Autumn Cottage Diarist

They Also Served

I'm also remembering two of my own ancestors this weekend. They came back…and so, I am here.

This is George Arthur Silcox - my maternal grandfather

- a Boer War veteran, he re-enlisted, aged 31, in October 1914, becoming a member of the Royal Defence Corps - 'for those too old or unfit for active front line service'. From his military records, however, I have gleaned that he pestered to return to active fighting and in 1918 was once more a Sapper with the Royal Engineers, on his way to France.

and here is Arthur Henry Latham - my paternal Welsh 'Grampy'

- a Royal Welch Fusilier who I think may have been involved in an extraordinary and exhausting march through Mesopotamia and from there to India - he certainly ended up in Bombay, and his regiment was later known to be in Mhow.

My research is ongoing into both these stories…for the stories never end, do they?

Send the Bloody Politicians to Fight the Bloody Wars!

Boxing Day, 1908. In front of the beautiful, Georgian, Henry Holland designed façade of Berrington Hall, surrounded by gardens landscaped by Capability Brown, Sir Frederick Cawley sits astride his hunter, his four sons at his side.

They are masters of all they survey. En-titled, privileged, wealthy, secure. Sir Fred has already made his fortune as a Lancashire mill owner and now sits in the House of Commons - and here he looks upon the fruits of his labours. The world is their oyster. In the background, their mother looks on, with what must be burgeoning pride and satisfaction. Four fine sons at the top of their game.

A month short of ten years later, as the Armistice Treaty is signed, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918, three of those sons do not sit astride their equines - they lie buried in the blood and ordure filled battlefield earth of France and the Dardanelles. John, a Hussar died in the first few months of the war, ambushed at dawn while endeavouring to calm his stampeding horses. Harold fell in the disastrous campaign in Gallipoli, and Oswald died at Merville in France, just three months before the war ended.

It is said that their mother never recovered. Neither would any mother, I think. Father expressed his grief as men often do…with rage. Winston Churchill felt the full force of his anger, hushing him only (and probably temporarily) by 'kicking him upstairs' to the House of Lords.

I often hear the comment that 'the politicians should send THEIR sons to do the fighting'…well, this one did. In fact, Sir Fred, himself a Member of Parliament, sent two of those sons as politicians - here is the 'Recording Angel' memorial bearing their names (on Panel 2 and Panel 8) which stands in St Stephen's Porch, Westminster Hall. (There is also a heraldic shield to Oswald behind the Speaker's Chair in the House of Commons).

And so it has been, forever, both before and after the great conflict of World War One, that young men and women from all backgrounds, of all classes, colours and creeds, have gone off to 'do their duty'; to be wounded or die for their country, and for causes which we so easily criticise with the glorious benefit of hindsight and broader information, but causes in which many (if not most) of them believed at the time. How else could they have endured what they did?

However we feel about War and the responsibilities of those in power, let us not take away from these individuals the fact that sacrifice was made at all levels, by all sorts of people (A subaltern's life - many of whom came from public schools, averaged six weeks at The Front) Their deaths and injuries always left (and still leave) not just one tragedy, but the many tragedies of bereaved and traumatised mothers & fathers, parentless children and both selves and families wracked with grief - one emotion which knows no boundaries of any kind.

Whether rich or poor, all of our mortal remains, in the end, occupy the same space. For those left behind, a broken heart cannot be mended by pound notes or privilege…just by the love, support and understanding of others. Perhaps cultivation of that understanding and support is one way, even 100 years later, in which we can help fulfil their 'bright Promise' to change the world that they so wanted to make better for us all?

...Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:

Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say,

“Come, what was your record when you drew breath?”

But a big blot has hid each yesterday

So poor, so manifestly incomplete.

And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,

Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet

And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.

(From 'Such, Such is Death' - Charles Hamilton Sorley)

 

 

Lighting a Candle for the Beloved Dead - Samhain 2018

The Women of my Line: Left (of Image) to right….

Mary Amici/Latham (in crinoline) my Great-Grandmother. 1843 - 1929. Engagement photograph, 1867.

Kate Hosking/McCallum - my great Aunt. 1899 - 1929. Went to Australia to marry her beau - died in North Wales of Tuberculosis.

Lilian Mary Louvain Silcox/Latham (In candle shrine) - my Mother. 1915-1998

Lilian Mary Nankivell/Silcox - my grandmother. 1888-1955

Margaret Norris Humby/Nankivell - my great grandmother. 1866-1950

Esther Silcox - 1927-1929 - scroll/death certificate. No chance to grow to womanhood.

All on a bed of fallen leaves, to remind us that we all return to Mother Earth, to replenish Her and rise anew through root and branch

Today is Samhain - 'Summer's End' …the last of harvest time, the turning point of the Old Celtic year and the doorway to Winter. The time when I welcome in the memories of the Beloved Dead, as other traditions commemorate the Company of Saints (Nov 1st) and their deceased loved ones (All Souls, Nov 2nd). Collectively, these days are known in some parts of the world (Most notably Mexico and South America) as the 'Days of the Dead' - the Dias de Los Muertos. Much imagery abounds across the internet of the celebratory nature of such festivals - take a look - it's interesting and informative.

I follow the custom of creating an Ofrenda/Altar, upon which memories and reminders abound. Samhain is a Fire-Festival, so it is natural that we who celebrate are drawn to lighting candles…they remind me of the light that the women I celebrate brought into my life, particularly my mother and grandmother…and through them, I also feel the thread of compassion passing down to me from my great-grandmother, who lived and was loved in my Mother's memories.

Through them I have my existence - and to them, wrapped in the arms of the Great Mother Earth, I shall return.

  Kwan-Yin, Bodhisattva of Compassion, amongst human practitioners of boundless love.

 I wish you all a Blessed Samhain/All Hallows Eve - may you celebrate those of your line who have gone before you, but who still live within you and are a part of who you are. As we turn towards the dark days of Winter, 'Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness'...

Let's all be that light to lighten our sad and wounded world.

(You may also enjoy this old blog post from 2011 )

 

An Enchantment of Cherubs!

My grandfather ('Grampy' Latham) was a master baker by training - but more than that, he specialised in both patisserie and confectionery. He must have made many, many wedding cakes over his working time; he certainly made my parents' cake. (Mam told me that Grampy had placed sugarpaste dog's heads around the cake (she and Dad met through their mutual love - and ownership - of Alsatians), but unfortunately this image is not clear enough to see them).

Jump, now, to one type of item I have picked up on occasion from charity shops and places like Hungerford Arcade ... these little biscuit porcelain figurines, of which I have a few. I've always liked the white, matte body material and, as I keep a look out for small items that will fit in here at the cottage, these have often found a home. One particular little favourite has been this little putto, but I have always wondered why he was made holding linked rings? (Which have, amazingly, survived intact on this one).

Then, on my last visit to the Arcade, all became clear. I discovered that it is no ordinary cherubic figurine, but a wedding cake topper (hence, the rings!) - as there, in the glass cabinet in the Junk Shop, was a whole Heavenly Host of them, all in different positions. Some would have been used for cake toppers, and some (with hands held high) clearly as support pillars to hold the various tiers of the cake one on top of the other. (Do click on these pictures, to see a larger image and the items in more detail - it's worth it)

Several still have their fixing spikes in the bottom - which is why they are still standing, at the moment, on rather a scruffy old upturned box. I'll cover this with black felt sometime soon - and, I think, give them a little glass case all of their own.

In case you want some inspiration if you are a wedding cake maker yourself - or just an enchanted browse of your own, here is a delightful blog post which shows just how these little charmers would have been used. Guess what I'll be looking out for now, to add to one more collection!

( By the way, friends...after trialling the 'Scanner Sunday' images for a few weeks, I don't think there was much interest...so I'm discontinuing the theme from now on)

 

The Butterfly in the Box

My box of (broken!) treasures

Just a little butterfly?

When it comes to material inheritance of monetary worth, I didn't inherit much - my maternal grandmother's Victorian oil lamp; my mother in law's turquoise ring (rescued from a box of paper rubbish put out for 'the bin men' !); my paternal grandfather's 'Victory' medal from WW1; my father's wigs and make-up. Two or three items from Dad's mother - a broken Indian silver bracelet, a broken locket, a broken silver brooch. (notice a theme?). I keep the smaller items in my 'box of treasures' -  treasures to me, but by no means to anyone intending to make their fortune from burglary (*that* box has already been burgled - 30 years ago).

It was on one of my little reminiscence forays into that box that the broken brooch caught my eye anew. I had been watching 'The Antiques Roadshow' a few days before, when items belonging to an ancestral Suffragette had been brought in. Amongst the items, there were several displaying the same colours - purple, green and white. There, on the green velvet of my treasure box, was Granny's broken butterfly brooch - and there were the colours of the enamel with which it was decorated - purple, green and white. The colours of the Women's Social and Political Union - the colours of the Suffragettes!

Born in 1888, Granny was a feisty woman in middle and old age. She sure scared the bejabers out of me! One of three Hosking sisters (and three brothers), I imagine (especially from her photographs) that she was quite a gal - from quite a trio of women.

Kate, Flo & Lena - the Hosking sisters

Her younger (by 12 years) sister, Kate, sailed off to Australia and adventure, to marry Frank McCallum, Chief Medical Officer at Australia House in London when they married (and later Director-General of Health for the Commonwealth of Australia). Poor Kate had only three years of happiness with her 'Mac' before she came back to the UK for treatment for TB. It was not successful - she died, aged just 29, in 1929.

Her other sister, Lena, took a different path, becoming a Salvationist in Cardiff. She was apparently very enthusiastic in her handling of the tambourine!

Florence Emma Hosking, my Granny, married Grampy, Arthur Henry Latham and ran a little corner shop in Newport after their marriage. But I know little of her life before then. Now I think I might know a little bit more. I am heartened to see that little brooch and appreciate its significance - just a tiny bit of what might be evidence that Granny's spirit led her to espouse the cause of  Women's Suffrage. My enthusiasm is spurred on to discover much more about her now.

On this Centenary Day of women (of property) being given the vote, I say Thank You, Sisters (and Grannies!) and the good men who supported them, for supporting and fighting the Good Fight to give everyone representation.

There is much still to be done, but since 1918, we have still come a wonderfully long way .

Women Members of Parliament, 2017 General Election, UK.

ONWARD, SISTERS!

There's Rosemary - That's for Remembrance...

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance… fennel, lemon balm, mint - a symbol of the pot that she always kept filled and from which she abundantly fed me… buddleia and echinacea, for the butterflies and bees, for she is their sister, at one with Nature.

My Mother was a weakly child - indeed at her birth, the second twin to emerge, she was 'covered over', given up for dead, until the midwife saw movement under the coverlet and heard the faint signs of breathing. That was just the start of a life of poverty and struggle for my beloved Welsh Mam; of much unhappiness, above which she rose with the grace of an angel. Her survival mechanism was simple: she loved everyone -  humans as best she could, animals unconditionally. A legacy that she passed on to me, though I live it very poorly in comparison to the open heart with which she engaged with Life.

2 years old, Mam on the right, her twin sister 'Floss' on the left

To be honest, I am surprised by the depth of the grief that I have felt today, on what would have been her 100th Birthday. I think I have processed it, put it all behind me, 'dealt with it' - and then - on a glorious autumn day, the sun shines, I pick flowers from the herb garden to place on her grave, and grief rises in my throat and leaks out through my eyes. Grief - the price you pay for love, never completely goes away.

Along the lane to the graveyard in Highclere Park

Alongside the graveyard - the Chapel in the Park

Entrance to the graveyard

The steep slope leading down to her interment, under the trees

I've been up to the graveyard in Highclere Park this morning, to put some flowers on her grave, but in truth, she is not really there for me. Though her mortal remains lie in the most idyllic spot, in the end it is just a stone over some ashes of bone.

Autumn sunlight on the old graves

The real truth of her being I carry with me every day - her memory is in my genes and in those of my children. My mother taught us all how to love. I need no other memorial.

 

 

 

 

So What IS it About Family History That Gets Right Under Our Skins?

I've discovered some new resources for researching my own family history online in the last few days; The National Library of Wales has generously put millions of Welsh Newspapers Online  and searchable - (free) while London Lives also have a number of databases covering the 18th century in London - also free to search. Since I discovered - a few years ago - that my Somerset based grandfather had, in fact, been born in Sheffield, I have struggled to find out exactly where and recently acquired the address of his birth, from which a photograph was found on the immensely comprehensive Picture Sheffield site.

Interior of St Andrew Holborn - London place of my 3x Great-grandfather's wedding in 1777

It is no exaggeration to say that I have spent two days like a woman possessed - hopping from one link to another to another, copying, downloading, extracting information - filling in gaps, adding pieces to the jigsaw, imagining who these people were, how they lived, hope they coped, what gave them joy - what devastated them.

Rustlings Place, Ecclesall Bierlow, Sheffield - birthplace of my maternal Grandfather, George Silcox

But apart from the individual details about how my own small life is connected by a web to so many others, it also makes me regularly think about why I find the topic so fascinating - and why society has become so increasingly absorbed with the concept of 'Who We Think We Are' in the last couple of decades. The internet undoubtedly has a lot to answer for - researches which would have taken days, weeks, even years, and entailed  the expenditure of many pound and travels of many miles can now be done at the click of a key. Moreover, the links between people - the matching up of dates and descriptions - can also be done almost instantly, with cross referencing and thus validation of otherwise tentative links, giving us the confidence to go forward.

Memorial to a Welsh ancestor - my 4 x G-Grandfather, the Rev. George Williams of Llantrithyd

But I think there are also other issues at play; as families and communities become fragmented, stories get lost or forgotten - and our stories tell us who we are. I believe that we all have a deep need to 'know our place' - we need to know where we fit in to the stories - the stories that stretch back before our own tiny lives (our lives get to feel quite tiny and insignificant as we grow older and experience setbacks as well as accomplishments, don't they?) and will stretch forward, into the future, carrying our own contributions to the as-yet-unwritten story that will stretch forward after we are gone.

When working as a bereavement counsellor, I sometimes hear people saying things like 'I feel as if part of me has died/been buried with (the deceased loved one)' - it may seem like a metaphorical description of how bereavement feels, but clients are often very comforted and uplifted when I affirm to them that - in one way - that is exactly what has happened;  part of my client's story that was shared with the loved one  has indeed  died - but I also remind them that part of the loved one has also remained with them - memories of words and actions which influenced them, built them, moulded them - the parts that cannot die while they are still kept alive -  by remembering and acting upon them - building their lessons into our own lives.

It's yet another reason for writing things down, my friends; write down your stories…save, contemplate, discuss and act upon those images, artefacts, words… it's one way that we can all grasp a fragment of immortality: by remembering - and learning from the richness of our shared, collective stories.

Related articles

Llantrithyd Place

Postcard from Paradise - In the Land of my Fathers

At the Eleventh Hour...

Grandpa off to the Boer War, 1901

At the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, 1911...My grandfather, George Arthur Silcox, and my grandmother. Lilian Mary Nankivell were married.

1915 - Three years married...three children.

Little did they know then that within three years, Grandpa would be away to the Great War, becoming such a stranger to my mother - a little tot born in 1915 - that when he came home on leave, she would hide behind the sofa.
 My grandparents Marriage Certificate, The date can be seen more clearly in the Witness Signature, bottom left hand.
 

Thankfully, he returned and became another reason why I am here today....but countless others did not. So as the eleventh hour strikes this morning, exactly one hundred years after they were wed, I will bow my head and give thanks - privately, for my grandparents, and with the nation for all those who have lain down their lives in conflict  - either to secure our freedom, or believing that they fought to do so.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old....
Age shall not weary them, or the years condemn
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning -

We Will Remember Them.

(Image from interesting article...Remembrance Sunday and the symbolic red poppy)

My Long Ago Happy Land

Working today on one of the personal memoir writing workshops I am offering in 2011, I was taken aback by discovering this photograph of the interior of my first apartment fourteen floors up in a tower block in South Wales - my first venture into independent living, back in 1974. How much a photograph can hold - so many of those items carry their own story.

There is the white 'swivel chair' that I saved up for over many, many months, convinced that was essential to give my apartment  an air of of elegance and sophistication :-).  There's the little TV - only black and white pictures, but oh, how much of a companion it was in the first weeks there, when I wondered if I had not also launched myself into eternal loneliness alongside liberating independence!

There are the cushions (pillows), that I patchworked, crocheted and Bargello embroidered with my early passion for textiles which still abides. There's my record player, with all my collection of (vinyl) discs stacked beside it....The Eagles, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel  (sigh) - and there is my great grandmother's oil lamp, temporarily converted then for electricity, but still with me today with its glass shade and put to use when we have a power cut.

There's the desk at which I sat to study for a zoology exam, and always, the books, the stacks and piles of books. There, on the walls, a Japanese woodcut, given to me by my boyfriend at the time. And there, in front of my trendy chair, the little occasional table which my Mother proudly bought for her own mother with her first week's wages as a 'clippie' bus conductress during WW2.

Such ordinary artefacts - such particular histories. Have you got any reminders like this of your own special "stuff" and the stories that the items carry? If you have, why not get them out soon and write down the stories  of the things that have made us who we are - you may be amazed at what you remember - and what other memories that story-telling evokes.

Los Angelitos, Little Esther - and Me.

Child's grave, Overton, Hampshire

November 1st, All Saints Day - and in Mexico, the day on which Los Angelitos, the souls of little children are honoured. So today, I want to honour an Angelito in my own family...one I never knew, and only heard about in fragments - but one who's death, I know, affected my mother until her own dying day.

I don't even know her proper name - Mam always referred to her as 'Little Esther' - my interpretation of the name, but it could quite easily have been Hester or even, I suppose, Hesta - its something I need to speak about to the sisters who still survive, one more thing on the list of family history research to be carried out.

But today I will call her Esther, and I will honour her as an aunt who I never had the chance to know, and an emblem of all those who make faint but indelible marks on our own histories. For in writing about her, I also write about some components of the past which have made me who I am.

Esther was only two years old when she died - in around 1922 from my mothers recollections. Mam found it profoundly difficult to speak about her, and when she did, it was always with a deep sadness in her voice. The only fragments that I retain were her memories that "She was playing hide-and-seek under the tablecloth in the morning - by the evening, she was dead...of meningitis". In the days before antibiotics, this was even more lethal and rapid an infection than it remains today -  though it is still an illness which strikes fear into the hearts of any parent.

(Image from Horsefield Funerals)

 Mam also remembered that "we had the black horses for her...the carriage with the glass sides and the horses with black feathers on their heads". This indeed must have meant that a very special effort had been made to pay for a more costly funeral than might otherwise have been held for an older member of the family, in a family where money was more than tight. As the hearse-horses hooves clattered on the (still existing) cobbles outside the back entrance to Mam's old home, waiting to collect its tiny burden, it must have made quite an impact on the mind of my mother, still then only a child herself.

As I write this, I realise there are still so many things I do not know - or only half remember from my mother's telling. No photographs of her exist, that I know of...and where is she buried? I have a recollection of being told that she was placed in the plot which later held my grandmother (her mother), grandfather, and her brother - my uncle. Four in a grave, where only three was the 'official' limit? Yet again, I seem to remember Mam saying that 'officialdom' turned a blind eye to the fact - but we will never know.

And indeed, the death of this two year old did, I believe, make me partially who I am - for as the years went by, I could see the profound affect that her death had on my mother, who was acutely sensitive to the way that small children were treated. Even before my own children were born, hearing the most mildly rebuking word to any little child would cause her extreme pain - and when my own boys were born, 'little Esther' would often be on her lips - especially when the boys were around the age that she was when she died - and especially when boisterous two year old boys needed to be (gently - I assure you!) themselves rebuked, simply to be taught where boundaries lie.

So today, I remember Little Esther - but I also notice myself. I notice how much I have written - about other parts of the story, the facts, but also the opinions...and then cut, and edited, and removed, and how I am still sensitive to my Mother's words and feelings. Feelings which, in turn were shaped by the very existence of her sister....and which in turn also shaped me....all for the sake of sensibilities of others who may read this, sensibilities which could still be wounded by the fuller telling of the tale. A later telling will be different - but all tellings are, in some way, true.

Little Esther is gone...but her memory...and its impact, still filter down through the generations. So many people touch our lives....and make us who we are - the fact that we may never have met them, in many ways, makes no difference.

Addendum: New additions to the marvellous Free BMD (Births, Marriages and Deaths) site mean that for the first time, only minutes ago, I discovered this information. 

DEATHS - June 1929 - Silcox, Esther M - 2 (yrs old) Newport Mon

Studium into Punctum.

Blessed be, Little Angelito Esther.