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Category Archives: family history

Visit, Lunch and Family History

My cousin and her husband, who live in Australia, have been with us today and what a catch up that was! We think we last met in person when I was 16 and W a little younger. We have kept in touch by email and through this blog. I had made Eccles cakes in her honour as I know how she loves them.

We went to Gylly Beach Cafe for lunch having driven around Castle Drive to see the fine view around the Carrick Roads across to St Mawes and into Falmouth Bay. I took a photo of the Specials board to share and the battery in my camera announced that it was “exhausted.” Hence no more photos of our day together…..

W brought me some treasures – some lovely photos of our shared Grandparents and a photocopy of a page of her father’s autobiography with references to my Mum, here known as Twm, the name her Father gave her that stayed as a nickname. It means Gift from God. The extract describes my Mum’s inventiveness and her delightful sense of mischief. I had never heard this tale from her!

Granny

Grandpa on the left

4 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 12, 2022 in baking, Cornwall, environment, family, family history, friendship, Gyllyngvase, nature, photography, Postaday2022

Tags: Eccles cakes

National Elephant Appreciation Day

22 Sep

NATIONAL ELEPHANT APPRECIATION DAY – September 22

I have loved elephants for as long as I can remember and have a large collection of carved elephants. We’ve seen herds of beautiful live ones on our many visits to South Africa. I shared this love with my Dear Friend Angie who died last year just before her birthday, a day we also shared. I really miss her.

My tiniest elephant, carved into a glass cube

My biggest elephant, bought at an antiques fair many years ago. He is as tall as my knees.

My Elephant family, representing me and the lovely Mr S, our eldest daughter, our second daughter and our twins, a son and a daughter. The tiny one is the little person we never met but who will always be one of us.

And I wear the ring that Angie left me every day.

Hope, Positivity and Confirmation

09 Jan

We have several daffodil bulbs up and with buds!

Good advice from Gandhi.

My brother has written today to confirm the story I told you yesterday. How Sidney Poitier came to hear of Mum’s work, we don’t know except that she was known within the teaching world for her excellence in teaching deaf children. My brother thinks he had a deaf child himself and wanted to know from the best how to help her.

1 Comment

Posted by mybeautfulthings on January 9, 2022 in environment, family history, garden, nature, Photography, Postaday2022, quotations

Tags: Gandhi, Sidney Poitier

Special Discovery

03 Aug

For some time I’ve been thinking I need to clean up the frame of a sweet, hand coloured photo of me at three or four years old, in a smocked dress made by my Mum. It’s a favourite and last week I took the photo out of the frame.

Behind the photo of me, I found two more very special photos of my Mum and Dad in their twenties I am guessing. I had no idea they were there! Aren’t they just the most beautiful couple?

My Mum, Cicely H M Wiseman nee Richards

My Dad. David Wiseman

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Posted by mybeautfulthings on August 3, 2021 in family, family history, Photography, Postaday2021, Uncategorized

Tags: hand-coloured photograph

Treasures Found while Sorting

27 Jul

First in my discoveries was a wonderful photo, caught up with some modern ones, of my Grandparents in 1919. Here is my Grandfather, the Reverend Richards, on his beloved motorbike and with my Mum on his lap and my very lovely Granny in the sidecar with my Uncle.

Next I found a little book which turned out to be the Manchester University Student Union Handbook the year my Dad was President of the Union..

I love his address to the students where his principles are clearly on show.

Lastly, for today, going through my sewing projects box, I found an unmade Clothkit for dungarees for a 2-4 year old. I never got around to making them but have a lovely young friend with a two year old. I asked her if she might like to make these for her little boy and she was delighted, saying she had grown up wearing Clothkit clothing herself. I am equally delighted to be helping her to carry on the family tradition.

I look forward to seeing A in his smiley lion dungarees……..

2 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on July 27, 2021 in antiques, family, family history, Photography, Postaday2021, sewing

Tags: Cloth Kits, Manchester University, Manchester University Student Union Handbook, Union President

Singing, A Toothbrush and A Cartoon

21 Jun

In 2013 some of our choir walked from Lands End to St Just, inspired by the March of the Women, 100 years before, who walked from Land’s End to London demanding Votes for Women. Tonight, in the atrium of the Eco Park we sang March of the Women, conducted by our leader, Claire, using a toothbrush.

Ethel Smyth’s rousing March of the Women was composed in 1910 to words by Cicely Hamilton, with a tune adapted from a traditional Italian melody. Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928) introduced it as the official anthem of the Women’s Social and Political Union and it became associated with the suffrage movement more generally. Info from the British Library

In 1911 it was sung on Pall Mall in celebration of the release from prison of a number of activists. The following year, the conductor Thomas Beecham (1879–1961) apparently heard it sung in Holloway Prison, where Smyth and Pankhurst were imprisoned and it is said that Ethel Smyth conducted the imprisoned women singing at their windows, using her toothbrush as a baton. Some of you know that my Great Granny was a Suffragette imprisoned and force fed in Holloway. I like to think she may have known and sung this song.

Two of our lovely choir members with whom I sing in the tenor section. I have permission to use their photos in my blog post.

There was a rueful smile when I saw this cartoon.

Covid rules in England say choirs can only sing outdoors in groups of no more than 30, all socially distanced. Have you seen/heard any football matches recently? 🙂

4 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on June 21, 2021 in community, family history, friendship, Humour, Photography, Postaday2021, singing, Suffragettes

Tags: 'March of the Women' by Ethel Smythe and C.Hamilton, Mount Pleasant Eco Park, Purple White and Green

My Mum, Gardening and Baking

04 Jun

It’s 28 years since my Mum died on this day and I still want to tell her stuff that excites me or that I need her wisdom on. It doesn’t go away.
Today I want to celebrate her life by recognising some of the gifts that came from her – my love of gardening and of cooking.
She would have been delighted with us having an allotment so here are a couple of the flowers from there today.

After she retired, she used to fill in forms that asked for her profession not as ‘Retired Teacher of the Deaf’ but as Head Gardener.
She was a brilliant cook too so here is a coffee cake I have made today for the cake stall at the Redruth Butter Market stall tomorrow.

12 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on June 4, 2021 in baking, family history, garden, nature, Photography, Postaday2021, Uncategorized

Tags: Coffee Cake, courgette flower, Marigold

Seed Head, Posy and International Women’s Day

08 Mar

I love these seed heads, delicate and fragile.

We left this little posy on next-door’s doorstep as a Wedding Anniversary gift and in memory of a dear friend.

It is International Women’s Day today and in The Guardian last week, a letter writer suggested that the sports pages on this day should be devoted to sportswomen for a change. The next day, someone suggested that the letters page should be devoted to letters by women. Well, today they did that and I had a letter published!

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Posted by mybeautfulthings on March 8, 2021 in family history, friendship, nature, Photography, Postaday2021

DNA, Some Family History and Daffodils

12 Feb

My birthday present from the lovely Mr S was a DNA test and the results came back today. Most of it was unsurprising – 44% England and Northern Europe with Manchester, Lancashire featuring heavily. My maternal Grandfather was of Welsh heritage so 33% Welsh wasn’t a surprise either. Neither was the 8% Irish as my paternal Grandmother had Irish in her. The biggest surprises, though tiny amounts, were the 3% Norway and the 2% Sweden. Perhaps that’s all down to historic invasions!
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/dna/origins/share/ca02ee57-0a92-47bc-9dad-018617b9e10d

Coincidentally, as I was looking for something else in my family history folder, I came across the following message from my SIL who had taken notes from one of my Father’s story telling sessions, this one about his Father-in-law, our Welsh Grandfather.

“William Richards was, in addition to being the Vicar of Cockerham, the Abbot of Cockersand, which entitled him to the right to the fish from the baulk on occasion (full moon or new moon or some such.) Mum used to be sent fish at college in Ripon. Dad went with him one evening to get the fish. Whitebait, but also salmon.”
So much to unravel here! I know my cousins in Australia read this blog and wonder if they can add to/expand this story.
I have only a few photos of my Grandfather, the Vicar. Here he is with one of his Grandchildren. I think this is my older brother but it could be me or my cousin. The second photo shows what a handsome couple my Granny and Grandpa were.
I was of the understanding that Granny had Spanish in her genes but, sadly, Spanish hasn’t shown up for me.

I bought three bunches of Cornish Daffodils yesterday and am going to take a photo each day as they open.

11 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 12, 2021 in family history, nature, Photography, Postaday2021

Tags: Ancestry, Ancestry DNA test, the Abbot of Cockersand, Vicar of Cockerham

School Days, Bryon and Creative Reframes

12 Jan

A filthy weather day so a sorting day and among the treasures unearthed was this school photograph from 1957, first year at Truro County Grammar School. We all look delighted to be there and I do remember being very happy at that school.