We’re at that time of year when the children have returned to school and no doubt have been subjected by their teachers to write a story about what they did on their holidays, just as we were at their age.

This got me thinking about the type of holidays I had as a child and how we should write/share these memories with the younger generation.  Yes, they may think how old fashioned we were and roll their eyes at yet another story but if we write the memories down they will be there for the future when they appreciate what we have to share.  Here are some of my memories to give you some ideas.

A day at the beach involved taking some old bath towels (we didn’t have beach towels until later), perhaps a picnic lunch (remember the sand in your sandwiches?), some sunscreen that probably did no good at all - the preferred brand being Coppertone and the toys of the day.  By toys I mean polysterene kickboards and later a longer “surfboard”, perhaps plastic flippers and goggles, frisbee, metal bucket and spade later made of plastic and maybe a ball – some kids had inflatable beach balls.


Our beach-wear would usually be cotton tops and shorts with bare feet or jandals perhaps sandals for the adults.  Swimming togs/costume in the late 1950s-1960s may have been something of cotton and later thickish bri-nylon (probably not too far removed from the knitted costumes of the 1920s for thickness); which by the 1970s became skimpy bikinis or budgie smugglers for men.  I remember having to wear a sunhat and women usually also wore a rubber swimming cap into the water to keep their hair dry.  These were rather tight and it often hurt when you tried to get your hair forced under this ugly headpiece – some had a lighter rubber cap similar to what professional swimmers use today.


Trips to the farm would involve old clothing and gumboots.  I remember being taught to milk by hand but later a machine came into use.  Going around on the back of the tractor to feed hay to the cows; making mash to feed the hens and collecting the eggs and “helping” to bring the cows in for milking.  I say “helping” as I’m sure that when we were quite young we were more of a hindrance than a help.

Staying with relatives often involved a long car journey as cars travelled more slowly and roads were not what they are today; many being unsealed and windy.  You would fill the car up with comics and books – for a while there were small comics you could buy at the petrol station and it wouldn’t be a real trip unless you got caught with a farmer moving his flock of sheep or herd of cattle.  Then you would get stuck behind a caravan (they were towed by cars) that was either plodding down the road or being driven so fast that the caravan was swaying all over the road.


Auckland Libraries have a wide range of books full of illustrations of clothing, past-times, scenes (don’t forget that our surroundings have changed as well), household implements etc and of course, there is the internet as well – maybe there are clips of old favourite TV programmes just warn the children that there is nothing wrong with the computer, the world was black and white in the “olden days”.  Something fun you could try is putting together a zine (like a mini magazine of just a few pages) and perhaps the children could help you.

Marie

If you had an ancestor who was working on the land in the 1830s in England there is a chance that they were involved in the Swing Riots.  These started in the Elham Valley in Kent and quickly spread amongst the rural workers of the south and East Anglia.  The unrest was caused by a number of reasons – machinery taking jobs from men, farmers offering lower wages, payment of tithes to the Church of England whether or not you were a member.  Threatening letters were sent to those who were considered in a position to resolve the situation signed by “Captain Swing” who was fictitious.  If the warning was ignored it was followed by destruction of threshing machines, their engines, attacks on workhouses and tithe barns and later turned to burning hay ricks and other arsonist attacks.

If caught, the rioters faced imprisonment, transportation or execution.  Of the 2000 (approx.) rioters who were caught 252 were sentenced to death (only 19 were hanged), 644 imprisoned and 481 transported.


There is a brief article on-line about the riots at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_Riots
or http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/ruralife/swing.htm

In the 1990s Jill Chambers wrote a series of books about the Swing Riots looking at individual counties and how the riots effected the population of that particular county etc.  These books are well researched including information on all aspects of the “riots” for instance each person charged is listed with the charge, age, sentence and 1841 census transcription (if found).  Events in the county are diarised, trial transcripts, claims for rewards and so it goes on.

Auckland Libraries holds Jill’s books for Kent, Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Hampshire as well as Michael Holland’s book Swing Unmasked: the agricultural riots of 1830 to 1832 and their wider implications which is available in print (reference copy and one borrowable copy) and CD.

You may find a family member who was involved in this important event in English history but even if they were not caught they may have participated and these books give you an insight into life for rural workers at a tumultuous time in history.

Marie
Central Research Centre

This was an interesting post from a few years back that we thought you'd enjoy again.

An interesting little read on our shelves is the book 'Til death us do part : causes of death 1300-1948.

As the author Janet Few says in the introduction, “One thing that all but our most recent ancestors have in common is that they are dead.”

This small but fulsome book discusses the many possibilities of our ancestor’s deaths. The cancers and heart disease that end our lives today were much more difficult to diagnose until the twentieth century and the lifestyles of our ancestors made them less prone to contacting them. Instead, they could look forward to famines, epidemics and infectious diseases.

http://www.traveldarkly.com/plague-pits-london/

Few describes the different kinds of plague that could be experienced and their symptoms’…hard dry boils, particularly in the groin or armpits and it normally took three days to die.’ A range of preventatives included what was known as a ‘tuzzy muzzy’ , a bunch of herbs to warn off the bad smells, and urinating on a mixture of yarrow, tansy and feverfew, and then drinking the strained liquid.

The Seventeenth century plague doctor www.medievalists.net

Work related diseases led to the demise of many of our ancestors. Tuberculosis, also referred to as consumption, phthisis, decline or the white plague, was a product of urban poverty, poor nutrition, and work conditions. It was very infectious, with late teenagers often the victims.

Occupations determined certain ailments in their workers. Examples are: knife grinder’s asthma, Mad hatters’ disease (mercury poisoning, which was often contracted by those working in the hat industry), and fossy jaw (caused from ingesting phosphorous; the disease of the match girls).

The names of these diseases are intriguing in themselves. Summer madness, also known as St Anthony’s fire, Sacred fire or Invisible fire, because the skin turned black as if burnt, was common in times of bad harvest when poorer quality crops were eaten.

The green disease, or chlorosis, also known as the virgin’s disease as it was prevalent in teenage girls, was blamed on tight corsets and studying too hard with matrimony frequently prescribed as a cure.

War was responsible for the deaths of many of our ancestors, with the armed forces far more likely to die of disease than in combat. In the Crimean War only one in six casualties died in battle.

www.medievalists.net

Being a wife was a dangerous profession with between five and ten percent of all mothers dying in childbirth until the mid-nineteenth century. The list of options was grim: childbed fever, blood loss, and toxemia. Abortions were illegal and therefore dangerous.

In the days before Health & Safety, our ancestors drowned in wells, were burnt by open fires, fell off horses and ladders and suffered frequent bouts of food poisoning caused by a lack of refrigeration and the foraging for food in woods and hedgerows.  Although our health is better and we are vaccinated against the very things that blighted our ancestor’s lives, we do manage to die in ways they could never imagine.

Bridget Simpson