'REPAIR SHOPPING' THE FAMILY HEIRLOOM!

 

Following on from my earlier post regarding this treasured family heirloom, I found that I had two choices when the 91-year-old stool came into my possession. Either leave it as it was-- a bit beaten, battered and careworn-- or do what they would do on the popular hit TV programme, 'The Repair Shop', and repair it so that it lives again.

The two photographs above are the result.

Now with the wood strengthened, cracks glued and filled; nails taken out and painted; the child's stool created around 1930 by my Norwegian great-grandfather, Peder Gerhard Ingebretsen, now looks pretty much like it did when he first made it for his grand-daughter, my aunt, Elizabeth Welsh.

With one exception... the footmarks of our grandchildren-- Paige, Phoebe, Charlie, Demelza and Pearla. Space has also been left on the sides of the stool, just in case any further little additions to our family come along.

The item might not get used as it previously had, but to be sure it will continue to be loved and treasured by a new generation of the family.

Original post here: FAMILY HEIRLOOM - CHILDREN'S STOOL

#familyhistory #genealogy #familyheirloom

 

FAMILY HISTORIAN 6 - CHILLING AND CONSIDERING THE UPGRADE...

Bouncy castle folded up, M&S loungers on, mug of tea in hand while considering the latest upgrade for Family Historian in the garden at 9pm. 

But not before I do a full backup first methinks! ;-) 

#familyhistorian6 #softwareupgrade #genealogy

CHARTER TO JERICHO LANE

The other day I was driving back home from town and I passed the playing field in the photograph below. Seeing it in this light, on such a bright sunny day, brought back fond memories for me, for this was the place I was brought to by the school to play football. 

Playing field - Jericho Lane (c) G.Seaman

My first school was Upper Park Street in Toxteth, which I attended until I was around seven years old. At the time our family was living with my grandparents in their rented house in Hughson Street, Toxteth in Liverpool 8. The school was an old building which dated back to Victorian times and stood in an ordinary inner city street off Park Road. It had a concrete playground where P.E. lessons occasionally took place, but apart from the odd bomb-site (or ‘bommie’ as we called them), there were certainly no wide open spaces available in the area for undertaking team sports such as football. And that is where the playing field, featured in the photo above comes into the story.

Upper Park Street School - (Best Memories of Park Road - Facebook)


As the crow flies the playing fields are actually only around two miles away from the school itself. By car it is not very far at all. Travel south along Park Road, turning right into Aigburth Road to then follow on straight down to the junction with Jericho Lane itself.

Former MPTE buses (photo Merseyside Transport Trust - Facebook)

Every week the excitement would build in our class as we knew that the bus would be coming to take us out there. I recall being in the playground over lunch. As the afternoon bell drew near, as if by magic the vehicle would suddenly appear in the road outside - a huge, green and shining double decker! Once lunch was over, the teachers would make us line up in the playground with our PE kit bags over our shoulders or held within sweaty palms; each one of us jostling for position, eager to get onto the vehicle as quickly as possible and grab the prime seats.

Parking bay - Jericho Lane (c) G.Seaman


My mates and I had a simple but brilliant plan, and that was to sit on one of the two long seats nearest to the rear platform. We did this so that we would then be the first group allowed onto the exit platform of the vehicle, each one of us primed and ready to jump off when the bus finally slowed down as it arrived at its stop outside the changing rooms in Jericho Lane. Boys being boys, we had to push the boundaries, so we dared each other to jump off before the bus had actually stopped. More often than not the teacher would stand across the platform, holding us back behind the safety chain until the brakes had been fully applied by the driver. But every now and again we would be able to edge closer while holding onto the handrail, our excitement building as we felt the breeze on our faces as the bus started to slow, getting ready to step off as soon as the teacher pulled the chain back from in front of us.    

Parking bay and field (c) G.Seaman


By the time the bus had finally stopped, as many of us as possible would have jumped off onto the pavement and hopefully lived to tell the tale… if we were lucky. If we were not so lucky, we’d be held back and receive a stern telling off from the teacher!

Changing rooms Jericho Lane (c) G.Seaman


The rest of the days' proceedings would be mostly irrelevant and completely forgettable, as I was generally hopeless at football. Consequently I spent the majority of my time on the field standing between two sticks while a gang of bigger lads fired a heavy leather football at me. This generally wasn’t good and it never ended well. I always seemed to come off worse and get blamed every time the opposition scored a goal. Needless to say I was always glad when we were back on the bus and heading home - tired, hungry and ready for our dinner.

And now? All these years afterwards?

I could never have imagined that I would be standing here in the sunshine, thinking back to those times which I remember as if they were only yesterday. When I was eight years old - feeling cold and shivering like a jelly - trying to play football in a snow-covered field with the rest of my mates from school, and failing miserably.

Maybe, just maybe, this could possibly be the reason why I now don’t like football? 

CHARLES SEAMAN - MY THANKS TO YOU

Philips EL3527 - the old valve tape recorder owned by my Dad...


CHARLES SEAMAN - MY THANKS TO YOU (SOUNDCLOUD AUDIO CLIP)


Recorded on a Philips EL3527 tape recorder, a precious sound byte of my Dad - Charles Seaman - playing his Egmond acoustic guitar. The recording must date back to around 1968/69 when he first bought the guitar from Hessys Music shop in Liverpool.

He plays and sings a simple rendition of 'My Thanks To You', a ballad recorded during the 1950's by artists such as Steve Conway and Connie Francis. So far it is the only song I have found in my archive of his, as he had the annoying habit of using the same tapes over and over again to record both himself and also my brother and I.

At the end of the clip, as he turns off the tape after finishing the recording, another clip is revealed - a quick snippet of yours truly singing 'My Old Man's A Dustman' by Lonnie Donegan. I have more of this from another tape thankfully...but I wish I had more of Dad.

Looking at photographs and movies is one thing, but hearing his voice is priceless

SCHOOLBOOKS - UPPER PARK STREET SCHOOL, TOXTETH

As part of my ongoing task to ‘sort out the garage’, I went through some papers I’d put away in storage for archiving, and found a few of my old school books buried away within them. I’d pretty much forgotten that I had documents, as they were from the very first school I attended which was Upper Park Street school in Toxteth, Liverpool.

Nestled within the neatly laid out rows of terraced housing around Devenport and Upper Park Streets in what is known locally as Liverpool 8, the original school building had been built in 1878 and then extended in 1885. My time there comes a bit later however, and I attended between 1960 and 1965 - just prior to my family moving out to the leafy suburbs of Childwall, where we have lived ever since.  

School building - (UPSSFB)

There were two sections to the school - infants and juniors - and I went to both of them when I was little. The external view of the building above brings back memories of the external metal stairways, used to access some of the classrooms. Also the gate - being taunted by my mates when my aunt insisted on giving me a kiss when she dropped me off at school. We also piled out of this regularly during the summer, all climbing aboard a fabulous green and cream double-decker bus to take us to the playing fields at Jericho Lane in Otterspool to play football.   

School classroom (UPSSFB)

The photograph above also brings memories of the school right back to me. The days were filled with a mixture of learning and play - the teacher splitting us up into groups to play board games, work on specific learning tasks or do ‘proper’ schoolwork - which is where my schoolbooks come into the story.



Outside cover - (c) G Seaman

The book above is different to the other two I also have, as the original cover of this one is intact. It has been signed on the outside by the teacher and as can be seen by the photograph below, someone has written the date of the book on the interior ‘Nov 62’. There is also a handwritten note within it from me requesting 6d to pay for a Puppet show later in the week!

Internal cover and note (c) G Seaman

School coursework (c) G Seaman

As can be seen in the photograph above, the rest of the book contains a mixture of drawings which I’ve coloured in, and also word exercises which the class completed, copying the teachers as they wrote the words up on the blackboards.

The other two books contain a seemingly random selection of stories and diary entries I have recorded into the pages over a period of time. The above photograph shows my grand-daughter Paige - now 7 years old - reading the words I wrote down 55 years ago, when I was almost the same age as she is now.

After she’d finished, Paige made a number of constructive comments about my writing skills which caused quite a lot of hilarity at the time, but can be summarised into the undermentioned points as follows:

1) “Your writing is SO BIG Grampy! If you made your letters smaller you could fit more onto the page!”

2) “What does …’ Won dey dey wend…’ mean?” (translation = One Day They Went....)

3) “I can’t understand this! It makes no sense!”

Reading the books now I know exactly what she meant, but I still love the fact that the two of us are able to discuss them in the first place! 

Memories of my very first school, now long since gone.

All I can say is thanks to my Mum and Dad for keeping them safe.

Sources:

Liverpool Schools website

Upper Park Street School Facebook Group

OCCUPATIONS IN GENEALOGY - HORSE COOK

One of the more unusual occupations I have come across while researching my family history has to be that of ‘horse cook’ (see below).

Birth certificate details - Joseph SEAMAN (1903)

When I first saw this occupation written on the birth certificate of my grandfather Joseph SEAMAN, I must say that I was a bit surprised, and at first drew the wrong conclusions as to what the job could possibly be. After all, I’m well aware that in certain countries it is perfectly acceptable for horse meat to be cooked and eaten, and I was not really surprised to find it is considered a delicacy in countries like Italy, China and Iceland. However, as far as I knew, even back in 1903 this notion had not as yet extended to these shores - the recent furore in the U.K. about unscrupulous meat processor’s adding horsemeat to burgers, being a prime example of this. With this in mind I took a breath, settled down with a mug of tea, and began to consider what the job could actually consist of.



Joseph Frederick SEAMAN

The description ‘horse cook’ was reportedly the occupation of my great-grandfather Joseph Frederick SEAMAN in Liverpool, England in 1903. He was 25 years old at the time of his son’s birth, and I had discovered evidence that he had been working previously as a carter on several occasions since the year 1900. At the time, the carting profession was one of the most important jobs in Liverpool to have.

Landing Stage, Pier Head, Liverpool

In this modern age where the car rules the roadways, it is perhaps difficult to imagine that this was a period prior to petrol driven transport being commonly available, and at its peak there were around 250,000 horses working in the city, shifting everything from freight to people around the cobbled streets. This might seem a staggering number when considered today, but in 1903 Liverpool was still acknowledged to be the second city of the British Isles next to London, and the amount of passengers and freight which passed through its many docks was huge indeed. Each of these items needed to be moved as quickly as possible either into the city, or away from it onto the ships. With this in mind it is certainly not so difficult to understand just why so much horsepower was needed to help shift these goods from site to site. 

Stables - Cains Brewery, Grafton Street, Liverpool - (c. PolkaDot Pink)

In the early twentieth century therefore, almost every neighbourhood in Liverpool would have had stable buildings situated within it. Such buildings would be used by private companies - breweries, coal merchants, and also individual horse owners - to house their animals between their periods of work. Stable-masters, and the men and women who worked with them, tended to the needs of the horses twenty-four hours a day. 
There is no doubt in my mind that it was in one of these stable blocks that my great-grandfather Joseph worked to help prepare the food for the horses, making sure that the animals received the sustenance they would need to help them through a long day’s work on the roads of this great city.

And so, after completing my research and considering all the evidence I’ve found, I think we can safely assume that Joseph was not cooking horses for a living. Indeed the occupation of ‘horse cook’ does not now seem so unusual at all!

#seamanfamilyhistory #josephfrederickseaman #familyhistory #cainsbrewery   

Text Sources:

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/nostalgia/look-back-memories-liverpools-carters-9167182

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/incoming/gallery/carters-9168102

http://www.scottiepress.org/sr2003/carters.htm

Cains Stable's photo: 

Donna @ PolkaDot Pink.com (http://polkadot-pink.com/2014/07/07/mark-it-liverpool-street-art-festival/)

   

FAMILY HEIRLOOM - CHILDREN'S STOOL

Handmade Heirloom in the garage...

I was tidying the garage today and came across this family heirloom on a shelf... a small children's stool/step which my aunt told me my Norwegian great-grandfather, Peder Ingebretsen, had made by hand around 1930. 

Peder was a mariner, and later on could be found working for the Blue Funnel line out of Liverpool, sailing as an able seaman on merchant ships taking goods and passengers up the Amazon to Manaus in Brazil. His occupation on his naturalisation papers gave his occupation as a ship's carpenter.

My gran used to use it to step on to reach the higher shelves in the pantry, and the children used it to sit on while they played. 

I know it's just a few battered pieces of wood, but the story behind it is worth much more to me than money could buy. I just hope that my own kids remember this tale, and how much this family treasure meant to me when I'm not here anymore and they're helping to clear out the garage! 

#familyhistory #genealogy #familyheirloom

OCCUPATIONS IN GENEALOGY - WHARFINGER

OCCUPATION - WHARFINGER

At least one of my distant relatives, a Thomas Edwards of Liverpool, was listed on his daughter’s marriage certificate as working as a wharfinger in 1891.

Today the modern term for such an occupation is harbourmaster, but the ancient profession had much the same responsibilities - to be responsible for receiving and checking off the goods received into the harbour as they were unloaded from the ships. 

Wharfinger House - Bradford Upon Avon, England - 2014

At the larger locations, the wharfinger often had offices located there. Run a quick image search in Google and it is surprising how many of them have now been turned into bed & breakfast accommodation… probably paying more now than the original job actually did back in the day!

Wharfinger House, New Bedford, Mass - 1936

At least one of the jobs my grandad Jack Welsh had during his life was as a freight checker on the Liverpool Docks. The rumour was that he’d worked the quays at the Albert Dock in Liverpool itself, although I’ve yet to track down any records which would prove this.

Albert Dock, Liverpool - 2013 - (c)GSeaman

Just one other research task to add to the list.

  

THE 'DEADHOUSE', PRINCES DOCK, LIVERPOOL (1872)

I was checking over a burial record at Walton Cemetary, Liverpool, regarding one of our relatives and noticed this entry on the opposite page.

Princes Dock - place of death

It seems that on 18 December 1872, a person recorded as '---- Callaghan', approx 24 years of age, was buried in Walton Cemetary in a public grave, plot 693B. The burial was recorded as entry 53 in the ledger. On the line underneath, numbered 54, the burial of 'a woman unknown' was also registered.

The fact that the identities of the individuals appeared not to have been fully established is one thing, but the fact that both of them are said to have died in 'Princes Dock' seemed really unusual! 

I wondered what the backstory of this couple was? An accident perhaps, or maybe a suicide pact between lovers? I was intrigued and wanted to look into it a bit further.

Princes Dock, around 1835 (source: Chester Walls)

I ran a quick search to see if I could find any further information online on the deaths, from a newspaper or other source of that time perhaps, and instead found references to there being a 'deadhouse' in Princes Dock. In the crypt of St Nicholas' church near the dock site, there was a 'deadhouse' - a place where the bodies of people who had died from drowning were laid out; until they were claimed either by relatives, or were simply buried by the authorities.

In the end, this is exactly what happened to our couple. Buried by the council, in a public grave in Walton Cemetary. 

So maybe there was no real connection between the couple at all? All they had in common was the river where they died and the public grave where their bodies were eventually laid out to rest....

Out of the Deadhouse... near Princes Dock, Liverpool.  

SODOMY & MURDER IN A NORFOLK MARKET TOWN - The Murder of Mary Frost (1741)

I came across this parish record while researching the baptism of one of my great-grandparents (Elizabeth DOWNING b.1742 d.1787). The records were written out manually at that time, and often had lists of burials, baptisms and births handwritten across the two pages of the register. While I was checking out the record of my relative, this entry on the opposite page caught my eye.

Register of Burials - Diss, Norfolk (1741)

The text reads: 'November 19 - Mary FROST, who was poyson'd by Robert CARLTON, tailor of Diss, for which crime for sodomy he was condemned at the assizes at Thetford, viz: 20th of March 1741. He was executed the 5th of April 1742 at Diss, and afterwards hanged in chains on a gibbet upon Diss Common.' Such a grim end indeed for a heinous crime. 

I considered the highlighted word on the graphic for some time, as the handwriting was not too easy to make out, but after consideration came to the conclusion that Carlton had 'poisoned' the unfortunate girl, and also committed sodomy somewhere along the way. The sentence he received, therefore would obviously have been suitably severe.

Digging a little further into this on the Interweb, I discovered a detailed article about this very crime. 'The Tailor of Diss: Sodomy and Murder in a Norfolk Market Town', describes the events which led up to the unfortunate girl's murder and Carlton's eventual execution by hanging. The event was reported to have drawn a considerable crowd to witness the hanging, (considered to be quite a popular public entertainment at the time), and it gives intriguing details of a series of events connected to the execution which had taken place over three days prior to the execution.

I personally have a rule I observe that whenever I search records such as these, I always try to look beyond the data connected to my own relatives, to see what else I can find. Sometimes it will lead me to discovering other relations of mine, or previously unknown details of one of our own ancestors might open up another avenue of research, or break down a brick wall. But at other times, an unexpected and entirely fascinating story such as this is revealed.

My motto for this would have to be: 'Just look sideways - sometimes it might pay off!'

#justlooksideways

The full article, published in March 1990 by David Stoker 

(Aberystwyth) can be found at the link below.

Other historic sources listed in the article itself. 

   

http://users.aber.ac.uk/das/texts/tailor_of_diss.htm

       

FAMILY HEIRLOOM - GRANDAD'S SHIRT SUSPENDERS - William John WELSH

5/1/2017 - GRANDAD'S SHIRT SUSPENDERS

For Treasure Chest Thursday I give you a photo of my grandad - William John WELSH, pictured in the backyard of his home in Hughson Street, Toxteth in the mid 1950's.

Near his elbows on each arm, you can just see the folds caused by the elastic suspenders he was wearing, to keep his shirt cuffs clear of his hands which hopefully will keep them a little cleaner.

The shirt suspenders themselves are pictured on the right, and consist of a circle of elastic ribbon covered by thin flexible steel wire. These were left to me by my aunt Betty, Ellen Elizabeth WELSH, prior to her death.

I still keep them in the box with my other jewelry, and wear them sometimes when the occasion arises.

#familyheirlooms #treasurechestthursday #williamjohnwelsh #toxteth #shirtsuspenders 

HILLMAN MINX AND COBBLES IN TOXTETH (1964)

For the 'Wordless Wednesday' blog prompt today I submit this beauty from the early 1960's. Hughson Street, Toxteth... the row of neat two-up two-down houses where we lived... Mum, little bro and I on the step in dubious socks and short trousers... and a Hillman Minx from around 1964.

And of course, the cobbles. 

It was just murder trying to ride your bike on those!

Hughson Street, Toxteth,  Liverpool 8

THOMAS SEAMAN - DESCENDANT RESEARCH

I've been researching my family history data for around 15 years now and so have accumulated a great deal of information about my various family lines. I've sometimes seen posts on social media etc. about family historians sometimes becoming a bit 'overwhelmed' by the amount of random information becoming available to them via sites like Ancestry and Find My Past (...also known as 'the shaking leaf syndrome'!).

Don't get me wrong, this feature can be very useful as long as the researcher carries out the proper checks they need to verify the data, but well I know that it can sometimes feel like you are just 'grabbing' at the information as it shows up on your tree.

One way around this is to use the filters on these hints to show only certain family surnames to look at. The other hints can be kept to one side until all those associated to one line have been dealt with.

Thomas SEAMAN - Descendants - Progress so far...

But another way to conduct your research in a more organised fashion is to try and track down the descendants of a particular individual. I'm currently doing this with my g(x3) grandfather, Thomas SEAMAN from Mold in North Wales; checking each family associated with him one generation at a time. The graphic above shows details of where I'm currently up to with this.

Using this method, I've found this an ideal way of both reviewing the data I already have about the individuals connected to this line, but also of finding and reviewing new information and individuals in a more organised and structured way.

So if you're beginning to feel an information overload hurtling towards you - step back a bit, take a deep breath, and give this a try. 

I'd recommend it to anyone over alcohol or headache tablets!

SCRIVENER AND FAMILY HISTORY

I was rootling about on the web earlier conducting a bit of family history research - trying to find how many UK-based blogsites there were available compared to all the sites based in the US.

One of my searches pulled up a link to this video, a webinar by Lynn Palermo featured on The Armchair Genealogist, and I was soon pulled away from what I had been looking at.

I really love using Scrivener for all my writing - the blog posts and articles as well as the creative writing I produce - so this video was right up my street.

Take some time out and give it a whirl yourself, I'm sure you'll find it of interest too.

For other videos in this vein be sure to check out Lynn's excellent YouTube channel at the link here.

FINDING HUGHSON STREET - UK 1911 Census Address Search

The photograph on the left-hand screen below shows my mother, brother and I standing on the step on my Gran and Grandad’s house at 25 Hughson Street, Toxteth, Liverpool. At a guess I’d say the photo had been taken at the end of the 1960’s. I’d spent the whole of my early life living in the house - a simple two-up, two-down dwelling; with a front parlour and a back kitchen, a yard and outside toilet to the rear. And then, when I was seven years of age, we moved up into the ‘leafy suburbs’… and my Mum and Dad’s first rented property of their own in Childwall.

Hughson Street - Census Search

The property in Hughson Street went back somewhat longer however. The rows of terraced properties had been built around the turn of the century, the small neat houses replacing the slum court dwellings which had been situated there previously. The houses had been rented out to tenants, and although I grew up primarily only knowing it as the home of my Gran and Grandad, I found out later that other families had lived at the address before we did.

The details of one of those families is featured in the right-hand side of the photograph.

For my online family history research I use Ancestry.co.uk when looking for information on the UK census records, and although there is no specific address search on the site one can still search for addresses by using the fields ‘Lived In Location’ and also ‘Keyword’. By just using this simple search criteria I found my record relatively easily by entering ‘Toxteth, Lancashire, England’ into the first field, and then the address itself into the second. Although my search did not immediately return the property I was looking for, it did however return one of the other houses in Hughson Street into the search results and I then used the ‘previous / next’ buttons to scroll through the pages to find the actual address I was looking for.

The census for 1911 shows that the residents in 25 Hughson Street were a 39 year-old widow, Elizabeth Flannigan, and her family. She had two daughters living with her in the property - Margaret aged 21, and Lelly Flannigan who was 18. All three of the women had been born in Liverpool.

However, on the night when the census had been taken there were four visitors to the property. Patrick Flannigan (aged 71) was a farmer from Greencastle, County Donegal in Ireland. This was also the birthplace of Edward Flannigan, a 32 year-old joiner, and John Drummond, a 43 year-old dock labourer. Finally there was yet another dock labourer, James Ennorby, who was also visiting and was listed as a widower. Of course, Patrick and Edward were most likely related to Elizabeth (perhaps they were her father and brother). The relationship of the other two men to their host is not known.

On speaking to my mother about her memories of the house during the 1930’s, she recalls that my Gran and Grandad were renting it from the landlord as far as she can remember, but my great-grandfather Peder Ingebretsen - a Norwegian merchant seaman - had also been living there up until he died in 1933. From that point on, the house stayed with our family right up to the 1970’s when the properties within the area had compulsory purchase orders finally served upon them, and the residents (in our case my Grandmother and Aunt) were moved out.

Ancestry - Address Search Criteria

Using the search capabilities of Ancestry in this way has been a most interesting exercise for me, and its been useful to look into the history of a property I can remember so well, and indeed at one time called home. But by ‘walking’ myself through the 1911 census pages in this way, I was also able to find names of other families who my Mother remembered as living in the area later on… such as Thomas and Phoebe Moss of number 21, and William and Annie Black of number 17. This brought her a lot of pleasure as she recounted her memories of what it was like to grow up within the area, and in particular relating to me what she remembered about their other neighbours who lived close by.

All I can say is that it only takes a few minutes to carry out a search such as this. If you have an old property which played a similar role in your own family history, I’d thoroughly recommend you try this method as well!

MIXING BUSINESS WITH FAMILY HISTORY

Combining a business trip with family history research - earlier today I took a visit to St. Mary's church in Haughley, Suffolk. My great-grandfather (x6) was buried here on 11 December 1785.

Robert Layte (born 1708) married his wife of German descent, Sarah, in 1732 and seems to have lived in the small village for the majority of his life as most of his children were born there.

By the time I reached the village after driving down from Liverpool the sun had gone down and I had to have a quick look around the small graveyard assisted by the torch on my phone. I knew the chances of finding a grave with the family name on it would almost certainly be nil, but I couldn't help but have a look for one before I decided to leave. I was wearing jeans and a dark fleece and I soon spotted a couple of the blinds across the road starting to twitch. I suddenly realised the appearance of strange lights seen floating around a graveyard might be the type of thing which the Suffolk constabulary might be called out to investigate, so I got back in the car and made a swift getaway!

I can just imagine the email message my boss would need to send tomorrow morning...

'Dear customer - Graham unfortunately won't be onsite with you today. He was thrown into a Suffolk lockup overnight and they've lost the key!'

Great... just great!

FAMILY HISTORY - CHARLES JOHN LAIT - COACHBUILDER

And another thing....!

Sitting at the desk in my hotel room, checking over various bits of research material I've gathered together, I had almost reached the point of deciding to head off to bed. But before I did I decided to make one final random search to finish off the night…

As the name of my Lait family was fresh in my mind I went for that one, typing just two words into the Yahoo search field of a new browser window - ‘Lait coachbuilder’. The search returned a few interesting references which I took a note of in my ‘things to do list’, but nothing I specifically recognised. In the browser there was the facility to search for images as well as text, and this I did next - amending the search string to read ‘Diss coachbuilder’. I watched in amusement for a few moments as the search returned a great many photographs of car bodies, carts, coaches and buses; all in various stages of disrepair - the majority looking as if they had all seen better days. I scrolled down the page and yawned, almost reaching the point where I needed to pack up the laptop for the night and get off to bed, when my eye spotted something on the page - a small image of an old postcard which had been for sale on eBay in 2012, a street scene… and one which I recognised well.

Mere Street, Diss postcard - 1880 approx.

The location was Mere Street, situated in the small Norfolk town of Diss. It was a photograph of a place I was familiar with, for I had walked ‘virtually’ down the street many times before while conducting my internet research, using Google street view. I had also physically walked there myself on one memorable occasion, taking a small diversion when on my way home from visiting a customer site in nearby Suffolk in my day-job role as an I.T. Consultant.

Cross - Diss, Norfolk.

I’d learned about the location only that same afternoon following a visit I’d made to the small museum in the town. The museum was open but deserted at the time, save for a solitary gentleman who was acting as custodian… sitting quietly by the door, greeting any visitors, and thanking them if they offered any voluntary donations. Diss is a town primarily involved in agricultural pursuits, and so I spent around ten minutes soaking myself in the atmosphere of the place, finding a varied collection of artifacts and memorabilia of a country township which had long since gone. A great many photographs adorned the walls. Old possessions and ephemera formerly belonging to the townsfolk lay beneath dusty glass cases on the tabletops, potentially untouched by humankind for many years. I wandered slowly around the single long room, hardly daring to hope that I would find anything recognisable which would actually connect me to the town, until I spotted two old town directories in the far corner of the room. 

Diss - town directory entries

I opened the books in turn, seeking out any references to any of my forbears, and then I found it - ‘Lait Charles, coach builder, Mere Street’. To say I was overjoyed and excited at finding this information would be an understatement, and my pleasure was further multiplied after the custodian told me that Mere Street was where the town museum was located, and I was actually standing in it!

I followed his directions and left him to explore the location he indicated at the far end of the road. There I found the Mere, a small lake which the street had been named after, and I was amazed to find that the original workshop buildings were still there even to this day. They had now been converted for use as a bookshop, but the former coach-building premises could clearly be seen. I photographed it from many angles, making sure that I took in as much of the surroundings as possible in order to locate it easily in the future. It is therefore not surprising perhaps that I recognised the site from the postcard, as it had become etched in my memory from just that one visit.

Mere Street, Diss - August 2010

Before I left to make my way home I called into the bookshop to see if they had anything on the local history of the town which would help me in my research into my Lait family. There was a book available which gave the history of the town, and I did indeed find another couple of references to my family within it.

Present day bookshop - site of coachbuilding premises (right)

If this example does nothing else, I think it proves the value of going with your instincts when running searches of this kind on the Web, and if the mood takes you then certainly don’t be afraid to make one more attempt before your head hits the the pillow - but don’t get carried away or you just might be still be there in the morning!