A Sparkle in His Eyes

I turn again to my maternal side this time and back to researching life in the 19th century. The subject is my 5x great grandfather Thomas Thorpe, ancestor of my mother’s grandmother Gladys, and not someone whose memory lasted in our family despite a long and notable story. I became interested in Thomas thanks to a census entry which listed him not only as a glove manufacturer but also a Primitive Methodist Vocal Preacher. Finding a photograph of him shared online really helped to bring him to life.

It can be more difficult to feel connected to ancestors from further back in time, but Thomas lived his life less than 10 miles from where I live now and there are echoes of his endeavour and liberalism that still remain. The skill in textiles was certainly passed down through the generations – I’m told Gladys was an accomplished seamstress.

This is another quite lengthy piece, partly because there was a lot to cover, but also because I enjoyed exploring the wider context of Thomas’ life in Bulwell throughout the 1800s.

A Sparkle In His Eyes

A Man Who Kept the Lights On

I have been in contact with my dad’s cousin Graham and his wife Linda in New Zealand on and off for 20 years sharing old family photos, research and stories, mainly about ancestors long since passed. I have also exchanged the odd email with Graham’s sister Jaine who I once visited with my family as a child on her farm on the North Island.

After a prompt from my dad’s brother Alan, I recently reached back out to Graham, who had suffered some recent health problems, to ask if he’d like me to write up the life of his father, my great-uncle, Ted Ball. Linda had already done much of the hard work collating information and photos, but they were both very happy for me to pull everything together into a written biography.

I had always been interested in the vague mentions of Ted being involved at Dunkirk and an adventurous life seemingly in contrast to his brother (my grandfather), Ron. I knew that Ted had worked for a time in Brazil and ended up in New Zealand, but not much more.

In the end, although the details of Ted’s naval career and later professional life were fascinating to research, it was the personal memories and reflections from Graham which really brought Ted to life. There were rumours and revelations I wasn’t expecting (some omitted from this published account to protect the privacy of those still living) and I feel privileged to have been trusted to write Ted’s story. I hope it does him justice.

A Man Who Kept the Lights On

A Mother Who Sailed Away

My next piece is a long one and a little closer to home (metaphorically, if not literally). It is about my granny Dina’s grandmother, Jeanie McLean and is the story of how (and perhaps why) she took all of her family from Scotland to New Zealand, except for her eldest daughter Mary (Dina’s mum). We are very lucky to have an audio recording of Mary talking with Dina and her son Martin about her life – something which inspired me to record my granny in a similar way. I have drawn on both of these recordings, amongst many other family and documentary sources, for this biography of Jeanie and there is a short extract from the recording of Mary included within the story. I have tried to remain relatively objective when describing what happened, but with only a first-hand account of one side of the story there may well be an element of bias. Although I got some information from Jeanie’s grandson Lyall years ago, I now regret not speaking more to him before his death in 2013. Perhaps one day I’ll unearth more details from my remaining distant cousins in New Zealand.

(From now on I will include a short intro like this in these blog posts and link to the full story on a separate page. Hopefully that will make the site a little less cluttered going forwards)

A Mother Who Sailed Away: The Story of Jeanie McLean