The speaker this month was our own Gerry Williams who gave an amusing and informative talk entitled My Smuggling Ancestors.
This was something of a poacher turned gamekeeper tale, Gerry having been a customs officer prior to retirement. The talk focused primarily on one ancestor who lived in Cornwall and conducted his smuggling activities during the late 1700’s. We were given an insight into the pressures that led folk at that time to take up smuggling and also the consequences of their, sometimes, desperate actions. In this case the actions led to the death of a customs crew man and the subsequent attempts to apprehend the guilty party, and the effect on the life of this particular smuggler who turned informer.