School Fairs and my Nanna

It was my eldest's school fair today. We had great fun, and when we arrived home and were talking about our experiences as a family my Mum asked if I remembered Nana at my school fair. I know a few stories and today I learned another.

You see, Nanna was always winning raffles and prizes wherever she went. She was also nearly blind. At one particular school fair she had to throw a dart at the board and in typical Nanna style she scored a bullseye and won the main prize. In what was also typical Nanna style she gave the prize back to the school to give to someone else.

Growing up I remember several similar stories. She would attend a school play, participate in a raffle to contribute to the school, win it and give the prize back. For Nanna it was never about winning, she had given to the school not to win something but to give. That was just the way she was. Part of me wonders if God kept making sure she won because he enjoyed her giving spirit so much. 

Remembering Nanna and Grandad

It's been a while since I posted, and I think a lot of that is down to not really knowing where to begin with describing the life of my grandparents. I was quite close to them and it has been more difficult to work from a starting point that I am satisfied with. I did write this poem, however, and felt like it is worth sharing, along with a few remarks about its content. I am not sure whether I will stick their lives for a while or change back to a different ancestor. We will see. But for now, I present this.


I remember the silver tray with tea set

A little bell to ring, announcing it is ready.

I can still smell the flowers of the garden

And hear the stern warning -

Don’t hit the plants with the ball.


I remember Friday nights with beans on toast

Or egg and soldiers on the table

Later, Omlettes, on special occassions, a roast.


Walking through the bedroom door,

Turning round to see the wall

And bookcase filled with wonder.

Robin Hood and Arthur, best friends every visiting weekend.


Fish and chips for Saturday lunch

Walk along the promenade

Or by the boating lake and nature

Before 3pm and time to leave


And one day, home for ever after.

****

I want to break down the lines in the poem and explain the memory they come from.

"I remember the silver tray with tea set

A little bell to ring, announcing it is ready."

Nanna and grandad had a little trolley and ray that they often kept in their living room, and on this tray was a silver coloured tea set. I don't believe it was real silver, but to my childhood mind it was. There was also a bell and I remember pushing this trolley into the living room and ringing the bell loudly, shouting "Tea's ready." 

"I can still smell the flowers of the garden

And hear the stern warning -

Don’t hit the plants with the ball."

Nana and grandad's garden was really quite amazing. It seemed that flowers grew all year around and were stunningly beautiful. I was trying to find a copy of it, but don't seem to have a good photograph in my collection, so if you are reading this and have one, please feel free to send it my way.

As for not hitting the plants with the ball. My brothers and I, being British, loved football (soccer) and would take a small tennis ball and play it in the front garden. Often the ball would go into the flowers lining the grass, but we were always sure it did no damage. Nanna and Grandad were always sure it did.

I remember Friday nights with beans on toast

Or egg and soldiers on the table

Later, Omlettes, on special occassions, a roast.

In my pre-teenage years, Nanna and Grandad would pick my two brothers and I up from school and take us to their house on a Friday evening. There we would have our favourite meals. They were simple, beans on toast - a British delicacy, which is self-explanatory, or egg and soldiers. Egg and soldiers is a soft boiled egg with bread cut into strips and buttered, lined up like soldiers for inspection. The bread was then dipped into the yolk and eaten before using a small teaspoon to eat the egg white. I loved it and still make it today on occasion.

Omelettes and roast are also self-explanatory. I loved those Friday evenings and couldn't wait for them to roll around. My grandparents would also bring a radio or small black and white television into the kitchen (They had a large colour one in the living room) so we could sometimes watch kids tv or listen to Grimsby town play football while we ate. 

Walking through the bedroom door,

Turning round to see the wall

And bookcase filled with wonder.

Robin Hood and Arthur, best friends every visiting weekend.

One little bedroom at my grandparent's house had a large bookcase at the foot of the bed. I believe it used to be my Uncle Michael's room. I loved running up there whenever I visited and selecting one of my favourite classics to read. The two most read were Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable. I grew up loving their legends and wanting to be Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad. I often also brought The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe to read over the weekend, as we would stay over Friday night and come back home Saturday. At first the three of us would stay but we grew to be a hand ful and then we would alternate who stayed. 

Fish and chips for Saturday lunch

Walk along the promenade

Or by the boating lake and nature

Before 3pm and time to leave

Whoever stayed for Saturday would be treated to fish and chips, usually from a local place called Sutherlands. We loved eating Fish and chips, they were absolutely delicious. The fish was haddock. To this day I go out of my way to try and eat good old English Fish and Chips, but they are few and far between in Texas. 

My grandparents lived near the beach and the promenade was a walkway that ran along the shoreline, with a pier which had a short walkway because it was cut back during world war 2. Sometimes were taken to walk along this and eat doughnuts, fish and chips, ice cream by the beach or sugar-filled candy floss. I still associate the smell of freshly made doughnuts and candyfloss with the smell of the sea, and vice versa.

The boating lake was a small lake, Americans would probably call it a pond, and you were able to rent rowing boats to go out onto it. I remember Grandad sometimes taking us out on one. Next to the lake they ended up building a small nature house where you could observe bee's making hives and other little creatures natural to the area. We loved this area as well.

"Before 3pm" refers to the time we always left to go home. Usually they would give us treats to take back with us, such as a packet of Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles or a Yorkie chocolate bar. I loved it.

Those are my fondest memories and even writing them down and sharing the poem has sparked a few others. Thanks for reading. 

Reunions and Discoveries in Britain:

I just returned from a nearly two week trip to Wales and England. I went for my brothers wedding, but it also turned into an opportunity to do a little family history. I already knew we'd spend a couple of days with my Uncle Michael who has done a lot of research on his side of the family. I went armed with questions and a camera.

The first pleasant surprise is that my Dad carved time into one of our trips through Wales to look for the grave of his grand father and grand mother.

Now, my dad's cousin had previously sent us a picture of the grave. 

When we visited we saw that it was definitely in some disrepair, which we had figured out from Roy's earlier pictures.

Wendy Thomas (nee Davies), Me, Dad (Merthyn Davies.)

Wendy is my Dad's sister, and she had actually helped at Price and Annie's house when Annie passed away, but in Wales tradition said that women were not to go to the grave site for the funeral. It's a tradition still held to in some parts of Wales today. So Wendy had never seen the grave, I am glad we could take her with us. 

While there we raised one of the side stones which had collapsed and we discovered one other thing. There was one line missing from the inscription Roy sent me. This is because it was carved on the tail end of the grave and not on the headstone.

In Welsh it simply reads:

"Gwyn eu byd y rhai addfwyn."

Translated it reads as:

"Blessed are the meek."

On my last full day in England we also visited my grandparents and great grandparents graves on my mothers side.

Mum (Christine Davies), Kathleen Hobbs (Nana's cousin who grew up with her), me.

Christine Davies (nee Hilton), me, Dad (Merthyn Davies.)

A sapling has grown up between my grandparents grave and the one behind. We didn't want to remove it in case it had been planted purposefully, or in case it disturbed the earth around the two graves. This made it a little difficult to take a photograph. We took Auntie Kathleen with us, who was my Nana's cousin.

The inscription for this and my great grandparents grave can be found here.

Dad and Mum (Merthyn and Christine Davies.)

I'm glad that we visited.

Now, in between the grave visits we stayed with my Uncle. As a result of that trip I now have:

1. 14 more photographs of Nana and Grandad together.

Just one of the photographs - Grandad receiving a gift from the British
Post Office upon his retirement. Nana caught the camera and smiled.

2. 1 more photograph of grandad alone, he is playing the accordion. 

Incidentally, this means I now know we had accordion players on both sides of the family tree.

3. Pictures of Grandad's war medals. ( I will go into more details about the medals in a future post.)

4. Memorial from Grandad's funeral.

5. 4 Letters written to Nana when her eldest was born. (Since he is still alive I may not blog these transcriptions in their entirety for a while.)

6. A photograph from Victory in Japan Day.

Grandad is front row second from the right, in uniform.

7. Great Grandad Wright's National  ID card and 3 medals from WW1 and 3 from WW2

8. A newspaper article on John Hobbs (My Auntie Kathleen's father.)

9. A newspaper article on Herbert Wright. (My Great grandfather's brother.)

10. Potentially a gedcom file with all my Uncle's research. (Depends if he can figure out how to send it to me.)

11. A photograph of my great great grandmother Hannah Elizabeth Westerman.

Add caption

12. Some information about Sarah Sharratt (My 2x Great Gradmother.)

13. Some information on George Hilton (My 4x Great Grandfather.)

Of course, this is a lot of information, and considering I've hardly started blogging about all the research I discovered from my Dad's side of the family, it may be a while before you read it all here. So stay tuned, there's a long road ahead!

Grandparents. What's in a name?

While researching my Grandparents it's been interesting just to note what names they preferred to be called.


My Nanna and Granddad (May Wright and Ernest Hilton) were always called Nanna and Granddad and always in that order for some reason. Even now it just seems to roll off the tongue with a Nanna first, then a Granddad.

This is a photograph taken of them on their Wedding Day, April 22nd 1944.



Below is a photograph taken sometime in the 90's for their Ruby Wedding Anniversary. I remember when this was taken as I was there. I was due to sing a solo at the celebration and that week I had a five a side indoor football (soccer) tournament. While attempting to head the ball it hit me in the nose and scraped off my skin. So I had to sing with a nose that had half its skin gone.



While I never met my Grandparents on my Dad's side he always calls them Grampy and Grammie Davies. I'm probably butchering those spellings because I've never written them down before. Below is a picture of my Grandparents with two dogs, Tanya and Meghan. I'm still hunting around to see if any surviving relatives have a Wedding photograph of these two love birds. Or rather, my relatives are hunting around for me, while I do the pestering!



It made me think. I wonder if what we called them has something to do with a culture we have now forgotten? I'm sure if I do a little investigation I might identify a geographic or cultural region that resulted in these names. Dad's parents were Welsh, do any of the Welsh side of my family know if Welsh grandparents were always referred to in this way? It will be interesting to find out!

Grampy and Grammie I wish I could have met you! Nanna and Granddad, I always will miss you! To all of you, I am looking forward to the day when we will all meet again:)

If any family members are reading this and would like a copy of these photographs please let me know!