A golden anniversary

Five years ago today I wrote a post to mark our forty-fifth wedding anniversary and Grandson#2’s eleventh birthday. In the years since then, we have sold our home of over forty years and moved down into the valley, where we are now very happily settled. Today Grandson#2 reaches the advanced age of sixteen, whilst DH and I pinch ourselves to be sure we aren’t dreaming that fifty years really have passed since that wet April Monday in Oxford when the two of us were married.

As soon as I sat down to try to to think of words to sum up those fifty years, I was swamped by so many memories, happy, sad, funny, serious, mundane or truly extraordinary, that I despaired of distilling them into anything shorter than a sizeable book. Instead I turned, as I do increasingly as the years pass, to images, to the photographs which have chronicled the fifty years of our life together, as our children were born, grew up and went out into the world and in their turn found partners and settled down to produce a new generation.

By and large these years have been good ones, for which we are both very grateful. There have been difficulties and sorrows, but they have been balanced by joys and the satisfaction of work and other interests and now by the contentment of our life together in our seventies. My hope is that these snapshots will give you a at least a flavour of what those fifty years have meant to us both.

Fifty years ago today

Young and usually scruffy...

..though we scrubbed up quite well

DS and his very young and inexperienced parents

At the chilly Northumbrian coast with DD and DS

Up in the Welsh hills and still scruffy...

All grown and spruced up 

DS's graduation

Grandmother and grandson

Mother and daughter

A very happy family occasion

Another special, happy day

Grandson#1, who is now at university!

Grandson#2 (16 today) with his great-grandmother

Grandson#3, who is now taller than us both.

Our three beloved grandsons

Ordination as deacon 30 years ago this year

Nearly 9 years later, ordination as priest

Three brothers

Five sisters

Fifty years on we're growing old disgracefully...

So many memories…

Yesterday, almost exactly 44 years since we first saw it, our old house up in the hills ceased to belong to us. New owners have moved in, with excited plans and hopes for their life there, and DH and I have been left with our memories of the many years it was our home.

I remember the day in 1973 when we went to view it for the first time and how we seemed to be travelling through a green tunnel as we drove from the village up the sunken road with its over-arching trees and high hedges, until we emerged at the top to a glorious view over the hills of Mid-Wales. 

I remember how we turned off the road and went down a rutted lane until we saw the sagging roof of the decrepit old farmhouse, which was all we could afford, and fell in love with it there and then.

I remember years of scrimping and saving until we had enough money to do the necessary renovations and how we still managed to have a very happy life with our two young children in its shabby rooms and lovely surroundings. 

I remember them playing outside in the summer and sledging down the big field in the snowy winters we had in the 70s and early 80s.

I remember the horrendous months of renovation work, during which we stored most of our possessions in the garage and camped in one room after another to let the builders get on with their work unhindered. It was during those months that one of the most indelible memories of all was formed, when early one morning I raced downstairs in my bare feet to the kitchen at the sound of the telephone and stood shivering on the rubble-strewn floor to hear the news that my mother had died.

I remember, indeed I will never forget, how the new bathroom created by the renovation work gave us one of the most wonderful views any house could have and how this ash tree through the seasons provided a leitmotif for our life there.

I remember our children growing up there, learning new skills, discovering their potential, until first one, then the other, left for university and a new life across Offa’s Dyke in England. I remember how they came to visit, first alone, then with partners and children, especially at Christmas when the dark old beams made a perfect backdrop for decorations and tree, but also in school holidays and half-terms.

I remember the bedroom I turned into a study and how I spent almost every free hour of three hard but rewarding years, studying for ordination alongside my full-time work in the library. I remember DH helping me by typing my essays on one of our earliest computers, stopping from time to time to suggest I rethink or reword sections which were unclear or badly-expressed.

I remember how, after my first diagnosis of cancer, DH suggested we could add a conservatory at the back of the house where we could sit and look across to the distant hills. I remember the fun of planning it and doing much of the work ourselves, and how it was there that we watched Grandson#1 take his first unsteady solo steps one holiday weekend. I remember sitting there a couple of years later with my youngest sister and her fiancé on a sunny summer afternoon, as we happily planned the wedding I would conduct for them.

I remember how we decided to turn the old cowshed across the farmyard into a holiday cottage, which I advertised in the church press, and how for several years a series of tired clergy came with their families to enjoy the peace and the glorious views.

Later, after our six years living elsewhere while I was in full-time parish ministry, I remember how we moved back there when I retired and realised that it had never really stopped being home.

But now it has. Now home is down in the valley, with a view of the hills above us and of the river at the edge of the garden, while a new family discovers the delights of living in that very special place, and we are content.

Gallivanting again…

...or another Big Birthday trip.

Almost five years ago, when my blog was still new and shiny, I wrote a post about a holiday I’d just had with DD.  2011 was the year I turned 65 and she turned 40 and to mark these momentous occurrences  we decided to go to Assisi together on a Pax Travel pilgrimage. I had been several times before and loved it, but for DD it was her first visit. On our return I shared some impressions of our experience in a post called The Big Birthday trip.

This wasn’t the first time in recent years that I’d headed off on holiday with a member of the family other than DH. The previous year, my next-to-youngest sister, PolkaDot, and I had visited Madeira only weeks after the catastrophic floods of February 2010 and, once I had a blog, of course I had to write about it. We both enjoyed our shared holiday so much that afterwards we talked several times about the possibility of repeating the experience.

In November 2011, to mark Armistice Day, I had written a post about my Great-Uncle Walter who died in the Ypres Salient in World War 1.  That sowed the seed in my mind of one day doing what PolkaDot had already done and visiting Ypres in Belgium to see his name on the Menin Gate memorial. Time went on and a couple of years later she suggested that we might like to go on holiday together in 2016 to mark two more Big Birthdays - her 65^th and my 70^th - and also the centenary of Great-Uncle Walter’s death on February 16^th.

Now February isn’t normally the time of year one would choose to holiday in Western Europe, but some things are more important that the weather. When we discovered that a holiday company had scheduled a battlefields tour that would take us to the very area where Great-Uncle Walter had been killed, on the exact anniversary of his death a century ago, the die was cast.

We booked and now I’m busy with my final preparations before DH drops me at my sister’s house on Sunday, ready for a very early start next morning on our journey to Belgium. Fortunately the local weather forecast for next week is very much better than what we’ve been enduring this week - cold and sunny, rather than wet and windy - and we’re both starting to feel very excited about Big Birthday Trip Mark 2. My camera and notebook are already packed. Less important things like clothes will come later...

New Year greetings

After a very enjoyable and rather memorable Christmas visit to DD and her family in Yorkshire, DH and I made our way home across the Pennines yesterday, but only for a couple of days.  After doing the laundry and making extra supplies of mince pies to take with us, DH and I are off again tomorrow, heading south this time, to see the New Year in with his mother and brother and then to spend a few days with DS and his family.

I have a post about our eventful Christmas brewing, but no time now to commit the thoughts to keyboard. So before I head upstairs to pack the suitcase again, may I wish you and your loved ones a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year. Here’s hoping 2016 will bring the UK rather more sun and considerably less rain.

Image via Google

A month full of memories

“April is the cruellest month” wrote the poet T S Eliot in the opening lines of The Waste Land.  Forgive the poetic exaggeration, but I do find April an emotional month, filled as it is with so many significant family anniversaries and the memories that accompany them.

The first in my grandfather’s birthday on the 3^rd. Born in 1889, he died at the end of my first term at university in 1965, having been an ever-present influence in my childhood and youth. My memories are still vivid and full of gratitude for having known him.

Almost a fortnight elapses before the next dates arrive, starting with the birthday on the 15^th of the uncle I never knew. My mother’s baby brother Jack died within a few weeks of his birth in 1921 and she grew up an only child.

Thankfully the next birthday is a happy one – that of our eldest grandson, who turned 16 on the 17^th and is bidding fair to be as tall as his 6’4” father! It’s hard to believe this mischievous toddler now has his head down over his books, revising hard for his GCSEs.

Grandson #1 trying to walk on water

The very next day we celebrated the birthday of my niece and goddaughter, now in her thirties and waiting happily for the birth of her first child in the summer. It’s wonderful to see the wheel of life continuing to turn like this and to know I will soon be a great-aunt again. Where are those knitting needles?

Two sets of cousins -  the birthday girl below

The next date is one that will always be etched in my heart. On the 20^th my dear father died, only minutes before midnight and the beginning of my mother’s birthday on the 21^st. They had been married for almost 37 years, had brought up five daughters and had given them the very best start in life any child could wish for. I can never be grateful enough for the sacrifices they made to support us through school and university on working-class wages, an education neither of them had been fortunate enough to enjoy.

After that came my birthday on the 24^th (the last of my 60s – help!) closely followed by a twin celebration on the 29^th. For DH and myself there was the milestone of 47 years of married life, while at the same time we marked the day when Grandson#2 reached the status of teenager. Where have those thirteen years gone? Blink and you’ve missed them.

Grandson#2 finding it a rather slippery place to be

There are plenty of other significant family dates scattered through the year, but in no other month is there such a concentration. If not a cruel month, April is certainly a poignant one for me - a rainbow mixture of happiness and hope for the future, mingled with an enduring sense of loss.

PS  Don't tell DH, but I forgot to include another significant April date - the anniversary of our first meeting on the day before my 21st birthday. That truly was my lucky day.

From family past to family present

After my recent forays into my family’s history, daily life has caught up with me again and I’ve been running fast to keep up these last few days. From leading a Mothering Sunday service last Sunday, to hosting a meeting on Monday and welcoming a friend today, life is suddenly very full and busy again.

Now I’m getting ready to welcome my next-to-youngest sister and her husband and pet dog for a visit which begins tomorrow afternoon and will end nicely in time for me to finish my final preparations for next Sunday’s service. Think of me tomorrow morning, as I dust and hoover and change beds and prepare food. 

Hopefully I won’t get lost forever in the duvet covers before I can enjoy a couple of days of not-stop conversation and laughter, interspersed with pleasant relaxation over lingering meals.  Our youngest sister and her husband and dog live not far away and will join us, so there will be a lot of chatter and teasing and “do you remember when”. I hope our poor husbands can keep up…

Cartoon via The Poke.

Lost in the past

It all started early last month, when I learned that the genealogical website Ancestry was offering a weekend of free access to all its records. Two of my three younger sisters have done a great deal of family history research over the past few years, but somehow the bug passed me by. I’ve been genuinely interested in their discoveries and have used some of their information in previous posts, but I never felt the need to do the research myself - until now.

The Ancestry weekend whetted my appetite and since then I’ve enjoyed starting to put together my own version of our family tree.  However, last weekend moved things onto a whole new level. This is because another family history website was offering three whole days of free access to their huge stock of worldwide records  and this time DH was away visiting his mother and I had almost the entire weekend to myself.

Over the previous few weeks I had learned enough to know exactly what to look for this time. In three packed days I experienced the most enormous enjoyment and satisfaction as I gradually put flesh on the bones of my skeleton family tree (if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor) and fitted half-forgotten names from my childhood into their proper places. Without DH to remind me about mealtimes I even forgot to have breakfast one day and ended up eating my cereal for lunch!

By the time the free access period ended I’d amassed an enormous amount of information, which I now have to organise and make sense of. But in addition to information I’ve gained something else over the past few days – something perhaps more important than factual details and certainly more personal.

Scanning through census returns, searching birth, marriage and death records, and adding details to the family tree, has brought the lives and backgrounds of my ancestors and their wider family members into very sharp focus, Suddenly I find myself trying to put myself into the shoes of two of my great-great-grandmothers, one of whom gave birth to at least thirteen live children and saw four die in infancy. Even more tragically, the other also had thirteen children, of whom only seven survived into adulthood.

My great-uncle George as he started school in 1896

The streets teemed with children, including three of my great-uncles.

Both these great-great-grandmothers lived in the industrial Lancashire town where I was born and I know the streets of small terraced houses in which they struggled to feed and clothe their large families.  One was the wife of a brick and tile maker, the other of a cotton weaver, so money must have often been very scarce with so many children to care for.

My great-grandfather, aged two, and seven of his siblings on the 1871 census

No wonder then that as soon as the children reached the school leaving age of 13, they too found themselves in the brickworks or the cotton mill, working long hours and bringing their wages home to swell the family purse. They usually went on living at home until they married and even then rarely moved far. One of my great-grandfathers, with his wife and child, lived just round the corner from an elder brother and his wife and both couples appear on the same page of the census return.

Spot two of the Fish brothers on the same census return

If they were female and didn’t marry they often went on living at home until their parents died. My grandmother’s mother was one of a family of nine, eight girls and one boy, of whom only four married. In the 1911 census six unmarried sisters are shown living with their widowed father. The youngest eventually married and I still have vivid childhood memories of her and her next sister, whom I knew as Aunt Ethel and Aunt Lil. If only I’d known enough then to ask about their lives and hear from their lips the way the world had changed since they were my age.

Or at least five of them. My maternal great-grandmother is on the far left.

Sadly those generations are long gone, but surprisingly vivid echoes of their lives and struggles, their joys and sorrows still linger in the apparently dry and dusty pages of those official records.

Yes, you’ve guessed it – I’m hooked!