I swear to God, I go incommunicado (mostly), and my phone bings to tell me that there’ve been more views on this blog in one hour than there were in the month before that. (I suspect it was most likely someone’s cat standing on the F5 key. Good on you, kitty. You make sure you’re getting up to date info.)
I’m visiting family in Sault Ste Marie; I got in late due to weather, and then went to dinner, and then stayed up late talking and looking at old family photo albums.
I had never before seen a picture of my paternal great-grandfather, and the one I got to look at was from 13 January, 1934. (Yes, an 81-year-old photograph. It was printed as a Post Card, by “Pictorial Studios”, which were located on 29 Newport Road, Near Scala Cinema, MIDDLESBROUGH. Which was about where he lived.)
There was also another picture, much smaller, of him in his work clothes. He was an egg-and-poultry man, apparently, and he also loaned money. (But honestly. It was made clear he was not, you know, a loan shark or anything.)
I am oddly disconcerted by this. I was always told that my heritage was, all in one breath, half-Ukranian quarter-Italian eighth-Irish eighth-Scottish. No-one ever mentioned British. Ever. We lived in London for four years when I was a kid and no-one ever told me I had a grand-uncle three hours drive away.
(And apparently he was a pretty nice grand-uncle, too. Which quashes the first explanation which springs to mind.)
I don’t know. It’s late and I’m tired; I will turn this over for a while, and consider.