White Christmas

Dallas's first white Christmas since 1926 and only Genevieve's second Christmas in the United States. I thought it awfully nice of Dallas to put on a festive display for me.

Family Not at Home Evening

There are many times of year when it feels like New York is at it's best. But December is special, with, as the song says, "City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style, In the air there's a feeling of Christmas." It seems a shame not to make the most of it, so on my first night back in the city, my friend John and I ventured out to enjoy the Christmas lights.

First stop, Rockerfeller City to see the tree and the angels,

and the snowflakes on Saks Fifth Avenue.


I love the blue tree lights at Columbus Circle

and the grand Christmas stars indoors.

And of course we went to Macy's on 34th Street. We didn't go up to visit Santa, but I'm sure he's the real one!

This year's windows celebrated writing letters to Santa. I don't remember if I ever sent a letter to the North Pole, but many years I got just what I wanted, so somehow he knew. Clever ole Santa!

Happy Christmas everyone!

I picked up a new book at the airport on the way to Jerusalem (the story of an old house on Bankside in London), and found a passage that beautifully conveyed my own feelings about searching out people's histories.

"The vast mass of men and women in every time do not leave behind them either renown or testimony. These people walked our streets, prayed in our churches, drank in our inns, built and lived in the houses where we have our being today, opened our front doors, looked out our windows, called to each other down our staircases. They were moved by essentially the same passions and griefs that we are, the same bedrock hopes and fears...

Witness to the living, busy, complex beings that many of these vanished ones were tends to be limited to fleeting references on pages of reference books that are seldom opened. Scant evidence, you may say, of lives as vivid and as important to the bearers as our own are today to us. But by putting these scraps together, sometimes, with luck, something more coherent is achieved. Pieces of lost lives are genuinely recovered. Here and there a few individual figures detach themselves from the dark and silence to which time has consigned them. They walk slowly towards us. Eventually, we may even see their faces." **

I went back to Bedford County Record Office yesterday to read the minute books from the Luton Poor Law Union. Huge registers where the Clerk recorded the day to day happenings at the workhouse and the maintenance of poor families in the area. The references to my family members indeed are fleeting, but I got a glimpse into some of my ancestors lives, sadly because it's the workhouse records, at some of the most distressing times in their lives.

Annie Maria Ward (my 2x great grandmother) admitted herself to the workhouse on the 28th of May 1917. She was 73 and for the aged and destitute the workhouse often served as a last stop. It says she was a Wesleyan, a former washerwoman, and the widow of James Ward, a well sinker. Annie lived four years in the workhouse and died on 15 May 1921 at 06.30. I've been told that hearts often fail in the morning when heart rates are low, and when I checked her death certificate it gave cause of death as cardiac disease. What a long, hard life she must have lived.

My 4x great grandfather John Woodcroft was born in the picturesque village of Whipsnade, but we found him as an adult living in nearby Kensworth. The Minutes record an examination - an inquiry into which parish should foor the bill for his poor relief - of John in 1855 and note he was legally settled in Whipsnade but had been living in Kensworth since Christmas last. What necessitated the uprooting of his family in the dead of winter? It notes that he had become chargeable - on the dole - because of his wife's sickness. I smiled to myself - poor John always had a sick wife. He worked his way through four in just 30 years. They just kept dying on him. Much sorrow for one person to endure.

My many times great uncle Thomas Osborn applied to the Board of the Luton Poor Law Union for the sum of 4 pounds 10 shillings to emigrate with his wife and seven children to Australia. I sympathise with his desire to start a new life half way across the world, and I admire his gumption for asking for the cash to do it.

The last story I followed in the records was that of my 3x great grandmother Mary Ann Rayner. We saw on the 1881 census that she was blind in later life, but I learned this was a condition she had all her life. Her eyes were examined at the behest of the Board in April 1853 to "determine if the girl's sight might be improved by undergoing an operation." Two weeks later they wrote to a London eye hospital inquiring if she could be admitted - in a moment of foresight they kindly noted the full name and address of the hospital in the Minutes. At this point I was getting anxious... would they make the investment and send her after all? On 13th of May her District Officer was instructed to take Mary Ann to the Central London Opthalmic Hospital. I was hopeful, but sadly the last entry two weeks late noted that the hospital had written reporting that "nothing could be done for Mary Ann Rayner and requesting that she might be removed." The trip to London was a dead end for Mary Ann, but it gave me a new avenue of inquiry. I shall contact the hospital (still treating eyes to this day) to see if their records survive. There may yet be more fragments of Mary Ann's story to piece together.

**from The House By The Thames by Gillian Tindall

Griff Rhys Jones is my hero. Along with William Tyndale, Ralph Nader, and whoever thought of putting peanut butter in M&Ms.

Jerusalem

The flight over was a laugh. I was in a middle seat with my new pals Ofer and Andrew on either side. Ofer headed off home to Beesheba but I rode on to Jerusalem with Andrew and friends who were on their way to a conference for the week. They were staying in the new town so we grabbed dinner and then I made my way down to my digs in the Old City. First view of the city walls at Jaffa Gate was pretty impressive.

In fact the best way to see Jerusalem is from the walls - you can walk the entire length except along the Temple Mount - and I’m surprised there weren’t more people, I had them practically to myself. First morning I walked along the southern walls, with views of the Armenian and Jewish Quarters, and Mount Zion.

You know how much I love cemeteries (professional hazard). And cypress trees.

In the afternoon I walked along the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I’ve been in a lot of magnificent churches but this one is something else. It looks so unassuming from the outside, squeezed into that little square, but once you’re through the door it’s a strange world.

Morning two I went to the Temple Mount. How strange to stand in a place you’ve heard so much about, that’s the source of so much controversy and conflict, and experience a calm and quiet morning. Dare I say it, but my impression was of how peaceful it was.

You can never have too many artistic shots of palm trees.

Well it’s the best I can do for artistic!

And so after a day and a half I’d seen pretty much everything, got lonely and fed up, changed my flight and buzzed off home early. Traveling on your own is pretty rubbish really. Jonathan needs to come from Atlanta - I miss my favourite little (sorry, medium-sized) traveling companion.