Lest we forget

I watched the Remembrance Service from the Royal Albert Hall on tv last night. I don't always watch it but it was on, I was there, and it's the sort of programme, given its subject matter, that it seems disrespectful to switch off halfway through. Anyway, at the end they did the traditional "headgear off, three cheers for The Queen" bit and my mind went straight to my father.

My father had been in the Royal Navy for a couple of years when war was declared. The First World War that is. He came out of the Navy after 25 years and spent the Second World War in a reserved occupation or no doubt he'd have been back at sea in no time. He had to be satisfied with commanding a Home Guard unit so I guess he was the Captain Mainwaring of our area. And if you don't know who Captain Mainwaring was, don't panic.

Anyway, he joined various clubs for ex-servicemen, including the White Ensign and the Royal British Legion, and every year on Remembrance Sunday he took part in the parade. I grew up in Salisbury, which has military bases all around, and the Remembrance Sunday parade there is a pretty big deal, with a fair sprinkling of some very top brass.

One year my father announced that he had been chosen to lead the veterans part of the parade. He would be the guy at the front right-hand corner of the British Legion section calling out the commands, and as an old sailor it would be his privilege to show the old soldiers how it should be done, oh yes.

So on that Sunday we all went into town to watch the parade. Round the corner they came, these proud old men, their medals bouncing and glinting as they marched. Fifteen paces before the front rank reached the platform where the General Officer Commanding waited to take the salute, my father's voice strong and clear. "Parade! Hats off on my command." Hundreds of right hands reached up to grasp hats. "Parade! Eyes... RIGHT! Hats... OFF!" and so they marched by, in perfect step.

When he came home for lunch, a small voice piped up. "Granddad, weren't you supposed to take your hat off too?" I can't see a Remembrance Day parade without thinking of my father marching past the General, arms swinging sharply, and hat still firmly on. I keep watching the parades and waiting for someone else to do it, but so far no one has.

My great-great-great-great-grandmother was one of the first 'ordinary' people in England to leave a probated will; before that wills were rarely written down let alone lodged with a court, apart from those of noble families with vast estates and money to divide. Anyway, 4xgrandma did have some property which was hers by right, an unusual situation when women's property belonged to their husbands, and she left a detailed account of how it was to be distributed.

To her eldest son, she left nothing - because he had inherited his father's land (they were farmers) and was therefore already taken care of. Her second son got another farm and her third son got property in a neighbouring town. Her daughters and the grandchildren got various things - a house, a cottage, an annuity, the household goods and linens, and amounts of cash. One daughter got some acres of land on condition that her husband dropped his lawsuit claiming other fields and if he didn't drop the case, his wife got nothing. I've always suspected that was the reason the will was probated, because it would take one legal threat to get rid of another - and the traditional division of property by trusted word of mouth would not cover the contingencies of a lawsuit.

By today's standards 4xgrandma left quite a lot of money and all the family were well provided for... apart that is from one grandson. "To my grandson, William, I leave but a single shilling for reasons he doth know thereof." I have always wanted to know what William did, to get cut off with but a single shilling. My family were involved with the very early Methodists so for a long time I thought that perhaps William took a drink of alcohol... but the Temperance Pledge wasn't introduced until 40 years after 4xgrandma's will so it probably wasn't that.

Today I think I discovered the reason, in a county records office in the south-west where we are from. A county court judgement, issued two years before 4xgrandma died and a few months before she wrote her will, that William should, and I quote, "pay maintenance for his b*stard child". I think granny must have been quite upset, don't you?

And William? I don't know exactly what became of him except that in due course he married and had legitimate children. My father was a William, and his father and his father before him... and when I grew up, we barely had a shilling!

Poor Piglet.

I posted a picture yesterday of the house where my grandmother was born, which you can see here.

Since my great-grandfather was the blacksmith there in Victorian times the house has been 'gentrified' with an extension and converted stables at the back, plus they've built another house in what must have been part of the yard. I'm not sure when the work was done, I'd guess fairly recently simply because until the 1980s/90s the whole village was still owned by the lord of the manor and I assume that my ancestors used to work for his ancestors.

When I lived in Milton Keynes back in the 70s, I took my father for a drive to the village his mother was from and where he had spent some time as a child when his brother and sisters were farmed out to various relations after she died. He remembered being taken in a pony and trap to the big market in Northampton which has had a Royal Charter since 1189, has been in its current location since 1235, and is one of the largest in Europe - some small factoids for my American friends, lol.

When I moved back up here in the early 90s, I went to see if I could find the smithy and drove through the village very slowly, looking around to see if I could spot the house... when I got to the other end of the high street I realised I was being watched. I'd taken my slow drive on a day when the hunt was gathering - and in those days of anti-hunt demonstrations they thought I might be up to no good! I didn't tell them which side I was on... I just drove off rather quickly, glad to escape my ancestral home with my life!

I used to have a friend whose grandfather had worked in another Northamptonshire village but in his case as the head gardener at the great house. That village is called Eydon, pronounced Eden, and it is truly lovely - and has a very good pub for Sunday lunch should you happen to be passing. Anyway, when Bob was at junior school in Northampton, his class was studying the Book of Genesis, and got to the bit where Adam and Eve are in the Garden of Eden. Bob stuck up his hand "hey miss, my granddad's the head gardener there!" 

There's a story on the BBC news site today about a doctor who has been sentenced to community service for sexually assaulting two women whose bottoms he smacked and whom he asked about their sex lives.

How times have changed.

When I was a first year student, my flatmates and I were in our communal kitchen when I said I had to leave shortly to see the doctor about my injured knee. My friend Nadine laughed; "I saw Dr X last week," she said, "about my back - he asked me if I was sleeping with my boyfriend." What did you say, we asked? "I was so shocked," she said, "I told him." Barbara said, "He asked me that when I saw him about my stomach ache and I told him too!" and Jill said "Hey, he asked me that when I had those bad headaches and I told him!"

I limped off to the medical centre and sure enough Dr X was on duty. He examined my dodgy knee, said I should give it another week, then asked "tell me, are you sleeping with your boyfriend?" I laughed, and said I'd heard about him asking that question, why did he want to know? It had nothing to do with my knee so was he writing a book or something? He grinned and said he was just interested.

A few years after I graduated, Dr X published a book on the changing sexual mores of university students based on ten years' observation whilst a resident campus doctor. He made a fortune.

The guy sentenced today will probably get struck off.