Bethlehem

A seasonal picture for this time of year.

This little water-colour of Bethlehem was painted in an exercise book nearly 200 years ago by 15 year old Catherine Read who used to live in Wincobank Hall, just across the road to where I live now.  Maybe Catherine copied another picture drawn by one of the many well-travelled visitors to her home. Or maybe her grandfather brought back a decorated souvenir with a landscape scene. His 18th century passport, lodged in the Sheffield Archive, is a glorious colour parchment stamped and sealed in countries across the world.

Catherine's parents, John and Elizabeth Read, were energetic campaigners for social justice and religious freedom. With missionary zeal they supported campaigns to to improve the lot of the poor and they supported the Sunday School movement so that children could learn to read the Bible for themselves. But John Read died a broken man, shamed by potential bankruptcy, having bailed out his father-in-law whose iron-works had failed due to the recession following the Napoleonic Wars.  His debts were cleared by his eldest daughter Mary Anne, who had married well, but been widowed early.  She bought the Hall and moved back home with her baby daughter to live with her mother and sisters. Together these women were a formidable force for change.

Earlier this year I spent days and days leafing through piles of hand written documents, old notebooks and letters, account books and wills trying to piece together the story of this extraordinary family.  Catherine never married. Instead, she spent her life looking after her sister Eliza's children, many of whom were frail and died young, along with their delicate mother.

Mary Anne, a woman ahead of her time, became well known as editor of  collections of persuasive poetry and prose, essentially social propaganda. Her most notable cause was the universal abolition of slavery and in 1841 she was at the inaugural meeting of what is now Anti-Slavery International. Emily Read ran the village school at the chapel, provided hands on help and was well loved by the local families. Two of Eliza's son's survived to found the Wilson dynasty and their children went on to become Liberal and Labour politicians, continuing to campaign for improved social conditions. And all the time in the background, the fortunes of the family firm The Sheffield Smelting Company, waxed and waned with all the precariousness experienced by today's financial institutions.

Sheffield's industrial heritage owes all to the courage of the entrepreneurs who built the businesses from nothing. reinvesting their profits without a safety net, and to the workforce who invested their lives and their health. As a city, Sheffield is shaped by allegiance to the parliamentary cause dating back to the Civil War, non-conformist radical religion and the commitment of the great philanthropists of the Industrial Revolution.

There is a great story here that brings alive all that dry and dusty Victorian legislation I learned about at school, in those history lessons that were awash with dates and Prime Ministers but told nothing of the people.  This is a story I want to get back into.  In between everything else.  And Christmas.

More of the Wincobank story is here http://upperwincobankchapel.wordpress.com/about/
The rest is in archives around the world.

From one Bank Holiday to Another

Shelly, Ed & Freddie Ford 4 May 2013

5 Wards & 2 Fords

Rea Smiths & Co

The year is spinning by and leaving me behind.  As August Bank Holiday Monday dawns I am still catching up with May.  I'm thinking back to the gathering of the clans in Hackney Town Hall for the joining in wedlock of our Ed with beautiful Shelly and further back to the years that a younger Ed spent with us Newcastle.  when nothing was certain and everything scary.  And now here we are 17 years on and still smiling.  What a lot has happened in those years in between.  And so much still to come.

Fast Freddie

 Freddie zoomed into the world 10 weeks early, in a hurry just like his dad always was.  Ed never hangs about. When he lived with us in Newcastle, we had to be on our toes to keep up with him. So much energy. None of the Rea Smith prevarication and contemplation of options which sometimes goes on for years.  When Ed has an idea he makes a decision and if he's going to do it, he does it.  Ed wanted his own company - and he has it: All Lovely Stuff   And so with Freddie.  When he thought it was time, out he came, into the world, taking all by surprise especially his lovely mum, Shelly.

This gorgeous little man is definitely the son of his parents - blonde, smiling and wide-eyed about the world around him.  And growing up so fast.  I can just imagine a family day out with Lizzy and Freddie at Lightwater Valley,  just like when the Ward brothers would come to stay and we used to pack up a a picnic to eat in the rain inbetween swooshing down the hellslide, careering round the skatecart track and scrambling up the spiders web.
Now, Great Aunt Penelope is really looking forward to our family get together in October, to see how the next generation is doing.

Down in the woods

I've been in the woods today.  I only have to walk for five minutes to be in an ancient oak wood, thought to have been self-seeding since the Ice Age. The trees themselves have been cut down many times as this wood has been farmed for many hundreds of years, for timber, for fuel, for charcoal, and for the making of whatever could be made from the leftover bits.

Today I was gathering a strange harvest of scrap metal, plastic and broken glass from the hillside. It looked so much better when I had finished.  Its a shame that tidying my house doesn't have the same appeal.

My Dad

This is my Dad, jolly, jolly Dad, off on a works fishing trip back in the 1960s.  Acting the fool to amuse others, making others smile.

Today, well, yesterday - for it is just past midnight now- it was Father's Day in the UK.  I had already been thinking about my Dad even before I remembered it was a special day.  This morning I was texting my niece Emma about our family ability to hand letter posters - a skill taught to me at the kitchen table and I discovered, taught to her by her dad who must have learnt as I had done, to hold the brush steady, resting one wrist upon the other and make the strokes just so, as our Dad had done years back in the 1930s when it was his job.  Before the War changed everything.

 I have been thinking today about a very special day when my Dad took me on my own to Battersea Fun Fair. I was ten and this was a great treat.  It was wonderful. I had been to the fair on Wimbledon Common but Battersea Park was spectacular.  It had the Water Chute and the Big Dipper.  It was a vast Pleasure Park, a real treat. We spent £5.  I knew this was a lot of money, but I didn't realise how much it really cost until I read Dad's letters after my mother passed away.    I read that he took me to the Fun Fair when Mum was in America with Barbara and they were worrying about which stamps they could afford and under what circumstances a phone call was merited.  I had forgotten the month and the year and only remembered the event. When I pieced it all together I understood the significance and great generosity of this day out.  And that it was one of the last days before the black clouds came.

My Dad was nearly always tired, very often worried, occasionally cross.  He worked so hard to make our lives better than his had been.  On that summer's day when his cares were at their greatest he put on his jolly smile and jokey manner and we went to the Fun Fair. He made me laugh and I had fun.  My brave, strong, kind Dad.

New York Airport 1966

This is a picture of my sister Barbara at New York Airport, changing planes on the way to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota in America.  It was a big adventure: the first time anyone in the family had ever been on a plane.  She was just 16 and going for an experimental heart valve transplant.  These days the op is done in local hospitals but then it required a major fund-raising exercise including remortgaging the house and a long flight to the other side of the world.  Sadly, it was all too late and she died on this day 15 June 1966. Hope you're running and dancing now Babs.  Love and miss you loads. xxx

Moulins sur Allier: Day 2

After yesterday's adventure a gentle day of recovery is in order.  After breakfast of croissants and hot chocolat, a stroll round the market and a brisk walk round the town, I took a deep breath, summoned up my schoolgirl French and took myself to La Coiffure where, after a little stress and fishing for words on both sides I emerged looking a la mode.

Here we are (before my new hairdo), photographed last night by six year old Alanna.

Wards abroad

After a nail-biting wait on St Pancras for GM Chris Ward firstly to arrive and secondly to buy his breakfast,  the wedding guests successfully checked in for Eurostar and passed through security, only setting the alarm off twice. The challenge of finding numbered seats on an unmarked train was solved thanks to the keen observation powers of Hannah and Warwick who found the carriage number on the platform rather than on the train.  Having tried to avoid presenting his passport, GM Ward completed his evasive manouvres with one further diversionary trick involving the purchase of a newspaper at the moment of boarding. However, he wowed the crowds with his eventual appearance from the opposite direction at the last moment.

Alanna practices her new French skills

The journey from London to Paris was enlivened by a remarkable mega pic-nic prepared by fair hands of the culinary queen. Seafood sandwiches, coronation chicken baps, homemade fruitcake and all the trimmings of a British Boxing Day tea, had been smuggled aboard in the rucksacks of the young Misses Alanna and Jacinta Ward.  A beverage expedition returned with both Earl Grey and traditional English Breakfast tea along sufficient spare milk to keep us in cuppas all weekend.

The hearty victuals put us in fine fettle for the carrying of cases across Paris, but unfortunately did not reach the little grey cells which were a little on the sluggish side. It took some time to work out how to use the ticket machine and find the necessary platform.  Fortunately, Hannah figured out that the overground train we were trying to catch did not stop at the station we needed and that the helpful French railway employee was right all along and that we needed the Metro.  Fortunately the GM had intentionally remained in Paris for his own independent adventure and so we were not distracted by further puzzling on his whereabouts. We reached our second station with two minutes to spare and consequently once aboard the Clermont Ferrond train we were ready for an afternoon nap.

What joy to awake to the aromatic vision of a refreshment trolley serving ground coffee in mini cafetieres. Apart from a very brief discussion as to whether the entire party should divert to call in on Keith and Vivien, the two and a half hour journey passed without further excitement until on disembarking the mother of the bridegroom and her silly sister got lost on a footbridge between two lifts.  Finally, the party reached the Hotel Balladins in time to book in just ahead of 60 German Musicians in town for the Battle of the bands, Beat Box and Fash Dance event this weekend. 

The evening was rounded off by a Chinese meal around a round table.  Battered frogs legs with sweet and sour sauce were on the menu and goldfish were swimming in a pool inside the restaurant.  Who knows - they may even have been in the batter.

More tomorrow from the French front ... over and out...

Friend for life

She's been in the world nearly 17 months and hasn't wasted a minute.  Each week I go to meet the new Lizzy.  Each week she is slightly different; taller, older and ever more curious, her world expanding to include her soft toys, in particular a pink piglet named Pete. Now she is climbing with confidence - up the stairs, into the high chair, onto the furniture, out of the cot.  Buckles, zips, lids and locks are all a game. Smartphones are quite literally, child's play.  Put the kettle on and she heaves the huge and heavy milk bottle from the fridge.  Mention outdoors and she gets her shoes and finds the door keys. The words are beginning to flow. And last night when I took my coat from the peg and picked up my bag to leave, she came and asked to be picked "upsie".  Then she kissed me and said in her sing song voice "Bye".  That's it. Our friendship sealed for life.  Granny joy.

A New Year feast

I can think of no better way to start a new year than with a good fry up. I am halfway to Paradise.  This year, I have had my family at my table in fragments, by accident rather than design.  One day they will all be here together.  I am so lucky.  So very very lucky that my children have grown safely to be such lovely young people now embarked on their own lives but still coming back to me. My little family is growing.