3 Poems I Like to share (General)

by fredb , Wednesday, September 02, 2009, 10:59 (5640 days ago) @ doreen scott

Doreen's reply set me wondering how many of us feel any emotion when finding out past family details. We see it in the faces of the subjects of "Who do you think you are" even Chris Moyles had to stop and absorb the reality, the fact that only 5 of 15 children his great grandparents had survived in the slums of Dublin, and of course standing in the field in Belgium where his great grandfather was shot through the head during the First World War, suddenly somehow it's a real event, after all a 100 years is just the blink of an eye.

When I told my cousin that our GG-Grandmother died during child birth, cause of death exhaustion, followed by a note saying 4 days. It's stupid I know, but we both sat there looking so sad, but this was a member of my family, and somehow 150 years didn't mean anything.

My grandfathers parents were both dead by the time he was 5, they could have stayed in rural Shropshire,and may have lived longer, but they went to the cotton mills of Bolton, who knows how bad living conditions were, but they both died of TB aged 39 and 43. In recent years much has been made about the slave trade, some demanding an apology, but many of our ancestors were in reality slaves, often working 12 hour shifts, 6 or 7 days a week, poorly paid, there was no choice, no complaints procedure, no way out except in a coffin.

Rambling on as usual Fred