it for a week or so while my grandparents were on holiday and it came back with a slightly fruiter vocabulary, much to the annoyance of my grandmother!

Although it was interesting to discover more about my grandfather's life as a younger man, this is the grandfather that I remember; the sensitive, quiet, slightly nervous budgerigar loving, gardening, pipe smoking man, who spent his whole life with my grandmother. I think she must have taken this photo and that's probably why she kept it all those years. They were completely devoted to each other and had been together all their lives, starting as childhood friends, marrying in their twenties and staying together until he died. Tom never did know how many sugars he took in his tea! A true love story of the time, as I don't know whether those types of relationships are so common now.

The relationships between humans and their animals are fundamental. They help to keep us sane, in touch with nature and the world, and by their very non-humaness keep us in touch with our own humanity.

Here is my more modern contribution to Valentine's day!
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Snow is snow: Sepia Saturday 163

This picture is taken from the begining (or end) of the South Downs overlooking Eastbourne. It was a Sunday afternoon and it shows kids and their parents playing in the snow.

It isn't that old! (You can see the original here). I have just been playing around with it to make it look old, because the truth is, I am not sure that the scene would have been that different 50 years ago. Maybe the town wouldn't have looked quite so big in the background; maybe the jackets and clothes would have looked a bit different, but essentially when the snow comes to Eastbourne everyone goes out to play. They grab whatever they have to hand to use as a sledge and get out there! There's a footpath that goes from the golf course to the base of the downs and after a few people have been down on their sleds it becomes like the cresta run! Walking is more dangerous than sliding!

It doesn't snow very often on the South coast and when it does it makes the news. This was an old postcard I found here. It shows Eastbourne after 'the Great Blizzard of 1908'. The seafront looked much the same after the snow of 2010!

Water

 

 

Sunday was dry for the first time in ages, so we returned to the lake for a walk. The water levels have risen considerably and if it rises another 3 metres it will be full for the first time in several years.

 

 

 

 

It still has a way to go though!

 

Discovering my grandfather: Sepia Saturday 162

I have gone with the 'men in hats or uniform' theme this week and actually trying to uncover some of the puzzles behind the photograph has been very interesting.

Thomas Welch and friends

The man on the right was my grandfather, and this photograph was taken during the Second World War, sometime in the early 1940s I would guess, when he was in his early 40s. I knew that he did something in London during the blitz, but I never really knew what. However, there were a few clues in the photo.



The first clue is the letters on the cuff of the uniform; ARP. This stood for 'Air Raid Precautions' and was an organisation set up just prior to the outbreak of WW2 with the aim of protecting civilians from the dangers of air raids. They were responsible for issuing gas masks, air raid shelters and managing and enforcing the 'blackout'. Volunteer air raid wardens were recruited to do this, and at first I thought that this was what my grandfather had done. However, when I looked for photos of ARP wardens the unforms didn't look quite the same.

 

Clue number two came from the hat. Wardens had tin hats, but this one looked rather different.

 

 

 

 

 

Further investigation lead me to this:

 

 

This is the uniform from the St John's Ambulance and you can see my grandfather sporting a uniform very similar to that of 1950. During WW2 The St John's Ambulance volunteers acted as ARP ambulance attendants, and their job was to aid casualties, search for survivors and remove dead bodies.

 

What struck me from the photo was that despite this gruesome job, they all look quite cheerful and they look impecably smart! No sign of a high visabilty jacket anywhere! My grandfather did take this role quite seriously and he would have done this in evenings, after doing his day job as a postman.

 

Story of a shopkeeper: Sepia Saturday 161

This is a picture of my father Arthur, although I never knew him when he looked like that!  By the time we were born he was older and more mature and not one to want his photo taken!  He was, however, still a shopkeeper and for the first two years of my life we lived in the flat above the shop where he worked.

I can't remember whether it was the flat above what is now the estate agents (the yellow fronted buidling) or the launderette. At the time it was a grocers shop and I'm sure I remember my father calling it 'Perks', although I can find no record of such a store. He also mentioned it being called 'Liptons' (as in the tea) and Liptons was part of a chain of stores that formed Allied Suppliers. 

My father started as a grocer's boy when he was 14 or 13 years old and by the time he was 18 was one of the youngest shop managers in London. He worked in stores all over North and Central London, before settling down to this store, in Canons Corner, near  Stanmore. In the early 1960s it was still an old fashioned grocers shop, with a service counter, a manager and a host of shop assistants. My father always muddled up the names of the girls that worked for him! When he married my mother he used to sometimes call her by the names of his employees as well, which did not go down too well!  However times were changing, the supermarkets were coming,and the small grocers shops were no longer profitable. The Canons Corner store was closed and he was  moved to various stores around North and West London, usually for a year or two, as a temporary measure. Finally in 1972 Allied Supplies was taken over by Caversham foods, and about that time my father was made redundant, after more than 40 years of service. He finished off his working life as a security guard in the British Library.

Caversham foods was eventually sold to Safeways and in recent years the Morrison's group. My father had a pension from them, which he left to my mother after he died. It was a tiny amount as a widow's pension, but he always laughed about it before his death, as my mother was much younger than him and they ended up having to pay it out for 26 years!

Cold weather and hot water

I have to report another milestone in our housebuilding project, and that is the installation of permanent hot water. Since arriving we have been heating water using a very small 15 litre hot water tank; the kind you use in a caravan. It has been adequate and we have managed to heat up enough water for a quick shower or a bowl of washing up, but it was inconvenient. With the arrival of our permanent electricity supply we were able to think about our permanent supply. After much debate we decided to opt for something Ian tells me is called a 'thermo-dynamic water heater'.

Basically it is a small heat pump that extracts excess heat from the house and used it to heat up a 150 litre water tank. Ian saw a bargain on 'Le Bon Coin' and it arrived before Christmas. However there were a few glitches with the installation and it was not properly installed until this week. After a few days to 'run in' we are now enjoying the luxury of warm water from all the hot taps, showers where you don't have to turn off the water half way through to ensure you don't run out, and not having to wait 40 minutes for the water to warm up before we can take a shower. As you can see from the picture, it's a big thing!

It seems to have arrived just in time as the cold weather has arrived. It isn't as bad as in England at the moment but we did have some snow overnight and lots and lots of heavy rain. The bottom field, where we walk the dog, was flooded this morning and the river was completely full and had burst it's banks in places. Normally it is a small trickle at the bottom but when full it is between 1.5-2 metres deep.

Sepia Saturday 160

A more difficult one this time; to find an old photo where the background is more interesting than the subject. I don't think that I have quite succeeded. Firstly it isn't sepia, secondly it isn't that old (from 1985) and thirdly for me the people in the foreground are an important part of the story.

 

The woman in the photo is Loris. She is from Minnesota and she was my mother's American penfriend for close to 65 years. They met on two occasions. The first time was in the 1960s when Loris came to London and stayed with us. We took her to see all the sights and it was probably the only time we got to see them ourselves. We walked over London and Bridge and at the time it must have looked a bit like this.

 

 



 

This is the only picture I could find of it from the 1950s (it was being sold on Ebay)!

In 1967 the bridge was replaced by a new one and the old one was carefully demolished and sold to Arizona. Rumour has it they thought they were getting the more iconic Tower Bridge.

Loris and her husband made a point of visiting it again, in its new location and sent the photos to my mother to show her!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the back of the photos she scribbled the following:

 

Loris and Oliver, October 1985, London Bridge, Lake Havasu, Arizona.

The sky

I seem to spend a lot of time looking at and photographing the sky. It really is rather spectacular here although I suspect that is just that we have nothing getting in the way of the view. This was the scene a couple of evenings ago. It had been cloudy and grey all day and the weather was just breaking.



January 2013

Directions

2013 has got off to a sluggish start in terms of blogging, but in fact most of last year was a little slow. My postings appear to have dwindled to 2-3 a month and have mainly focused on progress reports of the house interrupted by dealing with the death of my mother.

So, it's the time of year to reflect on where the blog is going for the next 12 months. I discovered Sepia Saturday and like the idea of contributing to it for the next year. I have 'inherited' a whole load of family photos from my mother and at the moment they are sitting in a big box. Some have been scanned but there are lots more! I have always liked the idea of recording family history. Who knows but someone might find it interesting and of value in the future, and if not I will just enjoy the telling! However, I don't want the blog to become just a reflection on the past, so I will try and also keep posting updates and thoughts on the present. I might try and make them more visual by incorporating more of my own photos, as I practise with my new camera.

So, here's looking forward to a new year in colour, sepia and maybe even some black and white!

Sepia Saturday

I found this blog the other day and decided to have a go! This is a picture of my Grandmother on holiday!


Thanks for all the comments. I'm getting the hang of this now and realise the idea is to write something to accompany the picture!

We did not find this photo until after my grandmother died. I would guess she would have been about 16 years old and it was probably taken about 1910. I don't know where it was exactly but I would guess somewhere like Brighton or Southend. They lived in London and wouldn't have travelled much further for a holiday.

We (my sister and I) giggled when we saw this photo. Nan had always been rather short and stout, but delighted in telling us that when she was a young girl her waist was so tiny you could get your hands right round it!

I will also visit all your posts and add some comments so be patient with me while I am learning the ropes!

Happy Christmas 2012

Hi friends and family and anyone else who happens to be passing by. I don't normally send out one of those Christmas letters with my cards, but if anyone is interested then I post a link to this page, where I summarise the year, thus saving on paper and postage and ensuring that only those who really want to know what we have been doing actually have to read it!

This year started with 'more of the same' I suppose. The building project continues. January saw us making progress with the garage. It was cold but sunny and we managed to get the wall structure built before February, when we were hit by the coldest winter in 45 years. Snow is pretty unusual here but we had up to a metre of snow and temperatures that never got above -8 for two weeks. Needless to say, everything ground to a halt and it became a full time job to keep warm on our 3 kw temporary electricity supply! It finally thawed in March and we were able to get the roof on, the windows in, the doors in and covered with a weatherproof membrane. Unfortunately that is as far as we have got as other things have taken priority! What we were able to do was to finally move all of our possessions here and on the same piece of land in the same country..Some day in the future we may actually be able to unpack them all!

Other progress has been opening up the kitchen and living room and completing the electrical work so that finally, as of 4 weeks ago we have had a proper electricity supply. Next job is to put in a proper hot water system so that we can have more than 15 litres of hot water at a time! It arrives next week!

Of course in all of this we have also had to earn some money and so my work has continued at Bordeaux and Ian(sic) has been starting up his handyman business with a few jobs for other people.

Just as we were in full flow over the summer, my mother had a stroke. I was summoned to UK and spent the period of the Olympic games by her bedside. She didn't really make much recovery and died 3 weeks later, so there has been a fair bit of going back and forth before and after and no doubt more to come next year as we get on with 'sorting' things. I am doing fine but obviously have my sad moments, particularly because she never got to see our house in its finished state. My brother was also just in the final stages of his mammoth building project as well and starting a new job, so it was a stressful time for us all.  Their project was featured on Grand Designs. You can see it here. Bear in mind it is carefully edited for TV!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvMJeoTZn6o

The dog has been in our lives all year, going from being a complete and utter pain, to the best dog in the world on a regular basis. He learns quickly, but unfortunately he doesn't always learn the right things! He also proved to be an obnoxious teenager, constantly challenging for top position but also being nervous! In the end we decided to get him castrated, and that is beginning to prove to be the right decision, as the hormone levels have reduced and there are now channels of communication with him. I reckon another year and we may have cracked it! We are also considering getting another dog, as he is just one of those dogs that is so much better when he has a dog to relate to rather than a human.

Other tasks this year have included trying to get to grips with French bureaucracy, in that we registered the car, I changed my drivers licence to a French one, we filled in tax forms, and finally we both registered as small businesses. That in itself took several days of work, but stage one of our 'integration' has started.

On a less positive note my aatempts to improve my French have stagnated a bit. A summer of speaking English has not helped; so maybe that will be my New Years resolution and my goal for 2013. This, along with a list of jobs, that if we really started to think about them would make us panic, plus trying to earn the odd shilling to keep us going will no doubt keep me well and truly busy!

So, Happy Christmas to you all and best wishes for 2013. If anyone is around the aea do pop in!

Pictures with my new camera

Today we went for a walk around 'the lake'. I say 'lake' because it has been dry now for over a year and the recent rain hasn't really helped. We walked along the old river bed with the dog. As you can see it was a lovely day and I played with the camera!

The top lake

Dog playing in the puddle in the 'big lake'

Remains of trees along old river course

Man and dog

Drying off

Deer

There are quite a few deer around at the moment. I took this picture yesterday morning, just before we took the dog for a walk. There were five stopping off for a bite to eat in the field.

Yesterday, on my way to the shops, I had to brake suddenly to avoid hitting three that ran out in front of the car and this morning I was walking the dog in the bottom field and he suddenly caught sight of something in the distance. Before I could say "Gremlin come here you little sh*t" he had gone. In a flash he had crossed over the stream, through the field the other side and up into the woods. I saw his tail bobbing up and down a bit and then he disappeared from view. He has done this before but normally once the deer have run off he comes back. This time I was calling for 20 minutes, unable to cross the stream myself. Ian left his work to come and look for him the other side of the river. After about half an hour we caught sight of him following a scent home. He approached Ian, turned to look at him as if to say 'it's this way' and then carried on, appearing by my side 5 minutes later, exited, wet but rather tired. By this time Ian and I were soaked and not it in the best of moods. It was good to see that he came back eventually but worrying as once he catches sight of a deer no amount of recall training will break his focus and he can cover some distance in a matter of seconds!

Last night we ate venison casserole. The venison was a gift from the local hunt as we allow them to hunt on the land. It's arrival was not for the squeamish. The chairman of the hunt knocked on the door, plastic bag dripping in blood with a deer foot sticking out the top in one hand, and a fag in the other!  Ian cut it up and we kept some and gave some away. Normally we have been given a front leg, but this year we got a hind leg. The meat was beautifully tender.

Before I came to France I was determined to stop  hunting on the land as soon as possible, but after living here a while you see that there is a balance here that is perhaps best to accept. The deer have no natural predators and left alone the numbers would soon rise and they would become a pest, eating many of the crops. The hunt are allowed to kill a certain number each year. It is quite carefully controlled. (I say quite carefully because there are always one or two that will poach the odd one or two). Furthermore, as the hunting population is generally fairly elderly hunting day looks like an Age Concern outing with rifles, so I am not even sure whether they manage to get their targets every year. So, if we ever get llamas and horses on the land we will have to restrict it, but while it is prairie we don't rock the boat.

Get yourself something

'Get yourself something' was what my mother used to write in my birthday card each year. The card would contain a cheque and she would always say 'I never know what to get you so just yourself get whatever you want'. The first birthday without your mother is always a bit difficult. Mothers never forget their child's birthday and I wasn't really looking forward to being reminded of the fact that she is no longer here.

My mother's estate is still being sorted out, but what we do know is that after all the bills are paid and done and dusted there will be money left for each of us. I guess we will invest it wisely, but for my first birthday alone I decided that I wanted to 'get myself something' from my mother that was entirely for me. She always enjoyed reading the blog and liked looking at my rubbish photos. They have mostly been taken with a little 'happy snappy' type camera and hence a bit hit and miss. I have never had a proper grown up camera! So my birthday present from my mum was a brand new digital SLR with a proper grown up lens that comes off!

It arrived a couple of days ago and I have been playing with it ever since and amazed at how different it is. I have not gone beyond the automatic settings yet but these are a couple of my first attempts, taken from the patio.

The sunset looking like a forest fire

The sky making amazing colours

The camera is a Nikon 5100. Thanks mum!

Christmas is coming

Ian commented last night that it's only a month until Christmas. By that time we will have been here two years and I wonder where the time has gone!

One of the things I was lead to believe about France before arriving here was that the French don't do Christmas as they do in the UK. It starts later, is less tatty, more low key, etc etc.. Well. it was the second week of November when our local supermarket planted a 50 foot high inflatable snowman in the car park, and the Christmas lights are up in all the shops. This weeks advertising consists of pages and pages of Christmas essentials, from tinsel to a model of the Eiffel tower to boxes and boxes of chocolates. The shops are full of the same stuff as the shops in UK, all courtesy of a shipment or two from China. I guess that's globalism for you as the supermarkets themselves are mostly owned by multi-national companies now.

There was a thick mist this morning but now it's a clear, sunny day, warm enough to sit outside with just a jumper!

Getting on with life

Reading through my last few posts it almost appears that my entire focus for the last two months has been on the death of my mother. Well although I guess this has taken a lot of my mental focus, and maybe been the reason why I can write about nothing else, the reality is that life has continued and I have been getting on with it.

We have had a rather busy few weeks, starting with a social event at the local village hall. It was the usual format, with too much food, too much drink and a lot of work, but a good way to feel a part of a bigger group. We also had a friend staying with his two dogs, so even Gremlin got some company! The morning started with a walk, a lunchtime meal that lasted until 7.00pm, music and even some games!

I also had a week working in Bordeaux, which was hard (three nights in a city centre cheap hotel) but good to get back into things. It is just enough to keep me in touch with my interests but make me glad I gave it up as a full time job!

We have also been working to get our permanent electric supply, which we succeeded in doing last week, so for the first time in two years I can put the washing machine, toaster and dishwasher on at the same time without having to worry about tripping out the supply.

Add into that walking the dog, and all the other daily things and life has been really busy.

Dreams part 2

I'm gradually becoming aware of my mother in my dreams. She is not there completely, in that I don't dream about her face, her voice or her physical presence, but I am just aware of her. It's like a brush on the cheek, or a brief smell of a familiar scent, or a glimpse of her energy somewhere. The energy is of her as a whole person, not as she was at the end of her life so that is reassuring.

Memories of Caledonian Road Market: Sepia Saturday 215

 

I'm updating this post for this weeks Sepia Saturday, which shows a picture of a crowded street in Glasgow. Sadly I have no pictures of my own for this prompt, but my father created a picture of his own with these words.

This was one of the things I found amongst my mother's things. It was something my father wrote in response to a request from a local journalist about memories of Islington. His memories would have been from the 1920s up until after the Second World War.


We lived in Kentish Town, virtually on the doorstep of Caledonian Cattle Market. It was a huge rectangular built area with cattle pens surrounding a centre white tall building. When the market was not in use for the cattle, half of the area was allowed for an open market where you could buy almost anything. Stalls displayed bric-a-brac, paintings, vases, old jewellery, metal goods, pottery, pots and pans, food, chickens, live and dead rabbits, live cats and dogs, furniture, carpets and clothes.

An excellent place for bargain hunters and sometimes very lucrative for collectors who wanted information about an article they were looking for. Lighting for the stalls was by Kerosene lamps. Two burners supplied by a centre bowl and air pressurised. As the years progressed glass bowls were introduced over the burners and gas mantels instead of naked jets but there was something warm and old fashioned about the naked lights when they were burning.

It must not be forgotten that the Caledonian was primarily a cattle market complete with pens on the outside, south side were the slaughter houses etc. I remember as a lad from 15-18 years old going to work every morning up York Way into the market square and being confronted by herds of charging bulls and cows and sheep being driven from Kings Cross Sidings to the market or slaughter shed and the nearer they approached the sheds the more frenzied they became and I used to flatten myself up against the railings to avoid being caught in the surge. I used to think that the animals could sense or smell the slaughterhouse.

At the eastern end (Pentonville Road) were a number of firms dealing with offal etc and it was quite a common sight to see tripe being prepared for distributors. As the years went by the flow of cattle became smaller and only the pen remained but the general market continued to well after World War 2.

I found this picture, from creative commons, of the market itself to give you an idea of the layout.

 



For some more pictures of this market and other London markets of the time, you could look here.

Sorting

Now mum's funeral is over we face the long job of 'sorting'. Actually 'sorting' her things into piles to be kept, to go to the charity shop, to be thrown away etc, didn't really take that long. I went back to UK for a week and spent 2 or 3 days in her flat. Before that my brother had already removed her clothes (something my sister couldn't face doing), so actually clearing the 'stuff' wasn't too bad. What I am doing now is looking through the piles of papers and photos, remembering, scanning, deciding whether to keep them and what to do with them. She had copies of the family tree, odd bits of writing, my grandfather's ledger etc etc. The process is long, mostly pleasant and at times bitter-sweet. I found the photo below amongst her things. It is a photo of my father and his cousin Stan. I never met Stan but mum said he was one of my father's closest friends. He died when he fell off the platform of a number 140 bus as it went round the roundabout at Kenton, in North London.

Arthur and Stan