Family History

 

I wonder if this is true?

Do our forefathers live in our heritage?

I suspect there is some truth in this, but I see problems.  For a start, while I know much about my family's history, what if I knew nothing?  Imagine I had been dumped at birth, my dad often mumbled something about this, then I would not have the family influences upon me, how much heritage would I carry with me?  

Knowing my parents does mean I am influenced by what influenced them, both family and the world in which I lived.  My father was born when his father was 62, his mother dumped him within six years because of the drinking and this left a mark on dad.  So, in that sense his history leaves a mark on me, especially as dad was born before the Great War, and I after the second.  By the time I was a teenager the world he expected to find had changed, wealth was growing, housing, NHS, radio and now TVs existed, and in the year he died men landed on the moon.  Such a change in his lifetime, this clashed with my outlook as an adolescent.      

My mothers mother died in childbirth, how did this affect her?  Her father lost three wives this way!  Growing up in a poor mining family, the entire town was poor, they shared the hardships with others around them, did this make them better people?  Six long months of the General Strike pulled people together in mining areas, did this influence her outlook?

Remembering how miners were 'enslaved' from 1609 until 1799, and the situation did not improve much after this for many years, how did that influence me, a lazy, well fed, insolent brat?  Not much it appears.  It was years before I understood what the family's had gone through, years before I realised how much they gave for me and others.  Years before I began to realise just how lucky I was to have this family and not one of the others around me. 

Clearly our immediate family influenced our outlook, but is this because the society around them influenced them more?  Society was different one hundred years ago, not always better.  The society in which one side worked down dangerous mines, merely a big hole in the ground, or farmed large areas of land during economic ups and downs, must have influenced their outlook.  Miners pull together, farmers are on their own.

How much of that gave my fathers side a reputation for decency and constant grumbling?  The mothers side always good honest thoughtful, but no fools, people.  Are the generations far from me better because of their forefathers, and can we see influences in them today I wonder?

Anyway, that is today's homework.  I will mark your answers tomorrow.

Post, Rain, Coal Mines,

 

 

The weathermen said 'Rain in afternoon.'  "Good!" said I, and before noon wandered down to the Post Office with my two packets.  The sun shone the sky was blue, it was even warm on the far side of the street, so I crossed over, slowly these days annoying the motorists, and wandered happily into the shop.  I was in so quick I forgot to put on my mask and risked a £100 fine.  I told the sweet Asian lass at the counter (I only go there because she always smiles at me) I was Boris Johnson's dad, so she let me off.  £2:14 paid, change pocketed, xerox paper bought, I was down to my last sheet, and off I went back home.  Naturally the sun had gone, the sky was dark gray, the rain hammered down, and I was fair drookit by the time I got home.  I am still wet now, my hair cold and clammy.  Was the cloud waiting for me?  Could it be the BBC had got it wrong?  Before noon and the rain was falling, now, after one pm the sun is out again and I am still cold!  It is a good job I am not one to complain, that's all I can say.

 

I just typed in 'Freefotos rain' on 'images' and found many excellent free fotos.  At least they appear free and I am making use of them.  Very useful when you do not get out as much as you would like. I had to get out this morning to post the family details I had been looking into.  My mothers side were all miners from Fife, and it appears that between the early 1600s and almost 1800, some say much later, miners were enslaved to the Lairds who ran the mines.  Coal being important, using trees for firewood banned, the Lairds ensured worers were available for this horrid, hard, dirty, dangerous work by passing laws forcing them, and their descendents, to work for them in their mines.  Moving location was outlawed, wages low, danger to life high.  Add to this small cottages, not always healthy, poor diet, no NHS, and lots of children, it can be seen that attitudes towards coal owners would not be based on love!  

I note that not only do my forefathers first appear in the East Neuk of Fifearound 1620 but they marry people who also cannot move on.  This does not help chasing up relatives, especially with the Scots habit of giving one child grandad's name.  So we have Colin and Robert repeated endlessly over generations, not helped by other family lines doing similar.  The Scottish Mining Website gives details of many accidents, about 5 deaths a month in Scots pits, during the 19th century alone.  The uncles I knew in Cowdenbeath, realeased from slavery by their time, would not allow their sons to go through what they endured.  All got apprentiships somewhere else. 

My grandfather had 11 children.  Two died early, and he went through 3 wives to get them, they too died early.  Not unusual in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  On those few occasions I have had to work physically hard I see it bears no relation to men working with pick and shovel down a mine in which the coal face may be less than 2 feet high!  The dust, physical difficulty, bad, uncaring management, and low wage makes it difficult for me to complain at the work I have been involved with.  

My mother had a story concerning a family member, possibly a brother of my granddad, who became a manager in a pit.  The family cut him off as if he had died!  This was a crossing over to the other side that could not be forgiven, and never was.