Saturday Whisky...

The wee bug that has hung around for weeks decided to hang around my throat last night and remove what energy I had from me.  This I counteracted with whisky to no effect, well except more drowsiness.  However in spite of remaining horizontal all morning the sapped energy did not return.  This was awkward as I had to be at the museum for one o'clock having promised to cover the Saturday man.  

 
Blearily I sauntered in wishing to be back in my bed.  It became obvious the girls thought in similar fashion, they wished me away again.  However I remained and took my place at the till where we welcomed the guests to the opening of the new exhibition.  The high heid yins were there, including the Member of Parliament, photo ops important at such a time when folks question his allegiance to the area, and all went swimmingly as far as I could see.
Crittalls the window people were very good to their staff.  A sports club, good conditions, good money and in the 20's one of them built the village of Silver End equipped for all requirements of the time for his employees.  It was obvious that a company that people were happy to work for, some for over fifty years, would bring a  decent few people to the museum and so it proved.  They came to see portraits of the workers!  
During the 20's someone decided to organise oil painting off those who had served the company well, usually those who had served many years.  Thus there were a collection of paintings of workers high and low on offer and today we gathered the majority of them together for the first time in 90 years.
Many were donated by the locals, their grandfather posing happily or not as the case may be, and naturally at the beginning there were queries as to whether the information was correct.  Being the people we at the till were we passed the buck to the curator and moved away.
Running home as soon as I could I have sat here watching football ever since longing for the final whistle so I can sleep.  Tomorrow I will also watch football and remain indoors out of the rain, wind and cold while I sup whisky for medicinal reasons.  I might require to do this also on Monday...

 

Research

With a strange weariness hanging over me, the weather offering frozen ground in the morning and no desperate requirement of leaving the house this meant I needed something to occupy my mind that did not require much thought, normal business as it were 
So I poked my freezing fingers into the laptop and once again returned to may family history which has lain dormant for a while.  Much of this has been done and questions asked and answered but I decided to check it out and clean things up.  
When I say family history I refer not to my family but my grandfathers first family, he remarried when a widow and I descend from the second wife not the first.  This point is important as the first wife had problems and there may have been a combination of this that led to her ending up in Dundee Lunatic asylum!  
With feet pressed against the radiator I dug out what had been found, tidied the paperwork and then somewhat foolishly decided to print off what I had found.  Grandfather and his wife had seven children in 18 years, four girls and three boys.  In spite of the age only one child died, Mary expired from pneumonia aged one year and two day in 1902.  In sorting things out I placed the printed matter in individual plastic files, all very neat, however I forgot how long it would take to print things off.  There were birth details, census's, death notices and a summary page along with individual items from each.  It also required chasing about on ancestry and the Scotland's people site going from one to another before not always finding what I was looking for.  However it did cross my mind that rather than struggle through my life with the rubbish jobs that once fed me doing something like this was more interesting and I wish I had found a way in years ago. 
It is interesting what can be found.  The British Newspaper Archive is a great help with newspapers from long ago.  This can be frustrating however when the paper you want is there but not the year you need to search!  Umpteen millions of pages but not all are as yet online.  However I did find an explanation regarding the tale of two sisters who married the same man.  One parried this insurance accountant in 1904, she died however in 1928 and then in 1933, a suitable expanse of time, her sister moved in.  This was helped by copies of the death notices in the 'Scotsman' the paper men of his ilk would have been reading at the time.  His wealth was clear as he lived up Liberton Brae, expensive middle class then as now.  Thanks to Google Maps I could also find the houses they lived in!  How strange to be excited finding info about someone I never met!  The other sister had already married well.  The behaviour of the mother might be involved here as this one lived in Newcastle and not with the family.  This before she was 13 at that.  
Another interesting insight into the mother was that two years after his marriage granddad places an ad in the local paper telling the world he is not responsible for her debts!  Something was amiss.
I got so involved in all this I ran out of black ink and had to venture out to Tesco to pay for more, £18 a go!  
The brothers were easier to sort out, at least two of them were.  One spent time in Birkenhead where his eldest sister loved with him for a while, then he is found in the 'Manitoba Rifles' fighting for the Canadian Army, aged 35, and disappearing into the chalk on the 5th July 1916.  I must look them up sometime.  William however was in the RNVR and spent the war on small 'sloops' supporting the war effort.  The details on his discharge papers are hard to decipher without a knowledge of Naval terms but he appears to have done all right.  He died in a house in East London in 1936, his probate went to his sister.
Robert however adds mystery to this.  He is 16 and a drapers assistant while at home in Edinburgh but does not appear anywhere again.  I canny find a death certificate, (there are hundreds with his name and it appears the family always had a Robert somewhere) he is not on a census, and has disappeared.  Add to this my aged aunt one time mentioned a tale of that family concerning a son taking poison and then another doing the same which makes me wonder.  In 1891 they are all at home, dad working as a steam engine driver, but in 1901 he is elsewhere along with two sisters and one son.  He remains married and one son is England but where are the rest and why is the engine driver now a general labourer at 55?  Mary has died, has son killed himself, has mother gone over the top as she is now in the lunatic asylum, and yet no info anywhere regarding this.  I need to keep digging.
That is how I have spent two cold days, filling my head with such things, all meaning little in the end but I find it interesting and it keeps me off the streets.  

 

Tuesday Twaddle

Amazon

To encourage the Brexit sponsoring billionaire who owns Amazon I bought this book from him.  He appears happy with that and so he ought to be, after all how much would he have in the offshore banks if it were not for people like me and those shifty accountants he employs? 
This meant that as I was defending the Western Front from those empire builders I had no time to do anything else.  Just as well as I am lazy and did not wish to do anything else.  
A strange book in some ways, it does not 'flow' like a story as it is based on his notes written up at the time but this does give an immediacy to the action in some ways.  Otherwise it is similar to the experiences of what the gutter press refer to as 'our boys' in that the war is fought with the usual problems fro those in the front line and ignorance from those behind.  It therefore makes a mockery of war in many ways.  A good read and once again one I could not put down, in spite of the odd ways in which this translation is written.

It is still going on.
We are no further ahead.
The country does not know what is happening.
Parliament does not know what is happening.
The PM does not know what is happening nor what she is doing.
These men do.

 
These tax dodgers all support Brexit, many live abroad, and like James Dyson that loyal Brexiteer would move their business out of the UK to save money and pay less tax.  These, and who knows who else are behind Brexit.  Telling the little englanders that leaving would give back 'sovereignty' (which we had not lost), create wealth (for them) and kick out all those horrid (mostly black) immigrants that at taking our jobs and living off the dole.  The lies have borne fruit, the media has stolen the nation and it appears nothing can be done.
Disaster awaits...

Morning, Noon and Night.

For the first time this week I rose without the heavy sleep hanging over me, a touch off that bug that has been going around here.  So just after seven a.m. I  trudged in the freezing weather up to Sainsburys.  It was colder than I anticipated, some frost lay in places in the park, and I was unable to open my eyes properly but that means nothing at that time in the morning.
High above the warning red sky offered a day of terrible weather even if the BBC site claims it will be chilly but none too bad around here.  Rarely does the red sky warning fail, somewhere today someone will feel the weather hurt them badly and I therefore must lay plans to stay in all day, once I have popped into the museum to pass on some info for one of the volunteers there.  I expect grumbling re the cold to be heard all around, but not from me as I never complain....

Wandering round to the museum just after ten with the weather colder than it was at seven I went to drop off the material for Keith.  He was busily involved in researching Braintree history back into the distant past.  What will come from this I know not but it looks good.  Judging by the size of he work he has done I am glad he is doing this and not me.
I am much happier than he, he is meeting with others to discuss that work, while I am watching the Scottish Cup on the BBC.  Much better than making my head spin with staring at long lines of aged information written in small and often undiscernible letters. 

My busy day is over, two football matches and reading my book has worn me out.  I had little time to spend arguing with Brexit lovers today, they must miss me?  Mind you Brexit has been pushed back by Prince Philip proving his manhood by crashing cars and then returning to the wheel without using a seat belt.  Vast acres after the accident spoke of his 'bravery' but almost none mentioned the people he crashed into.  They were of no importance I suppose.  I wonder who pays for the cars he crashes...?

Nothing Has Changed

Two votes in the House and nothing has changed.  May is still there fighting hard to keep the Tory Party together in site of the knifing in the back that continues daily.  Once again she stands outside No 10 spouting the same meaningless speeches, once agan nothing changes and the time runs out.
Where will it all end?  
I have avoided most of the talk that has been flung about, none of it makes any difference and little among it makes sense.  The PM is intent on avoiding a party split, the nation has voted emotionally from a 'little englander' viewpoint and now regret this as all the factories, at least those that are left, make plans for moving to Slovakia.  The lies have taken root and the ones fooled into voting for Brexit now are the ones who will pay the price.
I note also how the 'Baby Boomer' generation are again being told they have lots of money and their pension may have to be taxed.  This has been hanging around for a while and the media like the lapdogs they are were quick to promote the 'rich pensioner' idea as a 'theft from the young.'   Once again Tory lies will make others pay while they dodge tax and do very well thanks.  

 I struggled awake this morning, heavy with sleep for some reason, while the girl mumbled on about the weather on the wireless.  "It is going to be chilly," she said apparently unaware that it is the middle of January and therefore 'winter.'  As she did so I noticed large flakes of snow landing on the window.  This was chillier than I had hoped.  
Within an hour this had evaporated and the sun shone brightly all day fooling some into thinking it warmer than it was.  I was not fooled and remained indoors bar taking the rubbish out and risking frostbite.  Minus 1 tonight, a few weeks of this and the Gas and electric men can plan their bonus.' 

Film Night #Laurel & #Hardy #Busy #Bodies

Laziness Forces me to introduce FILM NIGHT!

It's cheap, it's old and it reminds you off me, er hold on...

GRRRRrrrrr....

I called someone a 'snowflake' today!  
This worries me.  
I am becoming a 'Daily Mail' reader!
I was irked, annoyed and put out by his comment and reacted without due care and attention.
This is of course not unlike me.
However I sit here fuming at my stupidity.  That ought to be one thing I am used to but no, I am surprised at how grumpy I am these days, grumpy at 'Daily Mail' levels and that is a worry.  
This anger arises easily as I look around me and see importance poured on things that are not important, celebs, adverts, stupid comments from a TV/pop/film star for instance.  Little things magnified out of proportion and now I am doing it also!
This generation is not easy to understand, their priorities are not major, minor things appear important and I suspect this is as a result of both they and their parents, and probably grandparents being brought up in a life of comparative wealth.  The middle classes, those who power the movers and shakers, have never worked in the real world and the following generations have nothing positive to aim for except the 'self.'  Me first has always been the way of the world but now many have the ability and expect the right to do anything even if it is absurd.  (At this point I would deviate (get it) into a rank about 'trans' but I will spare you this but it shows the point well)  Previous generations lived for the day as they were paid so poorly they had nothing spare, today this is less common.  The 'chattering classes' appear to be heading nowhere and this, like almost everything else, annoys me.
I am of course aware there are over a thousand foodbanks and many suffer under the austerity that leaves poor George Osborne struggling along on £2 million a year.  A friend of mine helps run the local one and meets some very hard cases but they are not the people who anger me.  It is the ones who do not notice and do not care.  The false dawn of the Hippy years saw many wish t make the world a better place, today people only seek self enjoyment, not a wrong in itself but they appear oblivious to the real world.  The PC world has raised a generation with a false moral outlook, 'if it feels good, do it' has become the value, the result is a mess.  An inability to know right from wrong and replace this with a false morality kills.
There again of course I could be, as my friend Wendy has often informed me over the past forty or so years, just a 'Miserable git.'  Maybe she has a point.
However I do see myself getting angrier, is it age?  Is it the generation around me, or is it I am just a git?  

          
Talking of drunken Twitter users I note that Trump has decided to shout at Turkey.  He has threatened them, a NATO ally, with repercussions if they don't do what he slurred.  Now the cynic in me says he has lots of money from Putin's friends, which means from Putin, and Turkey is a front seat for NATO on Russia's border.  Now could this be one of the ideas the Kremlin has put into his head to lessen the threat from next door I wonder?  I am convinced this could not be the case, he is after all a President and the US would not elect a stupid man as president surely?

Books, The Invisible Cross, and Others

Having finished my first Christmas book the other day I have been awaiting delivery of something to read.  This is not because I have no books lying around awaiting use but because most of them are the slower type of read, I wanted something that I could not put down and would be an easy read.  Too many of the others I can only take one chapter at a time, then my brain requires rest.
Three of these I have never heard off before,  the Ernst Junger one I have wished to read for some time,and I am happy to consider these will be easier to read and more interesting than anything available on the nearest TV set or grubby daily paper.  We will find out son enough.
The books all came via Amazon, for reasons of their own the Junger book was sent separately to the others and came via Royal Mail, dropping happily through the letter box along with a final demand for someone else.  The others however came by Amazons own delivery men, 'White Van Man' and normally a 'Black or Tanned Van Man' who had never been in North Essex before, had 500 drops, no map bar a 'Tom Tom' that was out of date and could not speak English.  Whether he had a licence or insurance I would not like to ask.  So today, Saturday, I am informed books are on the way, again it is natural to expect arrival about seven in the evening but happily he arrived as I looked out the window checking on strange noises outside.  This before noon and with an English driver at that!
Now I suppose I must go and sit in my bed for a few days reading all this stuff, I do not wish it to go to waste.

     Amazon

This is an excellent book, though I would not refer to it 'as eloquent as  any war poem'  but it does reveal one man's heart while engaged in fighting a war, a war about which he new little as it happens.  An Englishman with experience of fighting in India at the end of the Raj finds his 1st Battalion the Cameronians now engaged in fighting a very different and superior enemy.  This he does well, as situations change the battalion suffers losses and he takes over command while his superior becomes Brigade General, a position he also will soon be in line for.  Alas he does not follow the commands of the Divisional Generals behind the lines while fighting at Loos, along with his Brigadier he demands that if they wish him to proceed as planned they must come and look at the situation and give him the order in writing, as he has a right to demand.  They do not come.
This made him possibly a marked man and it was until 1918 he actually became a Brigadier, three years late!
We know all this from the letters he sent to his beloved wife.  These he attempted to write daily, not always possible, and reveal his care for his family, his desire to get out of the line as he was ageing and the burden of command as the years past and the war developed wore him down.  His wife's replies he destroys, to precious for others to see.
This is an excellent insight into the battalion commander under duress, the stress of war, care for his family whom he rarely sees, and the care for his men often dying because of blunders and mistakes.
One interesting observation was his lack of understanding of how the war was going.  His friendship and relationship to senior generals did not help him develop a picture of the overall situation, the newspapers offered nothing but propaganda, and he asked his wife for info he was not receiving.  He lived on after the war, another came and went and he continued his happy life until his death in the 1960's.  The war of course he never spoke about.
Overall a very good book, worth a read.

Several times I have come along the street round the corner I have heard a bird sing happily somewhere above me.  At lunch time as I passed by there he was again, a wonderful cheery song in a gray day.  This time I could see him even though the light was poor and I am glad to know it was this Robin chirping away while Sparrows buzzed about him in the tree.  If the weather deteriorates as some claim it will then  hope he survives.  A month of real winter is due and I hope it s not like the one being experienced in Europe.  I hope the bird survives as the song brightens each day.

Thursday Cogitation

The tenth of January twenty nineteen, yet another year has almost finished before I have got over Christmas, and that itself appears far in the past!   Staring out into the gloom does not cheer me early in my morning, neither does Radio 3 cheer as it ought this morning, the wrong choice of music for me.  I wish for something more cheery, ah, Brandenburg Concerto's, that's better, I need something cheery as in a minute the news will appear bringing tales of Brexit, squabbles in parliament and little encouraging me to go out and meet the world.  The world itself is gray and chilly, the people wrapped up, gloved and woolly hatted as if the Antarctic was on their minds rather than Tesco, only young girls heading to college dress skimpily to attract the strange creatures attending them, tardily attired males who consider themselves 'trendy' while looking, as all youths do in every generation, a mess.

My mood might be affected by the pile of paper lying beside me.  This contains information regarding the graves in the Bocking End Congregational Church graveyard.  This has been in use so long many of the tombs are now unreadable and others soon to be similar sadly.  However I checked up some of the names and was struck by how much many achieved, at least in child rearing, and how quickly their life had passed, life is much shorter than we realise, and only after fifty do we realise we are next!  The age span of the names is also great, one church minister was serving the church there for nigh on fifty years, greeting many when they entered the world and burying them around him when they left, while others failed to reach five years in their Victorian life.  Many women lie there dying in their twenties and thirties, childbirth often the cause.
Others appear to have been successful in business, a builder married the girl next door, began as a carpenter, became a builder, then a master builder and eventually died in what I presume to be a house he himself built in one of the more prestigious streets.  Today that house will cost well over half a million, possibly much more, it is an outstanding building!  His other buildings will stand all around probably for many years yet.
I sometimes wonder how people survived the physically tough eras in the past.  Walking was the most common form of travel until railways appeared, and then we would not venture far unless we sought a new life or had a public day off.  Medicine was rare, mostly old wives tales and experiments, until the mid Victorian days when ether arrived operations were rather drastic, germs were not discovered until much later and sickness was dangerous.  Hard labour, poor wages, poor prospects, even though life improved as the century came to an end, in comparison to today the opportunities had to be fought for and life was strewn with difficulties.  We have it so much easier and I am aware of many faults and difficulties we all face today. 

Our next exhibition reflects greatly on one of the large businesses that once employed thousands of townsfolks, Crittall Windows.  By the end of the 19th century Courtaulds Mills, Lake and Elliott and Crittall's employed thousands here, all were decent employers and workers happily remained employed at these companies for most of heir working days.  All paid decent wages, good working conditions and social clubs and events.  Crittalls had a large social club almost opposite their extensive factory, now all gone and replaced by housing, and paid good wages with excellent conditions for the time.  During the Great War they replaced men who had gone off to serve with women paying the same wages and prepared 18lb shells for the war.  One of the Crittalls built the small town of 'Silver End' around one of his factories for the workers, social clubs, parks, shops etc all available in a modernistic setting.  While few of the early settlers remain, most must have passed away by now, the village is still clearly well laid out although the benefactor 'feel' may now have long gone.  If only our millionaires today acted like this towards their people?  I suppose they have no contact with workers and therefore have no idea what the workers lives are like, politicians today mostly failing to have ever 'worked' having always been politically minded.  They are indeed far from us all.  The Crittalls however knew their people and this exhibition will show oil paintings made by the company of workers at all levels from shop floor to boardroom.  These were made in the 20's and at least one person I have met has a granddad who is among those portrayed by the artist (whoever he was).  This ought to being in the public, half the town worked there or knew some family member who did, and it will run on until the new year to allow schools a chance to bring the kids in and learn about the towns past.  
No-one paints portraits of their workers today.

 

Work

The sun was up, the sky was blue, and so was I as he sun shone but failed to heat.
Chilled and weary I entered the world of work once again and once again it smiled upon me, then left me to it all day.  How marvellous to have had nothing to do for two hours this morning!  They who must be obeyed were all in a meeting, that went on all day, I think one of them is still there talking away and has not noticed the rest have hopped it.  This left me with nothing to do but attend to visitors who did not show.  At least for most of the day that is then they all came at once, parcels being delivered, visitors, people asking for bus timetables, more visitors and then it as time to go home.
Naturally at this point I made a mess of the till and our one big customer of the day, until then our only one, suffered my incompetence.  Once sorted he smiled and left, feeding them chocolates while we sort the till helps ease people I find, especially women, and then reporting to boss who had sneaked out of meeting and being clouted with ledger book, I sailed home.
Marvellous this ability of mine to make mistakes no-one else ever makes.  I see this as a "cough" gift though the boss says otherwise.

Geordie taking over at the 'Mail' recently  offered a chance for the tabloid to improve the quality aspect, turn from Brexit and produce journalism once again.  Sadly this has not materialised.  Indeed it appears to have gone further in quality.  Instead of haranguing the EU or screaming about immigrants Geordie fills the paper with royal stories, mostly untrue, and mediocre celebs.  So we have tales of what she wears, what she said to him, and what ex-employee claims she said he said that week when she did or he didn't.  Hundreds comment each taking sides in this needless soap opera.  Geordie knows his audience and 'News' is not what they seek.  To this end David Beckham the mediocre footballer with pouting wife has reappeared constantly.  Oh joy, we need to know about him, her, the sales, the fashion, the money don't we?   Well no actually but the DM reader apparently does.  Brexit has been pushed carefully aside and Geordie is, like everyone else, unsure what will happen, so he hedges bets in case he needs someone in the future.  Dacre, the strange previous editor has departed who knows or cares where but Geordie must improve the quality or folks might be wanting the old man back again.