What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
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This is a flower head of cow parsley or one of its relatives, a wild plant that grows extensively in Britain on untrimmed grass verges, along hedgerows, and in similar places. It’s a member of the carrot family, the Apiaceae ( until 2011, Umbelliferae), the word ‘umbellifer’ is related to ‘umbrella’ and you can probably see why!
The umbellifers are an interesting group of plants, including carrot, parsnip, celery, parsley, dill, fennel, coriander and many more. Cow parsley, like the others listed here, is safe to eat – but be very careful; hemlock looks much like cow parsley and is deadly poisonous. The infamous giant hogweed is another harmful umbellifer.
It was a hemlock extract that the Greek philosopher Socrates was required to drink following a guilty verdict in Athens.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
I suggest sharing a link or two with friends. And leave a kind comment on some of the posts – nothing encourages writers more than hearing from readers!
The ‘Run with Patience’ website
Verbatim – 2
Run with Patience
I’m sharing a lovely post from the blog Run with Patience, it’s informative, great advice, and a short but fun read – all rolled into one.
Here’s the ‘verbatim’ part – an extract…
Researchers have discovered that when we perform even one act of kindness, our brains release a cocktail of feel-good chemicals—dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin—all associated with pleasure, connection, and well-being. In fact, the release of oxytocin in particular (often called the “love hormone”) is the same chemical surge we experience when we fall in love. That means holding the door for someone or offering a word of encouragement can light up your brain the same way a romantic connection does.
While you’re there, have a look around at some of the other articles. It’s good stuff and there’s plenty of it. I can heartily recommend everything I’ve read there so far. If you agree, I suggest sharing a link or two with friends. And leave a kind comment on some of the posts – nothing encourages writers more than hearing from readers!
Useful? Interesting?
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Feb 2025 (3 months before publishing this article)
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It was really nice to have a warm house at last. The heat pump was working well for us, but there were a few little wrinkles that still needed to be ironed out.
Donna and I were shocked at the way Donald Trump was behaving as the new US President. He was making sweeping changes, apparently without care or consideration for the disruption he was causing. And Musk was raising mayhem as well, closing departments and sacking staff to save money. At the end of the month Zelensky was very badly treated by Trump and the Vice President, JD Vance and it seemed almost the entire world was horrified by their behaviour.
Paper birds
We visited Blenheim Palace and Tewkesbury Abbey during the month. The main image at the top of this post shows the sumptuous dining room at Blenheim, and the paper birds were hanging from the nave ceiling in Tewkesbury Abbey. There were, probably literally, thousands of them.
I had my laptop cleaned internally, and got the 2 TB hard drive replaced with a 2 TB solid state drive (SSD); as a result it runs cooler, has better battery life, and is also a good deal faster. It’s five years old now, but this should extend its useful life for quite some time.
The mornings and evenings were drawing in and that makes opportunities for twilight photos while the shops are still open. I finished my tax return and told myself to do it earlier next year (again).
On 6th I wrote in my journal, ‘What a nightmare – it seems that Donald Trump has the US election in the bag. It’s a gloomy prospect for the world, for the USA, for Europe, the UK and Ukraine. It’s a bad outcome for democracy itself, although brought about by the democratic process. It’s bad for freedom of trade. There is some benefit for Putin, for Kim Yong Un, and for misinformation, untruth and bad behaviour.’ Looking back, that seems prophetic.
We had a surveyor visit from Octopus Energy on 11th the first step towards installing a heat pump. The Long Table shop, Monastery, opened in the Market Place recently and we went there for a quick initial look. They’re doing an amazing job. Our chimney developed a leak and dripped through my study ceiling.
Christmas Market
And at the end of the month we had a visit from friends in St Neots and the Christmas Market filled the Market Place. It was a busy month but on the whole a good one.
Donna and I walked along the canal towpath through Chalford, and enjoyed exploring this pretty hillside village. We ate lunch at Felt Cafe and visited the Long Table at Brimscombe.
Little by little I’d been clearing ivy from the dry stone wall along the west side of the Gloucester Road. There was now a section of about 500 m completely clean and looking much better. I only did ten or twenty minutes at a time, usually when I was walking back from town. I like things like that, slow progress over a long period adding up to a large effect.
Ebley Mill
On 16th I walked another long section of canal, from Chalford all the way to Stonehouse, parts of this are really pretty. An expedition to The Newt with Paul and Vanessa was a great day out, too.
We took Donna’s Mum, Isobel, for a short break at a Warners Hotel at Holme Lacy near Hereford. While staying there we were able to visit Hereford and explore the city centre including a look inside the lovely old cathedral. Donna and I also managed a country walk one morning while Isobel sat in the sunshine at the hotel. We visited the National Trust garden at The Weir overlooking the River Wye. It’s beautiful countryside and an interesting site with a south facing walled garden on a south-facing slope with no southern wall so that cold air can slide downhill to reduce winter frosts.
Our friend Kevin was in the process of moving from Gamlingay to Little Paxton. He also told me about a new friend he’d made, Lariana. They were getting on very well together and now, two years later, they are married and living in St Neots! That’s a story with a very happy ending.
King Charles III was crowned on 6th May, only the second coronation of a British monarch during my lifetime. It was a grand event and we followed the TV coverage with great interest. I particularly noticed that the floor coverings in Westminster Abbey were yellow and blue – the colours of the Ukrainian flag. It’s impossible to know if this was a deliberate statement of royal support for Ukraine, but I like to think it might have been. It seems gold and blue were also used at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953.
LARS System
I found a working copy of the old LARS System that I created while working at Long Ashton Research Station in 1994. It was a virtual machine copy on one of my backup drives, I imported the hard disk image and it ran with no issues in Virtual Box. I was delighted to find this. It brought back a lot of memories!
For the first time since COVID lockdown we were allowed to meet with a friend, providing it was out-of-doors and we stayed at least 2 m apart.
Donna’s Dad, Tony, deteriorated during the month and died in the evening of 26th, her brother Paul was able to visit twice, once for two nights and then again just nine days before Tony passed away. We had been able to get carers in from a local hospice, Longfield, despite the COVID precautions. This was wonderful as otherwise he would have had to go into care and visiting was not possible during this time. It would have been an awful experience for him and for us, too.
Gratitude
There were daily ministerial broadcasts about the pandemic. It was a strange time, I remember one day a queue of over 100 people was socially distanced all around the Tesco car park with a very long wait to get into the supermarket. People were grateful for the support they were getting and showed it in a variety of ways. Donna and I always looked forward to our one permitted daily walk, but the necessary restrictions were causing serious damage to the economy. I wrote a Haiku of Haikus about it all.
World events: The number of COVID cases worldwide passed 5 million on 21st May; and the first crew flew on a SpaceX Dragon vehicle.
We drove to York and visited Thorganby and Fulford to spend time with my daughters and the grandchildren. It’s always good to see everyone; in the photo Aidan and Verity (now Fern) are working on some Lego. Ten years later, Aidan is travelling in South America and Fern is taking GCSEs.
Our garden
Here’s a shot of our old garden in St Neots. It was fully mature by this time, and big enough for entertaining. We used to do this often and our home became known as ‘the party house’. We had plenty of room indoors, a summerhouse, and garden ‘rooms’ so people could sit and chat or stroll around talking.
World events: The 2015 UK General Election produced the first Conservative majority in 18 years; and ISIS captured the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria.
I started seeing flashing lights whenever I turned my head or flicked my eyes from side to side; I was concerned about a detached retina. The walk-in clinic’s GP sent me to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge for a proper check and they decided I had detachment of the vitreous, a normal occurrence involving the retina as we age, and with similar symptoms.
I went to the Starfish Vision Unconference in Helsinki, and was made very welcome by my hosts, who collected me from the Airport and gave me a room in their home. There was an emphasis on rapid, bursting growth and new life. There were 50 or 60 people present from church in mostly Nordic countries, but other parts of Europe too. The photo shows delegates relaxing outside during a break. I felt Finland was a beautiful country, and the people were kind and helpful.
Near Ballachulish
We visited Scotland with Donna’s parents and her brother for a family wedding in Glasgow. But we made a week of it by booking a holiday home in Ballachulish near Oban. The photo shows Paul and Donna with Tony and Isobel in the middle of the group.
I visited Mum and Dad at Churnside in Cirencester and spent most of the day with them, driving down to arrive mid-morning and travelling back in the evening. The house and garden haven’t changed much from one visit to the next, the place was pretty much as they wanted it and they were in no hurry to alter anything.
Dad
Dad had not stopped being a nurseryman! His little greenhouse was full of things he’d propagated and he often supplied me and my sisters with pots of this or that for our gardens. Once a plant propagator, always a plant propagator. One of the first books I bought as a student at Bath University was ‘Plant Propagation’ by Hartman and Kester. Dad was so interested in it that I later bought him his own copy.
Donna and I were both working at Unilever in Sharnbrook, north of Bedford. The Web Team that I worked for were happy that we’d had no Y2K (year 2000) issues, it had involved a lot of work in 1999; the photo shows me at my desk.
scilla.org.uk
I registered scilla.org.uk as an internet domain that Donna and I could use for email, a website, ftp and other functions. We called it scilla as it’s suitably short for an address and is a genus of squill, related to the bluebell. We have bluebells in our front garden in St Neots.
Mum & Dad
Donna’s parents visited us on 13th and mine came on 27th to stay for a few days. The house was in a state of upheaval because we were decorating the lounge and had squeezed the sofas into the small dining room.
World events:India’s population reached 1 billion; and the Millennium Force roller coaster opened, in Ohio, the world’s tallest and fastest.
Beth was working hard on her upcoming A levels and working towards her Biology project, helped along by her Mum who sometimes took her out on field trips at weekends.
Meanwhile Debbie was driving her new car at this time, quite an exciting change for her and increasing her mobility and independence enormously.
World events: The Vaal Reefs mining disaster involved a locomotive falling into a mine shaft; and Russia expanded its Mir space station by adding Spektr.
In May we visited Ophrys House, Tim and Deirdre’s home in Siddington, to meet my cousin Jill and her partner Marcia who were on holiday there from the USA (they lived in West Virginia at that time). Tim wanted to demonstrate the dentition of one of his goats, the goat got annoyed and gave his fingers a nip! In the photo are Judy, Marcia, Debbie and Beth.
Dad at work
The same weekend I went to visit Dad while he was working at the Kingsmeadow Garden Centre in Cirencester, now the site of Tesco Extra’s car park. He was busy in the little office, cashing up at the end of the day. These days customers swipe their cards and the daily totals appear automatically.
World events: Latvia declared independence from the USSR; and The WHO removed homosexuality from its list of diseases.
The 19th was Beth’s 7th birthday and the weather was kind so she had friends round for a party in the back garden.
It was about this time that we drove down to Rachael and Peter’s home in Eaton Socon, St Neots, for a Clever Clogs’s photographic session for advertising material for the educational software we were helping to develop. I wrote some of the early software for the ZX81 and the Spectrum, and Peter turned it into a profitable business and marketed it. We rose to the giddy heights of selling the games via a range of retail outlets, including WH Smiths.
Clever Clogs team
I was working at Long Ashton Research Station, and was the Computer Rep for the Plant Sciences Division. Judy was teaching Biology GCSE and A Level at Cotham Grammar School in Bristol.
World events: UK scientists announced the discovery of the ozone hole; and the Heysel Stadium disaster killed 39 football spectators in rioting.
Beth was two-years-old and she enjoyed her cake and presents. I’m assuming the party would have been just family, either one or both sets of grandparents coming down for the day.
She sat for a long time investigating all the presents thoroughly and was very focused of each one. Judy had baked a circular cake and cleverly cut it into pieces to make up an elephant shape. She then iced it and decorated it with a number two.
The cake
Meanwhile Debbie, already five-years-old, was expecting to start school in the autumn, but that was still an entire summer away!
Debbie was eight-weeks old around the middle of the month, and we were getting closer to deciding on a house; we’d secured a mortgage in principal and I had life assurance in place too . We’d considerd St Werburgh’s as we could afford the homes there and it would provide easy access to town, but it was not a great area and a nearby village looked better. The Claverham/Yatton area was more to our liking but was also more difficult to afford.
We looked at some properties in Yatton, and found one we liked but couldn’t really afford in Rectory Drive. We put in a low offer that we thought would be too high, but worth a try, only to have it accepted immediately! So the legal process got under way sooner than we’d expected.
We were still living in our flat at 20 Belmont Road in Bristol, but we contacted the landlord to give notice in principal (although we couldn’t yet provide a firm moving date).
World events:Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Everest; and there was a serious coach crash near Grassington, North Yorkshire.
Judy and I were both in our final year at university. I was at Bath studying Horticulture in year 4, she was at Aberystwyth studying Biochemistry in year 3. We were both approaching our finals and working really hard.
We were looking forward to finishing our studies, graduating (hopefully) and then on October 3rd, getting married – oh, and finding work!
The World Gliding Championships came to South Cerney Airfield, just south of Cirencester, and opened on 29th May. This was a huge event for somewhere the size of Cirencester, let alone South Cerney!
The photo shows a Slingsby Capstan glider with one of the South Cerney wartime hangers in the background. The airfield was very familiar to us as Dad was a keen aeromodeller and we used to visit South Cerney often to fly our models, sometimes on our own but often with other members of the Cirencester club.
I was in my final term of the first form at Cirencester Grammar School, though it seems not much maths had lodged in my brain yet! (Click the image.)
It was around this time, perhaps, that we moved from our council house, 17 Queen Anne’s Road, on the Beeches Estate. We moved into my grandparent’s old home ‘Churnside’ at 37 Victoria Road. I was somewhat peeved at not being able to take part in the move, but I was required to go to school instead. It was so exciting to ride my bike the short distance to the new house and find the rest of the family busy sorting everything out, and then joining in.
World events: An American spy plane was shot down over the USSR and its pilot, Gary Powers, captured; and Sputnik 4 was launched into orbit by The USSR.
I was close to the end of my second year at Querns School and although I probably wasn’t thinking about the summer holidays yet (and no doubt late June would have seemed an interminable wait) but by the end of May it would have been just a matter of a few weeks.
The photo shows part of the front of the school and the side entrance. The playground and field were further down that way. I remember playing rounders in the little field at the bottom of the school playground. I understand now that both the playground and the ‘field’ would seem shockingly small if I could visit them today! This was, after all, just a largish urban house and back garden pressed into service as a very small junior school; but at the time they seemed big. And I remember Martin Kinch who always seemed able to hit the ball harder than anyone else, run faster than anyone else, and was just physically superior to the rest of us.
A few things have changed, but this side entrance is still very recognisable.
World events:West Germany became a sovereign country and joined NATO; and Austria became a sovereign, neutral country.
Dad was working for the family business, John Jefferies & Son Ltd. The photo shows part of the front page of a seed catalogue from a company they may have used from time to time.
I’ll describe something I used to do at this age, in our new house at Queen Anne’s Road. This is not something I remember, as I was still not yet two-years-old in May 1950. But Mum and Dad told me about this much later in my life.
Our new home had a door on the right, just as you stepped through the front door from the garden. Straight ahead was a short corridor, and a second door leading to the kitchen. And on the left, stairs led up to the bathroom and three bedrooms, one of them very tiny. On the ground floor, taking that door on the right brought you into the sitting room (nobody had lounges in those days). Turning left, another door led to the dining-room, and turning left again brought you to the kitchen with the back door. Finally, turning left yet again brought you back into the hall, facing the front door at the far end.
It seems this arrangement fascinated my young brain and I spent a lot of time going round and round and round. It was a novelty for me, because this was not possible at my grandparents home where we had lived previously.
World events:Tollund Man was discovered in Denmark; and Britain formally recognised Israel.
On 1st May Dad wrote in his diary ‘Hitler dies!!!‘. Clearly a red-letter day for the Allies. On 2nd he reported that the Germans surrendered in Italy and that Berlin fell. On 4th he heard that German forces in Holland and Denmark had also surrendered.
On 7th Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies and the war was over in Europe. On the same day Dad received more good news, his promotion came through to Aircraftman First Class (AC1) from Leading Aircraftman (LAC). And he also had permission to visit Ireland on leave. What an amazing day!
8th May was declared VE Day. The photo shows Field Marshall Keitel signing the document of unconditional surrender.
World events:Wernher von Braun and 120 members of his team surrendered to U.S. forces; and the Schuman Declaration was the spark that resulted later in the forming of the EU.
There’s not enough information to write something for every month in the 1940s. Dad’s diaries start in January 1943, so for January 1940 to December 1942 I’ll write about things I know, or draw on dated photos and documents. Sometimes I might use a photo or document with a guessed date.
I remember the family business in the mid 1950s and it would not have changed a great deal since 1940. There were several plant nurseries with an annual rhythm to the seasonal tasks that needed to be followed. By May all of the lifting, packing and despatch of trees and shrubs would have finished and tasks like hoeing and weeding would have come to the fore.
During wartime this pattern was, no doubt, disrupted. Although normal business would have gone on at a reduced level, I imagine much of the land would have been pressed into service to produce as much wheat, barley and oats as possible, as well as potatoes and vegetable crops, apples, pears and plums, as well as strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries. All these would have been propagated for sale as plants during peacetime, but perhaps some of them would have been allowed to grow larger to provide fruit for market as well.
Dad would have been approaching his 14th birthday in May 1940, and still at school, probably at Rendcomb College, but perhaps still at Cirencester Grammar School. Mum was still eleven-years-old, living and at school in Coagh in Northern Ireland.
Anything that appears in this section will be material that I believe belongs in this decade. Items will not be in sequence within the decade, but where I can make a good guess of the date I will do so.
Birthday clue
Here’s an envelope that tells a tale. E.A. Jefferies was my grandfather, Edward Arthur Jefferies. He lived at ‘Churnside’, 37 Victoria Road in Cirencester, how the postman was supposed to know where to deliver the letter is a bit of a mystery!
Clearly, though, it was delivered successfully. The fact that the stamp is missing is interesting. It seems my grandfather used to like to steam the stamps off letters, and my Mum told me that if a stamp had been missed by a badly aimed franking mark, he would glue it onto another letter to save on postage!
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
There was a pre-decimal British coin carrying a picture of a wren on the reverse, still in use when I was a small child. There were four farthings in a penny … or 960 of them in a British pound sterling.
So, what bird might that be? Why, the Jenny Wren of course. If you live in Britain you’ll probably be familiar with this old term.
My son-in-law, Paz, sent me a link to a wonderful video of a Eurasian wren singing. Because the video has been slowed down, the sound is lower-pitched but also stretched out in time. As a result you can hear far more of the detail in this small bird’s singing performance. It’s truly amazing! But don’t take my word for it, watch and listen for yourself…
Paz is always amusing with his choice of titles; this time his email to me was entitled ‘Trogloclanger’. This is a portmanteau from Troglodytes (the Latin genus and species name of this wren), and The Clangers – fictitious inhabitants of space who made a whistling noise and figured in children’s stories. (You probably don’t want to watch an episode of The Clangers – but just in case, here’s one.)
It’s worth mentioning the Wikipedia article on the Eurasian wren because it provides a lot of detail about this little bird, and was also the source of the photo. Learn more about the ornithology and etymology from Wikipedia. There’s a separate article about the family Troglodytidae in general. Almost all species of wren live in the Americas, or islands in the region.
There was a pre-decimal British coin carrying a picture of a wren on the reverse, still in use when I was a small child. There were four farthings in a penny (‘four’ and the ‘far’ in farthing are cognate) or 960 of them in a British pound sterling. So you’d need just over 9½ farthings to make a decimal penny – that’s inflation for you!
At the time many people supposed that the smallest British bird was chosen for the reverse of the smallest British coin. But that is not the case as the goldcrest is our smallest bird.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Judy’s Biochemistry year at Aberystwyth made the long coach trip to Cambridge where they stayed in Churchill College and visited biochemistry labs at the university. (1970)
Jan 2025 (3 months before publishing this article)
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On 2nd January we visited Batsford Arboretum, one of the places we like enough to revisit several times a year. Before it was an arboretum it was a family estate, the photo shows the interior of the private family church.
House repairs
The heat pump system we’ve been waiting for was finally installed towards the end of the month, it was all working throughout the evening and night of 31st and it was wonderful to began to feel warmer, the first time our radiators have been warm since the gas boiler failed back in October! We survived with our 5 kW gas fire in the lounge and a couple of electric convector heaters. We had other work done on the house during January as well, repairing a leak around our chimney and making further changes to a window. This completed the work begun in December.
I enjoy following progress in spaceflight – a lifelong interest – and January was a busy month. A Falcon 9 booster launched and landed for a record 25th flight, Blue Origin’s first launch of New Glenn reached orbit but failed to land, and Starship Flight 7 failed to reach orbital velocity, but the booster was caught successfully. The break-up of the orbiter made a spectacular light show over the Caribbean.
One of my accounts on the internet was hacked and several more compromised, it was stressful and took time to recover.
Donna started running quite seriously, spurred on by her brother, Paul, and his wife Vanessa. She did a Park Run with them in Tetbury on 12th, and then a 10k race at Westonbirt School on 17th. She’s at the run a bit, walk a bit stage, but improving all the time. I’m impressed!
Our garden cabin got painted, we paid a handyman to do it as it’s a big area to cover, and he sprayed Donna’s choice of Dulux Weathershield colour over a primer following pressure washing and sanding all the timber.
On the 5th we drove to Nottingham for a friend’s 80th birthday party, staying one night. It was a lovely occasion and we met a lot of old friends from our days in St Neots.
We visited Kelmscott Manor not far from Lechlade, where William and Jane Morris lived for some years and made many of their own furnishings. The wall-hanging in the photo was made by them in 1860 when they lived in Kent. As we explored the house we began to see what a gem this place is, full of original material from the Arts and Crafts movement of the time.
Paul and Vanessa (with the two dogs) came to visit for Donna’s birthday, we always enjoy seeing them. We didn’t go out, but split the time between our house and Isobel’s (Paul and Donna’s Mum), chatting and catching up.
Woodchester
Later in the month we visited another interesting old house, the never completed Woodchester Mansion. This is very unusual, it remained empty and unused when the funds ran out and is a frozen work in progress. The builders just downed tools and walked out!
At the end of April I did a canal walk from Chalford to the tunnel entrance at Daneway.
Early in the month we visited Weston-super-Mare to look after the dogs while Paul and Vanessa explored Dartmoor. One day, Donna and her Mum wanted to shop at Cadbury Garden Centre so I took the opportunity of walking around the village of Yatton where I used to live. It’s changed a bit since I was last there and it was fun to walk around some of the old haunts. We visited Cheddar, Cheddar Gorge and Burrington Combe as well.
SS Great Britain
Debbie, Aidan and Sara came to visit in the middle of the month and I went with them to Bristol where we visited the SS Great Britain and did a walk around Roman Cirencester. The photo is the best I could manage, I struggled to predict where everyone would be and it was hard to get ahead for better photos! It was an interesting experience, and later Aidan got to visit his favourite football club, Bristol Rovers.
JHM: I posted more on groundbreaking; and on a delayed attempt to launch SpaceX’s Starship for the first time. World events: Finland joined NATO; and Starship launched for the first time on 20th April.
Donna’s Dad, Tony, was suffering a lot of pain in the mornings when we had to help him out of bed. But we were able to get carers in from a local hospice, Longfield, despite the COVID precautions. This was wonderful as otherwise he would have had to go into care and visiting was not possible during this time, it would have been an awful experience for him and for us, too. Paul, as a family member, was able to drive up from Weston-super-Mare to visit to see his Dad.
There were daily ministerial broadcasts about the pandemic. It was a strange time, I remember one day a queue of over 100 people was socially distanced all around the Tesco car park with a very long wait to get into the supermarket. Donna and I always looked forward to our one permitted daily walk, but the necessary restrictions were causing serious damage to the economy. I wrote a Haiku of Haikus about it all.
World events: The number of COVID cases worldwide passed 1 million on 2nd April and by 27th it passed 3 million; Donald Trump announced the US was suspending funding for the WHO.
We were in Beddgelert at the beginning of the month, visiting Paul and Vanessa in the cottage they were renting for the week. One day we travelled to Caernarvon and back on the Welsh Highland Railway, walking to and from Beddgelert Station.
Wightwick
On our way home from Gwynedd we stopped to visit Wightwick Manor, a Victorian Manor House in Wolverhampton. This is Victorian style at its most intense, nothing here is simple, everything is ornate, the chimneys, the internal woodwork, the plaster ceilings – everything! If you are in the area, this National Trust property is well worth a visit.
JHM: I wrote on love and forgiveness. World events: The WHO declared Rubella had been eradicated from the Americas; and there was a serious earthquake in Nepal.
As I no longer had a Unilever work laptop, and my own device was a small netbook, I bought an Acer Aspire laptop at Tesco for use at home and continued with the netbook when I was out and about. I ran Linux Ubuntu on both. The photo shows the netbook with Google Wave active in the Chrome browser.
Duchess
We took the X-treme Camp children and some of their parents tenpin bowling on 6th and everyone seemed to enjoy the evening. And the Duchess of Gloucester came to St Neots to open the new Eatons Community Centre, a grand occasion for what became a very popular local venue for all sorts of social activities and events. Click the image for a larger view of her being greeted by young people on the day.
The Bougainvillea flowered abundantly in our conservatory and I bought a wireless Wi-Fi hub for use when I’m out of the house. It provided Wi-Fi connections for up to five devices at once.
On 2nd April I flew to Ford Lauderdale, Florida for the Koinonia Life Retreat, oganised at the Duncan Conference Centre by my friend Steph. I spent the first night at the home of her friends, Terry and Bill. On 4th I stayed with Steph and her husband Earl and on the 5th and 6th visited my cousin Jill and her partner Marcia. After that I spent more time with Steph, Earl, Terry and Bill before flying home on 11th. It was a great trip, and many of the people I met at the Retreat had already been online friends for some time. It was very good to meet them face to face.
At Unilever I was now working on the web Portal which seemed to me rather confusing and not well-designed for research teams. I felt I was pushing against the natural flow of a river of information. It was an uncomfortable experience.
World events: Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles; and the first ever YouTube video was uploaded (watch it).
The most extreme floods we had seen so far in St Neots were in early April, peaking around the 4th and 5th. The river broke its banks and spilled across the floodplain. That is quite normal, but this year the water was exceptionally deep.
Kitchen
Our new kitchen was finished and we were able to put everything away and make the place tidy at last. This was a huge improvement since early March.
Debbie was working hard at the University of the West of England in Bristol. The photo shows her writing up an assignment at home in Yatton.
Judy continued day trips with Debbie and Beth, sometimes I’d go along as well, but often I’d be at work at Long Ashton. The photo below was taken by Debbie and shows Beth and Judy on the beach at Clovelly. I’m glad they were able to spend time with her while she was still fit and well. She lost her hair during a failed attempt at chemotherapy in autumn 1994, but her hair was growing back well by April as you can see.
Beth and Judy
It was probably in April or May that we began meeting with our friends Tony, Faith, Paul and Jenny again. I don’t know the precise date, but I think it would have been this time of year. They were great meetings when we prayed together and received so much in visions, words, interpreted tongues, Bible readings and much much more.
We got started again because I visited Tony and Faith first I think, and then Paul and Jenny, and suggested that we should give it a try even though things had been difficult for some years beforehand.
Judy was fully on board with all this too. And although we prayed for her healing sometimes, this was not the focus for us; instead we really wanted to hear what Father had to say to us and it was like drinking from a firehose!
World events: The Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 people; and the US government stopped funding NSFNET, making the Internet entirely independent of government control.
The beginning of April was warm, here Beth has a guinea pig on her lap and Debbie is working. They’re sitting out in the back garden at 80 Stowey Road in Yatton on 1st of the month.
Chew Valley
The 15th was much colder, by this time Debbie’s Bordeaux exchange student, Anne, had arrived and one of our trips was to Chew Valley reservoir. Our car at the time (in the photo) was ‘Karen’, so named by Debbie because it was a Volkswagen and karren is German for cart or barrow. This car had belonged to my Dad, when he replaced it he let us buy it at an advantageous price.
There’s little to say about this month, I haven’t found any photos. We were still living at 22 Rectory Drive in Yatton, Debbie was ten and Beth nearly seven.
I was working at Long Ashton Research Station, and Judy was teaching at Cotham Grammar School in Bristol.
World events: South Africa ended its ban on interracial marriages; and Coca-Cola released New Coke which was not well received.
The photo shows Debbie and Beth in their Wendy House. It was becoming a bit the worse for wear at this stage and was held together by tape and clothes pegs! The back garden at Rectory Drive was small, but just big enough for playing in and to grow a small apple tree, a tiny veg patch, two even tinier gardens for Debbie and Beth, and a sand pit.
While the girls were small it was all we needed, and in any case we couldn’t afford a larger mortgage. We were no longer involved at Horsecastle Chapel at this point, an evangelical congregation meeting at the northern end of the village. We’d become friendly with a number of believers from a variety of backgrounds and were meeting in our own homes.
Debbie would sleep peacefully in her pram and Judy was able to catch up with other tasks and even take a photo or two like this one.
We were living in our flat at 20 Belmont Road in Bristol; ours was the middle flat with a musician (Gwyn) and his wife (Gladys) downstairs with access to the back garden. Gwyn played in the BBC training orchestra in Bristol and had a fine selection of classical music LPs. He copied a selection of tracks onto reel-to-reel tape for us. There was a landing halfway up the stairs to our flat and we kept our bikes there. I rode to work and back every day in Long Ashton.
World events: Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Micro-soft (sic); and The Vietnam War ended with the Fall of Saigon.
This is 14 Belland Drive in Charlton Kings, Cheltenham where Judy lived with her brother, Frank, and their Mum and Dad. Judy was back here from University for a weekend in April and the photo shows the house from the back garden.
Huge room!
Also in April, Judy’s Biochemistry year at Aberystwyth made the long coach trip to Cambridge where they stayed in Churchill College and visited biochemistry labs at the university. She was mightily impressed by the size of the student rooms at Churchill, compared to those at Aber! They made a day trip from Cambridge to Unilever’s research lab at Colworth north of Bedford; and strangely enough I would work there much later after Donna and I were married in 1998.
World events:Paul McCartney announced that he had left The Beatles; and Apollo 13 was launched to the Moon.
I travelled home from Brantwood in the Lake District, probably on 3rd April. I had a great time, there were people from a number of different schools. I think I was the only one from Cirencester. Dad drove me over to the course organiser’s home in Owlpen where we set off for the minibus journey north. We made several trips, walking to the top of Coniston Old Man and visiting the slate quarry on the way up. The slate quarry is now derelict, but was still working when we were there in 1965. We also travelled to the pebble beach near Barrow-in-Furness where we found seabird eggs hidden amongst the pebbles.
The summer term began after Easter, the final part of my year in the Lower Sixth at Cirencester Grammar School.
World events:Early Bird was launched, the first commercial telecommunications satellite; and The Pennine Way officially opened.
I was in Form 1B at Cirencester Grammar School. Here’s a section from my maths exercise book at the time. I remember the maths teacher was Mr Dyer, a kind and gentle person who was always helpful and positive.
World events: The USA launched the first weather satellite; and Brasilia became the new capital of Brasil.
We were living at 17 Queen Anne’s Road in Cirencester; the Summer term began at Querns School, the final term of my second year. Comics were the thing that occupied children in those pre-computer days. Instead of games and other apps on a phone, I was spending hours reading Swift or playing in the garden. Cindy was probably not yet quite old enough for a comic.
We spent time with the neighbourhood children too, especially our next door neighbours, the Watts. Linda was more or less my age, and Graham about Cindy’s age; I think we played well together, either in the house or in the garden.
I had a Tri-ang pedal-power American Jeep (the image is similar, but not identical) with a little, khaki jerry-can on the back. Cindy had a pull-along roundabout with four wooden figures with arms that swung out when it was revolving.
When we moved to our new home in Queen Anne’s Road, the garden was an area of rough soil, topsoil mixed with underlying layers, bits of concrete, and scattered building rubble.
Dad, of course, made a start on turning it into a proper garden, but before he had time to get very far with this, I was out there at the age of two in my little blue coat with its fur edged hood. One of the things that I found was a poker. Everyone had a poker by the sitting-room fire, essential for moving coal and logs around when necessary. Mum and Dad didn’t have a poker, so I was very pleased to find one.
Years later I realised what it really was. It was a fence-wire strainer. It was made of galvanised steel with a loop at one end and a long section of screw thread on the other (a bit longer than in the photo). It would have been passed through a hole in a concrete fence post, fence wire attached, and a nut tightened on the thread to pull the wire taut. Mine had lost its nut and been discarded. It served as a poker for at least 25 years until I was quite grown up and had left home.
World events: The British comic Eagle was launched; and Britain formally recognised Israel.
Dad spent time with family and friends in and around Cirencester at the beginning of the month, travelling back to Skendleby by train on 7th. The constant exchange of letters with Mum in Coagh continued.
On 12th he noted that President Roosevelt had died but made no comment on the news. At the end of the month Dad learned he was to be billeted out in Skendleby and wrote in his diary that he had mixed feelings about it.
There’s not enough information to write something for every month in the 1940s. Dad’s diaries start in January 1943, so for January 1940 to December 1942 I’ll write about things I know, or draw on dated photos and documents. Sometimes I might use a photo or document with a guessed date.
Watermoor Church
Although my grandparents, Ted and Nor, usually went to the Parish Church in the Market Place on a Sunday morning, Watermoor Church was a similar distance to walk and it’s clear they sometimes went there instead.
They lived at Churnside, 37 Victoria Road. To reach the Parish Church they would walk north on Victoria Road, turn left onto Dyer Street and continue into the Market Place. To reach Watermoor Church they would cross Victoria Road, follow The Avenue, and turn left along Watermoor Road.
Here’s another experimental new section. It will contain material that I believe fits this range of dates.
Mop
This is a back-of-the-envelope pen and ink drawing by my grandfather, EA Jefferies (Ted or Guv), he made it for my Dad when he was a young child (five-years-old in 1931) and the colouring-in looks like the work of a child of that age, or maybe a year or so younger. The picture shows the Mop Fair that takes over Cirencester Market Place in October each year, so it might date to October 1930 or 1931.
This picture is very typical of the drawings and stories Grandpa produced. The characters are animals. Notice the smoke rising above the roundabout on the right, it was steam-powered, no diesel generators in those days! The Parish Church is clearly recognisable on the left of the picture. My Dad was given the nickname ‘Tigger’ (or just ‘Tig’ for short) because he was so bouncy when he was little.
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