A Place To Call Home

I have neglected my blog here at "Pocketfull", but I do have a good excuse. Well, maybe not a good excuse but an excuse nonetheless. In recent months I've created a new blog which is dedicated to the history of my childhood hometown and I've been contributing to it almost twice weekly (See it here). For now at least, I've run out of steam so I've decided to devote some of my free time back here, amongst my family history.

A new Australian drama is set to start on the Seven Network next week called 'A Place To Call Home' and while I've been rather looking forward to watching this post-world-war-two drama it has got me thinking lately about "home" and what it means to me personally. Even though I have lived in Australia for most of my life, I still have a hankering for my childhood home. Beyond this, I have often found myself wondering what my family and my ancestors would have called home.

Both of my grandmothers were devoted to their homes. My maternal grandmother Lilian always proudly called herself a "Londoner", even long after the war ended in 1945, when she was married and living in a quiet market town in Suffolk. Then, in 1978 she emigrated to Australia. Yet, all her life, at every opportunity she could get, she went back to London. Her heart was always right there and when she died in 1983 of a massive heart attack, I always believed (and still do, to this day) that it was because her heart was broken for home.

My paternal grandmother Freda lived in Beccles all her life. She never moved away from the town, except for a few years when she moved to nearby Brampton but she quickly welcomed a return to Beccles. There was no question of her living anywhere else but Beccles. She was born there, she was married there, she raised four boys there, and it never entered her mind to travel further than was absolutely necessary. She believed in setting down your roots and staying put and, for the most part, she was content with that. It didn't make her small minded but it certainly made her homely and connected to her roots.

My grandfathers? My paternal grandfather Herbert lived in Bungay, London, and later, Beccles. I don't think that any one particular place meant more to him. I believe he went where "duty called" for the most part, even during the Second World War when he was stationed at Sutton Coldfield.

My maternal grandfather was born and lived all his life in Bungay. While he fudged his age slightly on enlistment with the Norfolk Regiment I don't think it was necessarily because he wanted to escape home life. He just wanted to do what he felt was right. He was to travel to India during his pre-World War Two service and later to Dunkirk before his capture and internment in a German Prisoner-of-War camp. Later, in 1944-45, he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps and was stationed at Epsom, county Surrey. After the war, when he married my grandmother Lilian, they remained in Bungay and raised their family there, trying (against impossible odds at times) to live by the post-war standards of a secure family life.

Aerial view of Beccles and the River Waveney

If I look back another generation, to my great-grandparents' idea of what home meant to them, it differs quite dramatically. For example, my maternal great-grandparents Albert and Elizabeth, were born in the exact same town in London. They were both from working-class families and both were baptised at the same church. Their families possibly knew one another and shared a similar social history. Albert was restless though, even as a young boy. He wanted to travel and see the world, stretch his wings and leave Putney well behind him forever. He lied about his age to get into the Royal Navy and his only reason for returning to Putney was to marry his sweetheart, Elizabeth, in 1905. After that they lived in Southwark, Fulham, Tooting, Bloomsbury and later, Sutton (where they settled and remained until Elizabeth's death in 1951).

My other maternal great-grandparents, Percy and Nellie, were much like my paternal grandmother. They remained in the Suffolk market town of Bungay all their lives. There was no question of moving away, although my great-grandfather Percy, as a younger man, did love the sea and he took to fishing on trawler boats off the coast of Lowestoft for many years before settling back to farm life after the Great War (1914-1918).

Putney, in Greater London

My paternal great-grandparents were also a mixed bunch. Albert and Eva were Becclesians to the last, although my great-grandmother Eva was born in Loddon (her parents were Loddon born and raised before moving to Beccles) but she never had a great need to return there. Beccles was her home and Great Yarmouth was her favourite family holiday destination. Albert was born and raised in Beccles, and he remained staunchly faithful to the town and its townsfolk; at home, in religious circles, and in his work.

My other paternal great-grandparents, Arthur and Barbara, lived as a married couple in the market town of Bungay and raised their family there but they were not knowingly tied to their roots. Barbara was born in Holdenhurst, county Hampshire and lived there until she was a young girl, when her father took on a new job as a Railway Gatekeeper in Woodsford, county Dorset. Less than five years later, her mother passed away, her father abandoned her and she moved to London to work in the Domestic Service. Arthur joined the Norfolk Regiment as a young man and served in both the Boer War and the Great War. It was during the Great War that Barbara moved back to London with the children (including my grandfather Herbert) while Arthur was away fighting for King and Country. When the war ended they went back, as a family, to Bungay.

So there we have it; a mixture of loyalties towards home and yet, across the board, so very similar. There are those who willingly left home to fight in the war. Those who wanted to leave their homes for broader horizons. Those who stayed in the same town all their lives, loyal to the last. Those who wanted to run from their past and never look back and those who couldn't let go of their past and so returned again and again.

To this day I share the same tug-of-war with my maternal grandmother Lilian, the Londoner, who always found a way to go back even though the memories of her childhood were not altogether pleasant or heart-warming ones. Something always called her back and she was deeply proud of her London roots, even in the impossible heat and vastness of Australia that she made home for the last remaining years of her life. My own tug-of-war calls me back to Beccles, and sometimes that call is overwhelming. It certainly reflects in my ability to write about it without getting completely caught up and swept away in a sea of nostalgia and sentiment! Even though Australia is now the place I call my home I still carry a piece of Beccles deep within my heart, and I always will. I could never let it go.

Peter Lanyon : Cornish Artist

My husband's side of the family tree is rather intriguing and much has been researched on both his father's and his mother's sides of the tree. There are tin merchants, photographers, carpenters, musicians and composers, outfitters and tailors, farmers and pioneers, midwives and Indian Army Majors but one man became a well established name in Cornish history. My husband's maternal grandfather: Peter Lanyon the potter, sculptor, and painter.

One evening not too long ago, I was idly googling Peter for any new images or paintings and on the fifth or sixth line of results I discovered a photograph I had never seen before. It was taken by Ida Kar in 1961 and it's a really lovely shot of him.

There is so much expression in his face. I wish I could've met him.

I remember once listening to an old reel-to-reel audio of Peter Lanyon talking about his love of art and his heady youth in St Ives. Of all the things he said I will never forget when he responded to a question by saying, "I like cliffs. They're very tall...and thin." My husband and I still say that to each other from time and time and fall about laughing. Of course, Peter was referring to the view from his beloved glider. Imagine being an artist, looking for inspiration along the Cornish coastline. You would be absolutely spoiled for choice, and Peter used every opportunity he had to create masses of paintings, drawings and sculptures of Cornwall.

Peter loved each of his children and he took them with him on many walks and hikes around Cornwall, and he taught each of them to appreciate and hone their own unique craft. Today his sons are renowned painters, including Andrew Lanyon and Matthew Lanyon. I didn't get to meet Andrew during our 2006/7 trip to England as he was away in Japan but I did meet Matthew and I recall him being hilarious fun and great with my daughter.

George Peter Lanyon was born in 1918, one of two children born to William Herbert Lanyon and Lilian Vivian. Peter was educated at Clifton College in Bristol but St Ives remained his base and his first love however extensively he travelled throughout his life. As his love of art grew so did his ties with fellow artists Patrick Heron, Borlase Smart, Victor Pasmore, Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Adrian Stokes, and Naum Gabo.

Peter at Little Park Owles Studio, 1955

From 1940 to 1945 he served with the Royal Air Force in the Western Desert, Palestine and Italy. In 1946 he married Sheila St John Browne. Peter and Sheila had six children (including my mother-in-law, Jane). Also in 1946 he became an active member of the Crypt Group of Artists, St Ives. During the 1950s he became established as a leading figure in the St. Ives group of artists.

Peter in his glider, c. 1960

Peter took up gliding as a pastime and used the resulting experience extensively in his paintings. One day in August 1964, on a training course with the Devon and Somerset Gliding Club, he came in to land too low; the glider nose-dived and catapulted him out. He died four days later as a result of his injuries. He grave slab carries and inscription from one of his own poems:

I will ride now
The barren kingdoms
In my history
And in my eye

The Returned Seaman, 1949

In The Trees, 1951

Chesil Bank, 1958

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/peter-lanyon

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/peter-lanyon-1467

Finding Traces of Your Ancestors Lives in Unexpected Places

We are all familiar with the buzz you get from making contact with a distant cousin who just happens to have a wealth of family photographs that they are happy to share. I know I do, and thanks to some very special people I have come to know over the years (June, Angie, Jim), I have looked into the faces of my great-grandparents, some for the very first time.

This past month or so I have investigated different avenues of research into my family history, largely using archive newspapers (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/) and local history society transcriptions. These websites have proven to be invaluable resources into the lives of my ancestors, from discovering advertisements to Quarter Sessions reports. This past week alone I have found two ancestors from the same family line (uncle & nephew) in newspaper reports, sixty years apart. In 1882 one of my great-grand uncles, then aged thirteen, was charged with stealing fruit from a garden, and later the following year, he was charged for stealing a purse from a six-year-old boy. Subsequently, he was sent to Buxton Reformatory for five years. This news was equally disturbing and surprising, but in the end I had to concede that I have discovered a truly valuable addition to my family story.

Sixty years on, one of his nephews (my maternal grandfather), was in the newspaper for an entirely different reason. In 1943 he was repatriated home to England from Germany, where he had spent three years in a Prisoner of War Camp after being captured in Dunkirk in June 1940. His return home made local news and he even managed to get his mug shot on the front page!

The first paragraph brought unexpected tears to my eyes

Then there is one of my favourite resources for local history: eBay. That's right, I did say eBay. An unexpected source I grant you, but one that I have come to value almost as much as postcard fairs and emails from distant cousins. A few years ago, whilst conducting a google image search for one of my favourite childhood locations there were several links to the eBay website. At first I ignored them all because I didn't believe it would be relevant to my search. Then I relented, and I haven't looked back since. Not only have I found postcards of my own home town in Suffolk but several of those of my ancestors; a variety of towns, villages, and locations in Norfolk, Suffolk, London, Surrey, and Yorkshire.

I found one faded black & white or sepia toned postcard image of an ancestral town or picnic spot or a street, which turned into another find, and yet another and another. Sometimes I win the bid, sometimes I miss out. It has become my one weakness (thank you Dorcas Lane). One postcard that stands out in my memory from last year was an image of Holt Lodge in Norfolk. This building was not particularly relevant to my ancestry but the seller had also uploaded the back of the postcard which had been written on. It was from my 2 x great-grand uncle (in Norfolk) to his nephew (in Hampstead). I missed out on the item, but I did manage to keep a copy.

The back of a Postcard sent by my 2 x great-grand Uncle to his Nephew

Last week I bid on a postcard from Holt. It was a fairly ordinary image (a pond!), quite faded with the heavy-handed postmark stamp creating a nice little crater on the top left corner. I never expected to have it arrive on my doorstep and find it was written to my first cousin, three times removed. My initial findings had me thinking it was written by my 2 x great-grand uncle - the same one as described above - but further investigations and cross-referencing of the handwriting, proved that it was written by an unknown person. Even so, it was definitely addressed to my cousin who was then living in Richmond, county Surrey. Four years after the postcard was sent, she was married and living in Richmond with her widowed husband and step-daughter.

Postcard sent to my distant Cousin in 1904

The moral of this post is, leave no stone unturned. Investigate every possible avenue, and when you think it couldn't be likely, it really could be likely. If you don't ask, you won't find out. I took the chance on my grandfather's newspaper report. I already had several sources of information into his repatriation and I had found a link to a local newspaper report but until I approached the local Record Office, not only did I gain a personal account of his return from my great-grandmother (who had obviously been interviewed for the story) but I also gained a new photograph, albeit grainy.



My Grandfather in the Local Newspaper



And as far as eBay is concerned: it is game of chance. It is pot-luck. Sometimes I have found some treasures, and sometimes I have missed out. Sometimes I have paid pittance and sometimes I have paid exorbitant amounts. What I have discovered and gained from it all though, is absolutely priceless.

This post is dedicated to my Uncle who is currently recovering from a recent hospital stay following an operation and intensive health issues. Get Well Soon M xxx

xxxxxxx

My Grandfathers

Inspired by the fact that today is Father’s Day in Australia and that I have just seen one of the saddest movies of all time, my next blog is dedicated to my grandfathers.

I was blessed to have four grandfathers, although I only really knew one of them well enough to write anything about with any real heartfelt emotion.

My paternal grandfather died when I was 10 years old and I curse my childhood memories sometimes, as they are not rich with any memories of him. What I do recall are only fractured scenes, like from a movie that you saw years ago and only remember snippets of. He left an indelible impression on me though, and his death caused my father such an outpouring of grief. I vividly remember being told to go to my father’s bedroom one afternoon, only to be told that Grandad Ward had passed away in hospital earlier that day. I shall never forget my father’s tears. For a child my age, it was an especially poignant moment for me.

Herbert Ambrose Ward was a quiet man, a somewhat serious man, and a bit of a loner I think. The opposite of this was his enormous sense of humour. He really enjoyed a good joke and liked to play pranks from time to time. My childhood memories of going to visit my grandparents are marked by the fact that he spent much of his time away from the hustle and bustle of noisy visitors and us over zealous grandchildren, preferring to stay in the kitchen preparing the pot for tea or going outside to tend to his garden.

Born 5 August 1910, in the market town of Bungay, he was the first-born son of Arthur Ward and Barbara Hargreaves. Having served in the Boer War Arthur was a strict, austere man who my father remembers, kept a rifle in his hallway by the front door! This is quite ironic of character given that Arthur gave his son the name Ambrose, from the surname of the man who ran his favourite local drinking establishment.

Herbert Ward, doing what he loved most

Herbert was a keen cinemagoer and he loved film all his life (one of all-time favourite actresses was Mary Pickford). During the war years he kept a diary of films he showed the troops at Barracks, as part of his service with the Royal Army Service Corps was with the Army Kinema Services. An electrician by trade before the war, Herbert's love of cinema won out and despite taking on a post-war job at Beccles Maltings, he worked in the evenings and weekends as a Projectionist at both the Regal Cinema and the Beccles Cinema in Saltgate.

I do recall visiting Grandad in the Projection Room after I had been with my father to see a film at Beccles. He would take me up the back stairs and we would enter this dark, pokey room filled with cigarette smoke and I would be deafened by the loud, clacking sound of film running through the reels.

My parents divorced when I was still quite young and my father married the second daughter of Frank William Denson and Mildred Alice Leach. Frank was born 18 April 1914 in Beccles, the son of William Denson and Frances Lillian Leon.



Frank Denson (left), taken at Beccles Museum
opening ceremony in 1975

My childhood memories of him is with a pipe permanently in his mouth. He looked stern and serious on first glance, but he was funny too. He liked to tell me about local affairs, more of a historical nature than current. Frank is a renowned Beccles historian and Borough Archivist, and for many years worked at the Museum. He has spent many years of his life transcribing and researching the history of the town. Frank is still very much alive, having celebrated his 97th birthday this year.

My maternal grandfather passed away one year before I was born and my grandmother married again two years later. By this time I was about 18 months old.

I grew up hearing countless stories about Percy Preston, not all of them very flattering. My mother certainly missed him terribly when he died (and, naturally, still does 44 years on), not least because their relationship was not always smooth sailing.

Percy could be a hardened man, made bitter from his war experiences, but he also possessed a heart of gold, which endeared him to many local townsfolk of Bungay.

(What struck me when I started researching the family history was that both my grandfathers were born (and lived during their formative years) in the same street of Bungay! If they knew one another back then, I was never made aware of it.)

Percy Preston, with his wife Lilian

Percy was the first-born son of Percy Preston (senior) and Ellen May Jolly, born 29 September 1913. Better known to everyone as Pat, he was well known in the town for his participation in the Salvation Army Band, and, in his post-war years, for his job as Dust Collector in Bungay, and Café owner in Cross Street. Percy would open his doors for anybody in need of a cup of tea and a plate of bacon & eggs. Lorry drivers would detour off the main road to Bungay based solely on Percy’s goodwill reputation around the district.

Since researching the family history in-depth I have acquired Percy’s army records and set about meticulously researching each individual service he completed. What unravelled was a gallant and sometimes heart-wrenching story.

From his pre-war service in Dacca, India to his capture at Dunkirk in 1940, his years spent in a Prisoner of War Camp on the Polish borders to his rehabilitation in 1943, and finally to his Medical training at Aldershot and subsequent service with the Ambulance Trains in Epsom, county Surrey, Percy spent a total of 29 loyal years in the British Army.

My grandmother married two years after Percy had passed away. This is the grandfather I remember best of all, and spent the most amounts of quality time with. I remember him for all sorts of different things, such as his tobacco (Drum), his use of Blycream and Old Spice, his love of Westerns (especially John Wayne movies) and reading crime novels. He worked hard all his life, and was not afraid of getting ”stuck in” wherever he was needed.

Alf "Buster" Sampson, with my mother Denise

Alfred James Sampson was born 3 July 1926 in Mettingham, county Suffolk and was the first-born son of James Sampson and Alice Trett. James Sampson ran a farm in Mettingham and all of his sons helped out, and none were adverse to the hard graft. I have many happy childhood memories of Grandad digging and planting in the allotment patch that he lovingly kept. He was always outdoors, getting his hands (and his clothes!) dirty and muddy, and frequently getting wet!

At the beginning of this blog, I mentioned I had been to see a sad movie today. It was called ‘Red Dog’ and it tells the true story of a red Kelpie who travelled the length and breadth of North-West Western Australia (the Pilbara Region) in the 1970s. One place he called “home” from time to time was Dampier.

When my Grandad, better known to everyone who knew him as “Buster”, emigrated to Australia in 1978, he worked harder than ever. Taking on a job in Dampier, he would be away from the family home for weeks at a time. Dampier was a hot and unforgiving place, a mining town, and a man’s man territory. Alf seemed to fit right in, and he made many firm friends over the years.

I sorely wish I had known each one of my grandfather’s better. Growing up, I would say the females of the family were a stronger influence and presence in my daily life. My grandfathers taught me to remain quiet inside, to feel strongly about something but not to act out in a gregarious way or be driven by material possessions. Also, they each possessed a fabulous sense of humour, each one of them loving to share a good joke and have a hearty laugh. It may sound daft but I always associated the men in my childhood like the company BP – they were the “Quiet Achievers” in my life!

So I end this blog by saying “Happy Father’s Day” to my dear father and to the fondest memory of each one of my grandfather’s – Percy (Pat), Herbert, Frank and Alfred (Buster).

You are all missed and you are all loved. I hope this blog will do each one of you a small piece of justice.