Bookshelves of Possibility

Sometimes I wonder if I am really awake or just fumbling my way through a dream.  I live in two cities and have two lives.  I only have one precious family whom I love with all my heart so there is no sinister subterfuge, just a compulsion to do as much as possible and keep all my plates spinning while I add yet another.  

I have extraordinary friends who offer me shelter and listen to my rambling plans.  My activities are interesting and bring me into contact with the most inspiring people but I find it difficult to make sense of it all and understand why I do what I do.  So I thought I might use this forgotten blog to explore it and record my situation.  I think only a trusted few people, if any, read it and you already know how close to the edge I am.

Tonight I am staying in Andrea and Roger's beautiful Moscar Gables in Hollow Meadows halfway between Sheffield and Manchester on the A57. The room in which I sleep is probably the same size as my own little house, upstairs and down.

In this room are two bookcases full of treasure. It has to be enough to gaze longingly at them and read the spines because at present I am not reading much, possibly because my eyes are changing, which in itself is the best reason for reading, before it is too late.  

I have been staying here a few days every month for about two years and have read several of the books, including Hilary Mantel's A Greater Place of Safety which pitched me headlong into the French Revolution.  But there are so many more books here that open doors into other worlds, other times and lives as incomprehensible as my own.

While I am staying here I usually go to Wincobank Chapel and Zion Graveyard, visit Marie and meet up with Bridget, drop into Meadowhall and rake the tram into Sheffield City Centre.  I go to planning meetings or help with children's activities which I have organised from Liverpool.  It is always a packed agenda. 

If there is time and the weather is good I walk with Andrea in her garden which is the size of a small park. I transplanted three fir trees from my garden at Newman Road when I first moved to Sheffield in 2004. Two are still growing and loving the space.  

 

There is a story to this beautiful house which once belonged to Horatio Bright of Brightside and was bought by Andrea's father at auction in the 1950s. There was subsidence,  no electricity and no running water.  Now it has been restored to its magnificence and I love it.

Tomorrow I will drive back to Liverpool and live my other life in my very small home until I come back again.

  

Christmas Came

Christmas, in the form of many packages from Up North, came to Liverpool. It is not what is in the parcels that matters. It is the message they bring. There is plenty of North further Up and in the East from whence came our gifts. It is 20 years since I left Tyneside for Sheffield. Since then, many changes, adventures, achievement,  some joy, much grief.  But Christmas still comes, bringing to each of us a flood of memories and mixed emotions. And love that lights dark nights.

This year it is hard to hear angel voices

through the agony in Gaza, the anger of Israel,  fear in Ukraine, desperation in Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and in the heaving English Channel. Yet in the middle of our dreary winter which is getting warmer year on year, this is a moment to stop and nurture the light of hope lodged deep within that gives a reason to keep going, to still be here,  to hear the angels sing.

Long Distance Logans

Today, at my niece Rebecca's Shrewsbury home,  I met for the first time my lovely Canadian second cousin Jo-Ellen Logan and her jovial Welsh husband David. 

My mother, born Elsie Logan, was one of six chdren so we have a lot of Logan cousins who we have kept in touch with since we were small, but my mother's father was also one of six.  

His brother, my Great Uncle Archie, sailed for Canada in 1909 leaving behind a wife and two children but taking with him his pregnant ladyfriend Edith. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that she took him having sold her Lambeth sweet shop to pay for the ticket.

Archie and Edith's new family knew nothing of their London life  and Archie's  son Harry never found out where his father went. It took over a hundred years, some tenacious research and a contact by Rebecca through Ancestry DBA for the truth to emerge.

Archie's wife Charlotte had eventually married again, her first husband presumed dead but Archie never married Edith although their children believed they had.

In a time when divorce for ordinary people was nearly impossible many unhappy marriages ended in emigration with confused children left to try and piece together their fragmented memories.

This renewed Logan connection is too late for anyone who knew the story. But I have a new cousin who is as easy to talk as the rest of the family and despite being the same age as me, brought back faint memories of my aunties.

And she lives in Thunder Bay.

Another mountain to climb

Liverpool Mountain by Ugo Rondinone on the Albert Dock beside Liverpool Tate. It matches the iconic Las Vegas Mountains.

And another great effort will be required when we hear what tomorrow's new  restrictions will bring. Yesterday I went with soon-to-be-six Seth and his family for his earlly birthday treat - a meal at Pizza Express, just in case it was closed by his birthday next weekend. It was a nice meal but a sad experience. The Albert Dock is deserted, the usually busy restaurant more than half empty. All staff masked and the atmosphere strangely chilly. This establishment and so many others, can't last long like this. In the seven months since the first lockdown in March 2020 over 42,000 people in the UK have died from or after having tested positive from Covid -19. Across the world over one million. The summer lull gave us a false sense of security. There is a long climb ahead.

Wincobank to Dingle and back

Mum's camellia, my Holystone apple tree grown from a pip and various other bedraggled
potted plants have moved to Liverpool and so has half of me. And most of my possessions.  The little house is now full.

It is full of joy as my family come to call, and some drama as I lock myself out at night without keys, phone, money or coat while Steve sleeps soundly upstairs.

Back in Sheffield we are installed in a fully refurbished Connie's house and the garden is springing into life.

I'm not sure how this Wincobank to Dingle week will work or how we will ever unpack all the boxes and fit all the shelves to be filled by the beautiful books and odd ornaments that escape the charity shop bag, but a new chapter begins.

Reader, we bought it.

Signing the contract 25 January 2018

To cut a long story short - with the help of donations from many hundreds of well-wishers and several charities including the Heritage Lottery Fund, we formed an incorporated company and bought the graveyard to stop it being sold to a car salesman who was going to incorporate it into the car sales pitch on the site of the old church.  The full story has been documented on Facebook: Friends of Zion Graveyard, and on our website www.ziongraveyard.btck.co.uk.
Buying a graveyard wasn't in my plan for the year, but it has certainly been an adventure which continues as we navigate legal issues around access, charitable status and the neighbouring car sales planning application.  This photo was taken by Joseph Desforges, Media & Marketing Manager of Voluntary Action Sheffield who has lived up to his job title by designing us a beautiful logo and is working on a commemorative plaque.

Graveyard for Sale

It all started when my partner Steve brought me a newspaper cutting from the Sheffield Telegraph.
"Is this your Mary Anne's graveyard?" he asked."It's up for sale."
"I don't think so" I said. "It can't be"
"I think it is"
"You'll be sorry" I said.

A few emails later, two newspaper articles written, some phone calls made and I am on an expedition with several others through a jungle in industrial Attercliffe. Soon, despite all the odds, I find myself staring down at the inscription on the two enormous memorial stones that cover the family vault of the Read family of Wincobank Hall.

Eight members of this extraordinary family are interred there,safe beneath those heavy stones. Apart from a baby,  all were  involved in the fight against slavery, notably Mary Anne Rawson who campaigned both on the doorstep to persuade the women of Sheffield to boycott sugar from the colonies and by writing letters to royalty, politicians and celebrities of the day, entreating them to lend their voices to the campaign.  Most did, although Wordsworth, happy in his Lakeland idyll, politely declined.

Wincobank Hall stood at the top of my road until it was demolished in 1925.  Mary Anne Rawson founded the little school which later became Upper Wincobank Chapel as well as a teacher training college in Jamaica, one of the first in the world.

You can read more if you like, in the articles I was asked to write for the Sheffield Telegraph. The links are below.  I think there will soon be a third article - what to do with an overgrown, unwanted graveyard...

http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/nostalgia/nostalgia-the-changing-face-of-wincobank-hall-1-8403171

http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/whats-on/arts/heritage-the-wonder-women-of-wincobank-hall-1-8427858