On the record

A really fun day today and I couldn't decide what to post. We went over to see my mum's Auntie Marjorie - she's 91 and can't see too well anymore but she lives by herself with help from family who live close by. Her daughter, my mum's cousin Ann also came by as well as Ann's daughter-in-law and two of her grandchildren who we've never met before but were every charming indeed and full of character. Ann has always been a lot of fun - we used to call round often and she used to take my sister and me to play the amusement arcades in Blackpool and eat fish and chips and Blackpool rock and do stuff that my mum and dad as responsible parents didn't allow. She was very ill last year and I haven't seen her in a very long time (20 years plus) but it was like falling into a big comfy cushion seeing her again. Warm and safe and welcoming and funny. And Auntie Marjorie was clearly delighted to see mum again (and us) so it was a lovely, too brief morning.
After lunch in Waitrose we headed out to see my dad's cousin. She is the daughter of my grandma's youngest sister and is quite a lot younger than dad. My great grandfather was a 'fire bobby' in Liverpool - part policemen, part fireman. We have a photo of him with his horse-drawn fire-engine. He cut himself one day and died of septicaemia so some of his children (I'm not sure how many - I'm guessing the ones too young to work, so under 13/14) were sent to the Liverpool Police Orphans Home which a quick bit of research suggests was not a terrible place as children's homes go. The youngest child stayed with her mother and she inherited and kept stacks of photos and paperwork and even her father's police satchel. There are lots of photos of the children together with their mother as adults so they were obviously not cut off from each other even though she moved to Rochdale to live with family. She also has quite a few photos with my dad as a teenager which we have never seen. The photo is part of the service record of Frederick 'Featherstone' Hide, my Great Great Grandfather. He was born in 1939 and joined the Royal Navy when he was 16. You can follow the ships and see that he was in the South China Seas fighting pirate junks on the Canton River, on HMS Princess Charlotte - famous for carrying a giant tortoise that died quite recently, and on HMS Warrior which is preserved in perfect condition in Portsmouth. We were shown round when we visited and I told the guide Fred was a stoker so he showed us the special uniform etc - I'd like to go again knowing that he had actually been on the ship in 1860 when she was launched. The fire bobby was Fred's son and was called Frederick Orlando Spencer Hide - you can work out roughly when he was born by checking the dates that Fred snr was on board HMS Orlando!

[Shanne]

what an amazing document

[Pat Knowles]

You have had a busy time.....I can see why you hadn't a minute, didn't realise you had so many relations to see up here! A little bit sad the children being split up but they were tough in those days! What a story!

[Hazel]

A great piece of family history and the handwriting on these documents always amazes me, so similar in one document to another as if it could have been the same person's.