Family History Stuff.
4 Mar 2006 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
curiouswombatDaughter-dear and I were at my mother's today - it's out usual Saturday routine - we have lunch, do any odd bits that need doing around the house that she can't manage these days, and go and do our weekly big shop together. D-d and I used to walk the dog, but since she died we just sit around and drink more coffee.
It has been snowing again - but the roads were clear, at least along the coastal route, so nothing to stop us going. We kept an eye on the weather though, in case it started to snow badly again. Mum was waiting for it to start again with the turn of the tide - she believes the weather often changes with the turn of the tide.
We started talking about years when we did get really heavy snow-fall - I can remember the winter of '63 when it snowed and snowed - I remember being all bundled up to go out to play in the snow - although not clearly.
My mother, on the other hand, had very clear memories of the winter of 1940, when she was 13.
The snow was a two or three feet deep (60 - 100cm), with drifts to 5 or 6 feet(up to 2m). My grandfather wanted to go and visit his parents and his brothers and sister, still living in the family farm where that photo I put on my journal last week had been taken many years before. But Mum and her parents lived in town - six or seven miles away, and my grandfather had a broken leg, and was on crutches.
After a few days the buses started running out to Bride and Andreas, and so past the end of the road down to Ballaghennie, and Grampy was determined to go out on the bus. So Granny eventually agreed that they would all three go, but if the road down from the main road to the farm looked to still be blocked when the bus got there, they would stay on the bus, go along to the next village, and then back home.
The bus stopped at the top of Ballaghennie road, and lo and behold there was a path cleared down the middle of the road, so off they got, and started along - Grampy slipping on the icy pathway on his crutches, and complaining and muttering as he went. Only problem was that the pathway only went as far as you could see from where the bus stopped! It had been cleared by airmen, to make their way out to a lookout post on the beach a mile further down, and they had cleared so far, then made a short cut across a couple of fields.
So Grampy was stuck, with his crutches, about half a mile from the farm. He decided to walk along on the top of the snow which was piled high against the hedges by the wind - which was the normal thing to do, and only a bit difficult for Mum and Granny - but of course you can imagine trying to walk on top of snow on crutches - every time he put a crutch down it sunk deep into the snow - like almost up to his armpits deep! Can you visualise it? The very picture had D-d and I laughing our heads off!
Eventually they got closer to the farm, and his brothers, who had cleared an area near the farm already, saw them coming and went out to help.
Of course they had to make their way back up to the bus later. Grampy's brothers, Tom and Charlie, were detailed to help him back up. Now these brothers would have been about 40 and 45, but Tom was not in the most robust of health, having had rheumatic fever as a child, which left him with a quite severe heart weakness, so carrying Grampy was not really possible. They tried to clear a bit more of a path, but this wasn't easy for Tom either, so eventually they decided to get a tarpaulin and lie it on the snow so that the crutches didn't sink so deeply, and Tom and Charlie walked with him to keep moving the tarpaulin forward - which gave me a mental picture of them pulling the tarpaulin from under him like one of those people who pull table-cloths out and leave the crockery still on the table!
Mum remembered that it wasn't terribly successful - but better than the journey down the lane had been!
It has been snowing again - but the roads were clear, at least along the coastal route, so nothing to stop us going. We kept an eye on the weather though, in case it started to snow badly again. Mum was waiting for it to start again with the turn of the tide - she believes the weather often changes with the turn of the tide.
We started talking about years when we did get really heavy snow-fall - I can remember the winter of '63 when it snowed and snowed - I remember being all bundled up to go out to play in the snow - although not clearly.
My mother, on the other hand, had very clear memories of the winter of 1940, when she was 13.
The snow was a two or three feet deep (60 - 100cm), with drifts to 5 or 6 feet(up to 2m). My grandfather wanted to go and visit his parents and his brothers and sister, still living in the family farm where that photo I put on my journal last week had been taken many years before. But Mum and her parents lived in town - six or seven miles away, and my grandfather had a broken leg, and was on crutches.
After a few days the buses started running out to Bride and Andreas, and so past the end of the road down to Ballaghennie, and Grampy was determined to go out on the bus. So Granny eventually agreed that they would all three go, but if the road down from the main road to the farm looked to still be blocked when the bus got there, they would stay on the bus, go along to the next village, and then back home.
The bus stopped at the top of Ballaghennie road, and lo and behold there was a path cleared down the middle of the road, so off they got, and started along - Grampy slipping on the icy pathway on his crutches, and complaining and muttering as he went. Only problem was that the pathway only went as far as you could see from where the bus stopped! It had been cleared by airmen, to make their way out to a lookout post on the beach a mile further down, and they had cleared so far, then made a short cut across a couple of fields.
So Grampy was stuck, with his crutches, about half a mile from the farm. He decided to walk along on the top of the snow which was piled high against the hedges by the wind - which was the normal thing to do, and only a bit difficult for Mum and Granny - but of course you can imagine trying to walk on top of snow on crutches - every time he put a crutch down it sunk deep into the snow - like almost up to his armpits deep! Can you visualise it? The very picture had D-d and I laughing our heads off!
Eventually they got closer to the farm, and his brothers, who had cleared an area near the farm already, saw them coming and went out to help.
Of course they had to make their way back up to the bus later. Grampy's brothers, Tom and Charlie, were detailed to help him back up. Now these brothers would have been about 40 and 45, but Tom was not in the most robust of health, having had rheumatic fever as a child, which left him with a quite severe heart weakness, so carrying Grampy was not really possible. They tried to clear a bit more of a path, but this wasn't easy for Tom either, so eventually they decided to get a tarpaulin and lie it on the snow so that the crutches didn't sink so deeply, and Tom and Charlie walked with him to keep moving the tarpaulin forward - which gave me a mental picture of them pulling the tarpaulin from under him like one of those people who pull table-cloths out and leave the crockery still on the table!
Mum remembered that it wasn't terribly successful - but better than the journey down the lane had been!
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Date: 07/03/2006 08:43 am (UTC)Our wee bit of snow has disappeared now - never really lasts long if we do get any.
Hmm - a story about a ravening beast on Douglas Head - that plot bunny can just join the queue!