Family History Through The Alphabet Challenge : M is for...

Oh my goodness, tell me it isn't true. Are we really halfway through the History Through the Alphabet blog challenge? Is there really only thirteen more blogs to go? The letter M means three very important things to me, the more obvious one being my mother. The other two things are Music and Medicine, so let's get started.

When I was growing up, music was all around me. My mother contstantly played her 45s and my father used to play guitar in a local group. When I was around seven or eight years of age I started to take notice of music that I liked. Being fed healthy doses of Elvis Presley, The Shadows, The Hollies, and 70s Glam Rock I became quite a fan of popular music. I had no idea then that music was a vital part of my ancestry.

I will never forget the first time I saw my 3xgreat-grandfather's occupation in the census - the woman who was helping me to read it proudly proclaimed across the room that he was a Professor of Music. I still remember how both of us gushed with enthusiasm. Music ran in my family! As time (and more research) went on, I discovered that my ancestors played and sold musical instruments, gave garden party concerts, accompanied silent films (see my blog about Fred Bowes), and also taught music to school age children.

A group of school boys from Holt
Image courtesy of Keith Entwistle

Medicine was another vital part of my ancestry, and I am proud to say that I inherited the love of nursing, pharmacology and first aid from them. When I was a child I was a St John Ambulance Cadet and with my school friends, we attended the Beccles First Aid Training Centre every week. After drifting aimlessly from one job to another in my teenage years, I decided to go back to school and train to become an Enrolled Nurse. When my passion for genealogy took over my life, I discovered that my maternal grandfather was in the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War Two, and two of my great-grand Uncles were in the RAMC during The Great War. Again, with Fred Bowes I found out that, as well as serving in the RAMC, he also worked in a Chemist.

My great-grandmother worked as a Domestic Servant for a London physician during the 1890s through to her marriage in 1909. Dr Thomas Grigor Brodie was an emminent physiologist at Kings College and St Thomas Hospital, London and published many articles relating to his experiemental findings. He died in 1916, having served in the Canadian Army Medical Corps as Captain and had enjoyed a professional life both as lecturer and physiologist, in his homeland and overseas. I have just found this memorial on the Kings College website:

http://kingscollections.org/warmemorials/kings-college/memorials/brodie-thomas-grigor

Royal Army Medical Corps during The Great War
Image courtesy of http://www.ramc-ww1.com/

I am extremely proud of my musical and medical ancestors and I thank them wholeheartedly for giving me such strong humanitarian values and an appreciation (and good ear) for music of all varieties and genres.