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Sigh…

berrydainesLeave a comment

Too many times over the last few decades. Here’s the usual pattern:

Somebody needs a poster design. It must have certain images and text. There is one typeface that must be used. You’re allowed to arrange these elements creatively. When it’s finished it must be submitted to somebody else for approval. Basically they only need relevant dates, times and venue added to some pictures.

They aren’t sure which dates, they’ll let you know soon. Somebody else asks in a group chat if the poster is ready yet. You say it only needs the date information then it’ll be finished.

Somebody asks when will the poster be finished. You remind them that you need the info to finish it. They say they’ll get back to you.

Somebody else’s husband has offered to help as you’re taking too long. You send them the artwork. They ask somebody to ask you to send them the artwork. You remind them that you’ve already sent it and it could have been completed if you’d had the dates to add. Somebody else asks for the artwork. Three times. She claims not to have received it but strangely the resulting poster has an identical layout to the one you made.

Somebody else gets lots of praise for the poster after her husband has added the dates and times.

Knitting

berrydainesLeave a comment

I knit while thinking about the next drawing, print or plot twist. A photograph of some cabled hats has adjusted their colours. In the real world the dark green is similar to ivy leaves, and the wool doesn’t look as worn. The purple is less bright. As for the other one, I experimented with the cabling, which was much easier than following a pattern. Where was I ..? It’s not that pale, sort of sage. When I complain about the lack of green in the wool shop there’s a lot of discussion of shades of snot and phlegm…

Family History

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Here’s a link to a photo of my grandfather’s workplace: http://www.chrismansfieldphotos.com/RECORDS-of-WOOLWICH/Royal-Arsenal-/i-j29cVzT/A

When I began researching some family history, there was only one known photograph of my grandfather. He was a bearded figure sitting on the front row of a group of smiling black men. Presumably this picture was taken when he was delivering ammunition (allegedly in south Africa). My Aunt kept the picture at her house, as it was one of the few items to survive the family home’s destruction by a WW2 bomb. My friends’ parents often told me this couldn’t have happened, but then they also thought my Dad couldn’t have grown up on the Isle of Wight (“that’s just a holiday place!”).

Turning the picture over to look for information, I found it had been pasted to a certificate awarded to Blanche Badois for her needlework skills. I wondered who this lady was. My Dad suggested that she could have been his father’s former girlfriend or even a wife. The thought of that upset my Aunt so we weren’t allowed to discuss it further.

My Dad died in 1999, so he missed my 1901 census discoveries. My grandfather was living in Plumstead with his first wife and their three daughters. Not the needlework certificate lady, but another. There are no records for the first Mrs Daines or their daughters after 1901.

Recently, while looking for something else, I found grandfather’s second marriage online. He married Blanche, the needlewoman, in 1905 then she died in 1909. A year later he married my grandmother.

When my Dad was 70, he received another photograph of his father. He sat gazing at it for a long time, being surprised at the likeness to himself. If there were so few relics from the bombed house, I wonder where that photograph had been for so long.

Maybe there are mysterious photographs of the first two weddings in other family albums somewhere(?)