On Remembrance Day I went to Holymead Junior School, Wick Road, formerly Wick Road Boys’ School to see the unveiling of the memorial plaque dedicated to those old boys of the school who lost their lives in the First World War.

Two boys read poems they had written and two young trumpeters, a boy and a girl, played a moving Last Post.

The little brass plaque which had been mislaid has been restored and returned to its rightful place. Unfortunately there are no individual names carved on it.

Do you have an ancestor who attended the school who lost his life in the First or Second World Wars?

Some great information here.

http://www.gertlushonline.co.uk/kingswood-archives.html

I was delighted to see that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday made an official apology to the many children who were robbed of their childhood, by an official migration programme which ended forty years ago. They were taken from the UK to Australia supposedly to give them a better life but the reality for thousands of these children has been described as “hell on earth”.

In my post of 27.3.2009 entitled “A New Start” I referred to a similar band of little children sent from Bristol to Canada.

I have been contacted by a gentleman in America who is trying to trace his ancestors with the surname BRINSFIELD which he believes may have originated in the West Country. I have never come across this name. Anybody out there – anywhere in UK – with this surname?

A quick reminder: For lots of information about genealogy and local history, do stop by the Bristol and Avon Family History Society.

http://www.bafhs.org.uk/

A fascinating video of Bristol. Do you recognise anyone here?

I did say, when I finished "Brislington Bulletins" no 7, 1825-40, that I would not be doing any more. Well, I've changed my mind and am just starting the next one. So there. Visits to the graveyard with my uncomplaining toddler granddaughter - echoing the visits I made with my son, her father, at the same age, years ago, have shown me that there are still many stories left to tell. Onwards!

The recent funeral of Harry Patch, "the last fighting Tommy" of the First World War, prompted me to look again my uncle's war records which I obtained a few years ago from the National Archives at Kew.
He was Private Thomas Unsworth of the Middlesex Regiment and unlike Harry, who was a very young man when he joined the Army, Uncle Tom was already thirty three years old when he was called up.
He was a Londoner, and served with the Middlesex Regiment as part of the British Expeditionary Force 11th October 1916 to 17th November 1917. These dates include the time his Regiment spent at Ypres, and thus, like Harry, my uncle was at Passchendale. He rarely spoke of the war, though I do recall the expression "ock-eyed in mud", (e.g. hock high!).
He was eventually invalided home with bronchitis - presumably from being weighed down with the heavy khaki uniform and wet through for days on end. This probably saved his life for he lived well into his eighties. He finished his war service with the Suffolks, for men were often transferred to other regiments to fill the gaps left by the dead. One of the few things I know is that at some time he had been an officer's batman.
Unfortunately he died more than 40 years ago when family history was only in my head as an idea because my time was taken up with my first baby. I guess I thought he'd be around forever. If only I had asked - even the name of his officer - I would have had a starting point. Take this as a lesson. Most people will demand "How far have you traced back?" And it's always good to boast. But it's far more important to ask those alive now about their lives. The official records will still be there long after individuals are gone.
Even so, the records often give up previously overlooked secrets. Today, as I was glancing through his papers again, I noticed something I had not spotted before. At his attestation Uncle Tom was asked "Have you ever served in any branch of his Majesty's forces, naval or military?" He had replied "Yes". Well, well. I never knew that. Surely he had not joined up for the Boer War? It just shows there is always another trail to follow.

You will know that I believe that a few "ancestors" shout Me! Me! Me! in order to make "contact", but not generally the ones you are seeking. So it's rather hit and miss, but nevertheless, a bit creepy when it happens. I had just posted the previous blog which includes the brief mention of John Horwood when the phone rang. It was a committee member of the Family History Society. He had been speaking earlier that day to "a lady researching John Horwood......she has seen THE BOOK......and been up to the University to look at THE SKELETON." (Rather her than me.) He wondered if I had researched this sorry affair. I haven't, but doesn't it make you think?

Flying saucers have landed..........?

He lives in a niche in Crail churchyard. Did he come from outer space? What do you think?

This is the Dead House at Crail: the caption reads "Erected for securing the dead MDCCCXVI" i.e.1816. It was used to keep bodies safe from professional "Resurrectionists" who supplied the brisk demand for corpses for dissection by medical men, no questions asked. Some years later, not far away in Edinburgh, Burke and Hare could not keep up the supply and "cut out the middle man", turning to murder.

"Resurrectionists” generally, but not always, low life, worked under cover of darkness digging up freshly buried bodies. It seems to have been a widespread activity and struck horror into most people at the time. The corpses of executed felons were often handed over to anatomists as in the case of Bristol's John Horwood in 1821.

Young John, only 18, was not only hanged but also anatomised and his skin used to bind a book which was displayed at Ship and White's (booksellers and newsagents) in Kingswood in 1951 as part of a local "Festival of Britain" exhibition. At the age of 14, being of a rather macabre bent, I spent much time gazing at this grisly relic through the shop window. My friend, Eddie White, the son of the business, then half my age, but now almost catching me up, denies all knowledge of the thing. (The book is now held at Bristol Record Office, and have I indented for it? No thanks!)

As to Brislington, St Luke's never aspired to a dead house, but we do boast graves with iron railings to keep out potential robbers and where it would be possible for the bereaved to picnic within the enclosure, as at Crail. On February 1828, two grave robbers were caught in our churchyard and taken in charge before the magistrate. They were revealed as Dr Wallis, founder of a Bristol school of anatomy and Dr Riley, another noted anatomist. They got off lightly: fined six pounds, perhaps because they were "posh". It was reported: “The parties then bowed very respectfully to the worthy magistrate and, wishing his worship a good day, left the house.”

Back to Crail. Having married into the Danelaw, so to speak, I soak up all things Viking. The Danes' Dyke, a bank or wall, about 4 foot high, made of uncemented flat stones, popularly built by Danish invaders, stretches from our holiday cottage at Little Craighead down to the foreshore. At one time it terminated at a rock in the north face of Constantine's Cave.

This is me and our dog Patch at Constantine's Cave where in 874, according to legend, the Scottish King of that name fought and died in battle against - "the Danes" - who had double crossed him in a land deal.

A little farther along where the golf course meets the sea, a widowed French princess, Mary of Guise landed in 1538 - by accident - en route to meet her bridegroom, James V of Scotland. After losing two baby boys in infancy, in December 1542 Mary gave birth to a daughter and in the same week King James died. The baby, six days old, ascended the throne. She was Mary, Queen of Scots.