Judith Johnson
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Relativity Theory!

25/5/2014

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PictureMy Nanna, Ida Shaw
I love archaeology and history, and I’ve always thought it would be fascinating to have a gathering of people who see each other regularly, for example members of  a club (like my own local running group Sarah’s Runners) and get them to bring along their family trees to see how many are related. Ultimately, of course, we must all be cousins. Professor Brian Sykes’ intriguing book The Seven Daughters of Eve claims we are all descended from just seven women, and Dr Alice Roberts, says in her BBC series The Incredible Human Journey that every one of us has both black and white ancestors. It’s also claimed that most of Europe is related to ‘Otzi’, the man from 5,000 years back whose remains were discovered in the South Tyrol.

Something that intrigued me recently when reading Canada by Richard Ford was a character’s notion that most of us don't know and don’t care much about who they are related to beyond their grandparents. This doesn't include of course the hordes of furiously excavating genealogy enthusiasts, world-wide!

Anyhow, I rose to the challenge and sat down to list my great grandparents. Two of them were Thomas Frederick and Martha Cureton. Thomas was coachman and then chauffeur at Rashwood Court, the 'big house' in Wychbold, nearr Droitwich. Thomas and Martha lived in the chauffeur's cottage with their daughter Ida, who was born at the end of the nineteenth century.

The labour was long and hard, and after a boy had been born, the midwife was puzzled at Martha's condition. "There's something wrong here," she is reported to have said, and sent immediately for the doctor. He was out riding on his hunter, apparently, and somewhat the worse for drink, but he reluctantly came as summoned. Pushing his hand up the birth canal, he  announced "There's another one up here!" and pulled out my grandmother, a tiny twin. He dismissively cast her onto the bed and said "You can get rid of that - it won't live," at which the midwife cried, "Oh doctor! Where there's life, there's hope!" and rescued the baby, wrapping her in cotton wool. The big, healthy looking boy sadly died at six months, but Nanna lived into her mid-nineties.


PictureWedding of Harold Shaw and Ida Cureton
She married Grandpa Shaw in the 1920s, after he had returned from his service in the First World War. Through him, and two of my other great-grandparents, I am (it seems from my Uncle and cousin’s research) descended from the ‘White Queen’, Elizabeth Woodville, as follows:







My grandfather was Edgar Harold SHAW
his father, my great-grandfather, was William Attwood SHAW
his father, my great-great-grandfather, was Thomas Charles SHAW
his father, my great-great-great-grandfather, was Obadiah Gilbert SHAW
his father, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, was Gilbert Read SHAW
his father, my great x 5 grandfather, was Daniel (II) SHAW
his father, my great x 6 grandfather, was Daniel SHAW
his mother, my great x 7 grandmother, was Alice JELLIANS
her mother, my great x 8 grandmother, was Elizabeth WILMER
her father,  my great x 9 grandfather, was Thomas WILMER
his mother, my great x 10 grandmother, was Anne (Agnes) SUTTON
her father, my great x 11 grandfather, was Edward SUTTON 4th Lord Dudley
his mother, my great x 12 grandmother, was Cecily GREY
her father, my great x 13 grandfather, was Thomas GREY
her mother, my great x 14 grandmother, was Elizabeth WOODVILLE, ‘The White Queen’

And through Cecily Grey’s mother, from Edward Plantagenet,

his mother was Cecily GREY
her mother was Cecily BONNEVILLE
her mother was Catherine NEVILLE
her father was Richard NEVILLE
his mother was Joan de BEAUFORT
her father was John of Gaunt PLANTAGENET
his father was Edward PLANTAGENET, Edward III, King of England.

According to other family trees sent me by a cousin, I’m also descended from William the Conqueror. The actor  and musician Alexander Armstrong in his edition of BBC TV's Who Do You Think You Are was also pleased to find he had the same great (however-many-times) grandfather.

But I don’t think I need get too over-excited! Since my own ninety year old mother already has over 50 direct descendants, I reckon the Conqueror’s descendants must run into millions!


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I Loves the 'Diff!

10/5/2014

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For many years, I regularly travelled to South Wales with my husband to visit his family near Swansea. We all had wonderful holidays with my in-laws, and when my son came along he quickly grew to see Gramma and Dycu’s bungalow as a second home. We nearly always included a trip to Robertstown, Aberdare to see the elderly aunties, and then there were jaunts to Aberaeron for ice-cream, Llangranog, the Gower beaches and Manorbier for swims in the glassy green waves, Carreg Cennen for a climb up to the ruined castle stronghold, and Llanelli for walks along the seafront and a bag of boiled sweets from the market. We rarely ventured as far east as Cardiff itself, except for Porthcawl for a ‘blow’ and a Fulgoni’s ice-cream, although we had many happy days out at St Fagan’s, the superb folk museum just outside Cardiff.

We’ve really missed Mam since she passed away, and our regular trips to Wales. Over the recent Easter weekend we booked a few nights in Cardiff, and met up with some of Martin’s cousins, not seen for many years, for tea and cake, a catch-up chinwag and a trawl through family photos. We also enjoyed a tramp around different parts of the city.

Cardiff is uncommonly friendly! Almost everyone we came across was kind and courteous, generally giving an impression they’d been pleased to help.

Like every city, there’s a lot to explore, whether you’re interested in history, art, music, dancing, sport, or shopping. The parking’s awfully expensive in the centre, but the public transport is brilliant – buses galore and regular, at £3.40 for a Day-to-Go ticket which you can use all day on as many buses as you like. You can of course get to a lot of places under your own steam, if, like us, you’re fond of using Shank’s pony. We had a little wander round Llandaff; red-robed choristers singing beautifully at the Good Friday service in the Cathedral, whose doors had been left wide open for all-comers; a plaque outside a Chinese takeaway, once the sweetshop where Roald Dahl bought his boyhood treats; a stroll through Pontcanna Fields (full of ball-games, picnics, dog-walkers, paperback-readers); then popped over to Canton for a cup of coffee at the Chapter Arts Centre.

We had breakfast the next day at Crumbs, a great little vegetarian café in the Morgan Arcade, from where we could see a genial crowd of youngsters (and not-so-youngsters, no ageism on this blog!) queuing outside Spillers Records, which claims to be the oldest record shop in the world, for new music releases. I love life’s enthusiasts! We caught a bus to Roath Park – which to me looked reminiscent of New York’s Central Park – another Park constructed in the 19th century for the proletariat to take the fresh air and to recreate. It has within its boundaries a botanical gardens, a stupendous playground which was full of jubilant children, a boating lake and a café where friendly girls served a boisterous queue. The houses fringing the park, built around 1910 I believe, were obviously made of the best quality materials: 100 years on, the decorative arts and crafts tiles in their porches are in astonishingly good condition.

Of course there are inevitable casualties of neglect and the march of time, of things going out of fashion, of recession etc. On the City Road is the old Gaiety cinema, opened in 1912 and latterly the home of bingo, and ‘Bar, Bowling, Food, Music’, now for sale. But some places, like the Central Market, are still going strong. Cardiff has changed a lot since Martin worked for the Welsh Drama Company in the late 70s – it’s jumping, mun! If you’ve never visited the Welsh capital, I recommend it for a weekend away and an opportunity to exercise your joie-de-vivre!


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    Lifelong bookworm, love writing too. Have been a theatrical agent and reflexologist among other things, attitude to life summed up by Walt Whitman's MIRACLES.

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