General Chat

Yes my dads signet ring which mum bought him as a wedding ring for him , god bless him he put on many years ago, 1940 as a RAF engineer it t wore down at the the back and when my mam died I had it repaired for him and he wore it it again until he he died 12 yrs later. And also have have my mothers engagement ring which she should said I would always have.I wear the both I can only wear dad's in the the night on my middle finger, god bless him he put wool on the back of it because he lost weight.
Dad was going to to keep my mam's wedding ring on a chain on his neck, but when my sister who is 4 yrs older than me he gave it to her when she came over from the USA for the funeral.

I only have a sister, but a large family of cousins all older than me ( I'm the baby .lol)

Do you have have a large family?

I wear my Mum's watch and wedding ring. Her ring has "fidelity" engraved inside it in an inset piece of platinum. Had to have the watch repaired recently and only just got it back. It really felt weird without it.

Do you have anything you keep with you that you can't be without?

Depends on who it is, if it was a a close relative ..,,yes
Otherwise no.


Do you have a favourite item that was left to you by a relative on their passing ?

I'm looking at my grandparents china dog,he,s only 8 inches high, he was a wedding present for them 100 yrs ago . He /she is a left hand dog, no one knows in the family if there were a pair. My grandfather said I should have him as I always played carefully with him as as a child. Grandpa died when I was 5.

Nothing special comes to mind but I think we all learn through making mistakes, that's all part of growing up.

Do you believe in telling white lies to save someone's feelings ?

I only had one once when I was a child when I honestly did walk into a door. I was just about to open it when someone else did from the other side and the handle was right at my eye height.

My son knocked my daughter out once when they were little and she was annoying him. He ran to his room and slammed the door. Again the handle was the culprit - it had a decorative scroll on it that came to a little point. It caught her right between the eyes and she went flat out (only for a moment thank goodness). He was mortified and she stopped deliberately annoying him.

Have you or your kids ever learnt a lesson from the error of your/their ways?

I live in a village equidistant between 2 towns 2 miles each in either direction.They both have their lights up but don't go in there in the evening so don't know if they have been switched on yet..They don't have the carols switched on in the day yet.
I'm not aware of any sponsored events at this time of yr but there is always a duck race in the summer :)

Have you ever had black eye, ? I always wanted one as a teenager ..to look hard! But had one last week,we have new chrome headboard and at 5am after going to the the loo got into the bed too high up(never put the lights on! ) and bumped my forehead, 2 days later I had a black eye !Doesn't look elegant at my age .lol

Yes we do, but not yet. There'll be a switch on event on 28th November when there's usually a lantern parade too which all sorts of local community organisations make and join in with. I'm glad that locally we seem to wait till nearer Christmas for these things.

We have a river running through the town and in summer there's a duck race run by the local "Lions" - a bit like Round Table. About 3000 numbered plastic ducks are "sold" for £5 or £10 which goes towards a prize for the winner and the remainder to local charities, local businesses are asked to sponsor and decorate a decoy duck for a bigger donation. All good silly fun on a sunny afternoon. Do you have anything similar in your area?

I live in the West of Scotland and we are well known for having a lot of rain. we have recently had a lot of rain but luckily we are not having the terrible winds that England is getting but it is very cold outside. and we have had a few frosty mornings.



Tonight the our local Mayor and Santa Clause will be switching the lights on the big Christmas Tree which is standing in out town centre.

Do you have a tree & decorations put up in your town?

My brother has my Dad's medals, and a cousin has my grandad's, but someone he served under had a set of miniatures made for him as a token of appreciation. Grandad gave those to my Mum and she always had them with her on Remembrance Day. So now I have those.

My husband has his grandad's and his uncle's (he and his wife had no children to pass them to).

How are you faring in this wet and windy weather? We have a river at the bottom of the garden which is high but still well within bounds. About this time last year it came into the garden up to the willow tree but the house is on much higher ground so it shouldn't ever cause problems in that way.

My Dad was in the eighth army, one of the desert rats serving under Montgomery, he was in the Royal Corp of Signals. He was only 21 years old at the time of being called up.. My uncle Charles, who was a talented artist was killed by a sniper in Caen, France.Neither of my grandfathers served in the 1st world war, one was a diabetic and the other worked on the railways.

Do you have any medals which have been handed down ? I have my Dad's which I have in safe keeping to give to my sons, to keep in the family.

When my children were small we used to go to a firework display at their school and also on Guy fawkes night OH would have a few fireworks for them in back garden but once they got to teenages they were not interested. Now we only listen and watch the rockets going off through the windows in neighbouring gardens.

Today was armistice day and I have been looking through my grandfathers war memorabilia, have you any ancestors that fought/lived/died in the 2 world wars.?

Exceptionally.. At the door I am polite but they get less than a minute of my time.
Hubby's worse they just ..no thanks from him.
I'm afraid I'm not so polite on the phone, I don't swear, but companies that continually telephone ( I'm not listed in the phone book) I loose my rag and tell them I am going to report them to the apt authority as cold calling is illegal....the phone goes dead straight away!!

Do you attend a bonfire display ? I live so high up and have great I've no need.lol

We used to only contribute in the street with collectors and occasionally at the door, but we've always had our favourites. Now we each send a small amount via direct debit to a couple of favourites which cover a selection of the types of charities we prefer. That way they get the tax back on gift aid which makes what we can afford go further.

I know the charities are having a tough time these days but I don't ever respond to the reps in the street who want you to do a direct debit there and then because they have a batch of papers under their arm with loads of people's personal and bank details which could get picked up by the wrong person if they drop them and miss picking one up, or if someone snatched them from them. I think this must also makes the rep quite vulnerable too.

Do you get annoyed by the likes of window companies cold calling you at the door or on the phone?

We have had baked potato's for lunch today. I like cheese ,my OH likes Tuna.


Do you contribute to any charities?

You have to be very careful on the net and emails. I'm no whizz but always delete incoming addresses if I forward them and never open emails that are cold calls.

What's for lunch today ? I must get mine finished!!

If I watch telly it'll mostly be in the evening. Maybe a quiz, sitcom, documentary or news programme. At the moment Saturday is Strictly and if I'm not around to watch at the time I'll catch it on i-player. I rarely watch in the daytime except if my son's rota means he's home and I might sit down for a cuppa with him on the days I'm home. He likes Eggheads and Countdown - he's ace at the maths questions. Sometimes I might watch in the daytime around Christmas but I'd rather go out for a walk. In the past OH could sometimes be a bit of a telly addict and occasionally we missed doing something I'd prefer because a "must watch" programme was on - especially if he was backlogged with recorded things to watch. I-player helps a lot but sometimes it works for us and sometimes doesn't - we're in an area where the internet connection can be too slow sometimes though BT won't admit it. At least you don't have to consider saving tape/disc space anymore. But he's just not so much of an addict these days either which I like a lot better. Sometimes on bad occasions we've checked our internet speed can go down to less than half a mb and can even drop completely usually right in the middle of something important. OH works from home one day a week and he needs to send important files and documents over the internet to clients by a deadline. We've been here a year now and it has improved and doesn't happen so often but it's not completely solved. I'm a county employee now and I find our systems at work very slow too compared with my London experience.

So much more is asked for, and would be easier or cheaper over the internet now. And doing things over the phone can be so frustrating with the levels and levels of choices you have to make on automated lines. But I realise now why some people who I'd expect to be more computer savvy go on trying to use that method.

Also the rate at which technology changes things can end up making some people even more vulnerable than they might be already because you don't get to talk to a real person unless you press the right button or understand the system. What do you think?

Yes I am stuck on my dad's side ,although he and his cousin collaborated a lot info over the years over relatives ( they were on the phone for hours) lol..,he was 91 when he died( and had all his marbles) but poor auntie was 97 and had dementia 4 yrs after dad died.
He didn't speak to his sister for many yrs, but his sisters dau our cousins have recently met up. She stayed with my sister in USA for a week earlier this this yr and I met up with her at a school reunion( I gate crashed she is 5 yrs older than me) but I knew a lot of the peeps there and had a good time.
I was hoping but she didn't have any info on the family :(.. Shame.:((

Do you watch the tele,if at any time..daytime or evening ?

Yes, not long after I started I found a second cousin I hadn't known about, so that was quite close. She lives in New Zealand and I told her that my daughter was planning to travel round a few months later in a camper van with her boyfriend. We struck up quite an email relationship and she invited them to visit her. We thought they would pop in for a quick visit on their way past but she invited them to stay for about a week and they had a great time. Her dad is still alive (named after my grandad I found out) and he and my daughter shared quite a bit of catching up on family our side of the water.

Also on my dad's side (he was adopted) once I got a breakthrough on his side of my tree it began to take off and I got a message from someone who wanted to meet. As I was eager for any possible leads to a closer living relative we organised a meeting with her and her dad (who would actually be my dad's 2nd cousin via his dad) They visited our new home last new year when plenty of other family were around. But although I was able to help her with a lot of paper records I had found on her dad's paternal side, she wasn't able to take us any closer to my dad's family as her dad had been born out of wedlock and had not known them either. Poor man had only known a very small part of his mum's family too as she had been pretty much disowned. It seems they were so desperate for relatives they included all my mum's side on their tree.

It's ironic I now have masses of corroborated information on dad's side going back to the 16th century on a couple of direct lines as they seem to be very well documented and quite prolific lines. But I can't move forward to making connection with closer living relatives. I now have much more documentation on dad's family than mum's.

Do you have any gaps like that where you have information but don't know the people involved?

Yes but I know it is impossible,
I have been doing family history for about 10 years now and about 6 years ago when I started looking into my dads family I found out after writing to my dad's cousin that my grandmother was illegitimate, I don't know if any of my uncle's or aunt knew there mum was born out wedlock, those things were never talked about within the family.
anyway I have only 1 clue to her birth father by her middle name and I have looked up the census for a person with the same surname around the same time as her birth I did find one likely candidate. but I can't take it any further, as by now he will be dead and probably his family never disscused it anyway. so I will never know who my real great grandfather was.

Have you ever met any new connections to your tree.?

From Mum's side there are none left unfortunately although there were loads. So I have lots of cousins. From Dad's birth side, I don't know, but there was a sibling born 6 years after him so I live in hope of a miraculous contact coming up. Dad would be 93 now if he were still alive so I don't think any elder siblings are likely to still be alive. But you never know. From his adoptive family we went last weekend to my last remaining uncle's 100th birthday party. Although he's profoundly deaf (born deaf not through old age) his sight is only just beginning to go so he can still see sign language thank goodness. And he's more mobile than many half his age. My daughter said her boyfriend's 50 year old mum has difficulty due to her weight and of course her inactivity makes her put on more.

Uncle insisted on everyone going into the function room before him and making his grand entrance. He doesn't use even a stick or a helping hand.

Is there a part of your tree you're most wanting to solve?