The first indoor meeting for the branch in over a year due to Covid-19 lockdown but the choice for Speaker still had to be Peter Ewart who always opens the branch’s annual timetable of talks.
As a child Peter recalled conversations amongst adults which were halted and hushed up, not to be spoken about in front of the children. Much nodding of heads in agreement when Peter said how much the world had changed in the past 50 or 60 years and that what had once been matters whispered about are now openly discussed. When he started giving talks, he said there were many subjects he would not have dreamed of talking about in public. Are we more open these days about things and what subjects would we think were too sensitive to talk about today?
There are some family stories we would love to know more about for our family research. But how can we ask older members of the family about them if they still find the stigma attached to the story distressing.
On the whole we are much more open these days about mental illness, suicide, immorality, illegitimacy, sexual orientation etc. Homosexuality and Suicide really did need to be hushed up before the Acts of Parliament were repealed in the 1960s as they carried imprisonment or other harsh penalties. One of the audiences recalled that as a child she had been cautioned not to mention that the two ‘Uncles’ (in the family she stayed with) shared a bed!
Victorian morals meant that a baseborn child had a hard route through life and was not able to aspire to some occupations. But illegitimacy ran at about 50% especially amongst the poor. Hence our ancestors went to great lengths to ‘keep it in the family’. Generally, it was covered up, so, we might find that a mother hid a daughter’s indiscretions by bringing up the baby as her own or that the child was otherwise informally adopted within the family or by friends. But of course, nowadays many people choose not marry and what was once thought of as disgrace is of little concern to the majority of today’s society.
DNA test can unravel some of these past indiscretions and Peter recounted the tale of a cousin who for 71 years he never knew he had. The lady had not known herself that she had been adopted until she was in her 60s and that was after her adoptive parents had died. She set out to trace her blood relatives and it was a DNA test that provided the breakthrough. Unfortunately, she was not able to be reunited with her birth parents as one had died and the other had late-stage dementia. Peter doubts whether his sailor Uncle ever knew he had fathered a child. But the rest of the family had welcomed the new cousin into the fold. Nowadays everyone is happy to find a lost relative!
Peter said you might pick up on marital discord from the census as to where couples are living. Divorce being beyond the pocket of the man in the street. So many dropped in and out of relationship but could not legally marry as the first partner was alive. Although, some appeared to society as if married, whilst others married illegally making themselves bigamists!
Peter regaled us with accounts of his many criminal ancestors whose, often drunken misdemeanours, had them in court on numerous occasions. These were reported in the local newspaper and Peter said he has many clippings. Although, he had us all laughing when he remarked that his family were not nearly as bad as his wife’s, "as she has far more newspaper clippings than I have!"
Peter was in excellent form despite not being able to sneak cricket into the talk!
Report by Tricia Baxter