Exploring family history: country walks in Devon and lots of cups of tea
The trouble with exploring my family history is knowing where to stop.
Researching my memoirs, I spent a happy week at my mother’s house, looking through old family photos, generating loads of memories for my writing.
I was planning to write my childhood memoirs just for the family to read (because, let’s face it, my childhood was singularly uneventful and no one else would want to read it)
And I was toying with the idea of a semi-autobiographical novel/family saga, based around my life but including three other family members who lived in my childhood home through the previous generations.
Then I came across a collection of old letters written home to her children by my great-grandmother, Hephsibah Jollyman (how awesome is that name?) in 1927, while taking a ‘second honeymoon’ in Lynmouth, Devon.
And they were so interesting, once I started transcribing them, I just couldn’t wait for the next instalment!
There’s a lot of country walking, drinking cups of tea, and lavish descriptions of delicious meals (you could put on a few pounds just reading about their dinner). When they felt like some tea, they’d just stop at a farm:
We opened the gate & where was the house? On, on over a rough cart track varied only by a viper snake in our path… which we watched slither away in the grass. Still on, passing 6 wee orphan goslings, and there was the farm.
Ring the bell, the door opened, can we have tea? Invited into a very large stone floored kitchen about 30 x 25 ft, oak beams, hooks for hams, an enormous fireplace, two old fashioned warming pans & a settle, & the pictures.
I noticed 2 valentines framed, with “love’s young dreams” & that naughty fellow Cupid hanging in mid-air over their heads. I couldn’t help thinking, what heart beating they must have caused, how the hearts must have stopped beating long long ago & yet love still goes on & will I suppose as long as Jack & Jill are out to attract one another.
In walks the good lady, lays a dainty tea, everything home made, bread, strawberry jam, cream, butter & saffron cake. Daddy & I set to, cream & jam please Daddy, next piece jam & cream, next piece, oh ditto, for everything was neglected except of the tea, didn’t count the cups. What a tragedy, too much cream & jam & not enough Mother & Daddy.
After paying our bill, which was 1/3 each, very reasonable, we trudged up the hill towards Lynton.
And that’s not all the family history I found.
Hephsibah’s letters were just part of a huge box of old family documents, with many other letters in closely-crammed copperplate handwriting.
Among this treasure chest of delights is a birthday letter with a Belgian lace birthday card, written home from World War II to my grandfather, George, and a peculiar letter written round in a spiral, and some letters written from boats while travelling. And that’s before I start reading through the box of old family postcards!
I’m going to transcribe them all – hundreds of thousands of words – edit them for clarity and print up some copies for family members in an annotated version with background information and pictures. And of course, I need to do it before I write my saga of the generations, possibly before I start on my memoir of childhood.
And I’ve found some interesting stuff about Mum and Dad which might make another book for the family… and maybe one about my sons’ childhood…
So you see, it’s a problem. Where do I stop researching and start writing? I’m not bothered about publication – I just want to capture these memories in amber before they’re lost forever.
