Re: Hard times
- From: "Tickettyboo" <tickettyboo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 18:40:39 +0100
"pandamonium" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:m45jsn4pcfhh.1178m9za3q1ow$.dlg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Sun, 8 Jun 2008 10:32:52 +0100, Tickettyboo wrote:
I am doing some family history stuff for a friend. As per I am fascinated
at
the glimpses of social history and horrified at just how hard life was .
I have had lots of contact with various people up and down Britain whilst
I
have been doing my digging, I hear the same phrase often , its along the
lines of the folk in their area really had things harder than in the rest
of
the country.
Well no they didn't, they just had different kinds of hard. It was
bloody
awful for anyone who didn't have much and that was most of the
population.
The digging I have been doing in based in the North East of England and
the
search I did this evening really brought tears to my eyes. I was trying
to
see if the couple I was looking at had other children apart from those on
the census returns every ten years. I wanted to document the little ones
who were born and perhaps did not live very long cos I hate the 'proper
genealogical' attitude that they are not of any great interest as they
died
'without issue'.
The surname was reasonably common in the area and the marriage was from
1868 till 1885 when the husband who was a miner died in a pit explosion.
So I searched for births registered in the district for those years. 225
of
them
Then I searched for the deaths for the same name and period. Forty three
were recorded with an age at death of zero, 18 more did not see their
fifth
birthdays. I have no doubt that if I repeated the exercise in a different
partof the country it would show similar results.
God help me, no matter how hard I try I just can't imagine what it would
be
like if around 25% of all the children in one street, village, town died.
Oh and before anyone tells me that was the way things were then and
people
just got on with it, I don't accept that. Just cos it was a long time ago
and they were poor doesn't change the fact that Mums and Dads would have
been devastated and there would always have been a part of them that hurt
and was sad.
Just looking at this site http://www.dmm.org.uk/mindex.htm and trying to
imagine what it was like for the families of a whole street to learn that
their fathers and brothers weren't coming home.
My grandmother's father and two brothers, one 15, were killed in the 1909
West Stanley disaster. She was only a little girl at the time. She told my
mother, who in turn told me, that she can remember there being four
coffins
in the house. One was taken away and brought back again. Looking down the
list on http://www.dmm.org.uk/names/n1909-01.htm I can see three Charltons
listed from 3 Manx Street. Further down there's someone called John Robson
aged 54 at the same address. I've been told that it wasn't unusual for
families to take in lodgers in those days to help make ends meet. The
houses must have been extremely crowded as they were usually a 2-up 2-down
or a small bungalow with two bedrooms.
.
- References:
- Hard times
- From: Tickettyboo
- Re: Hard times
- From: pandamonium
- Hard times
- Prev by Date: Re: BBQ weather
- Next by Date: Re: Hard times
- Previous by thread: Re: Hard times
- Next by thread: Re: Hard times
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
Loading
