Current reading matter

[kerrensimmonds]

Intriguing.
The 1881 Census has three 'Louisa's at CH Hertford :
aged 9 (home town not stated)
aged 10 (from Newport, Shropshire)
aged 15 (fron London)

In addition, there are three others for whom 'Louisa' is the second name :
aged 11 (London)
aged 11 (Shorncliff, Kent)
aged 12 (Newbury)

I wonder if any of them grew up to be the writer of Alan's book?!

[kerrensimmonds]

Are your details from a biography, or census records, Alan?

I can't find Louisa Caroline Silke on any census for 1851 but at the time of the census in 1861 (aged 20) she was living in East Preston, West Sussex - which is where I live! Spooky! (Broadwater, which you also mention, is about three or four miles away, on the outskirts of Worthing).

It would be fun to conjecture that at the time of the census in 1851, aged 10, she was at Christ's Hospital, Hertford (the Hertfordshire genealogy website only has the details of the people at CH at the time of the 1881 Census - and they make fascinating reading!).

I have also seen a reference her as Caroline Louise Silke - got a funny feeling that might have been the birth record.

Where's 'foureyes' when you need him? This is really his sort of stuff!

[kerrensimmonds]

This is getting interesting, Alan. That sounds as if it could be CH Newgate Street!
But the girls weren't in London in the 1850's. Perhaps Louisa was a girl at Hertford (where she would have seen the 'little' boys) and did go to London and saw it for herself, to enable her to write such a description later. She seems to have been a relatively prolific writer, but are her books for children? Some of the titles look a bit 'dinky'!

[kerrensimmonds]

EDWARD6 SILKE (EDWARD5, JOSEPH4, BARTHOLOMEW3, EDWARD2, ROBERT1) was born Bef. 9 July 1791 in Otterhampton, Somerset, ENG, and died Bef. 14 May 1845 in Bristol, GLS, ENG. He married (1) ANN JENKINS 27 December 1819 in Dunster, Somerset. She was born Abt. 1800, and died Abt. 1819. He married (2) CAROLINE RICH 19 April 1831 in Bath St Michael, Somerset. She was born Abt. 1800, and died Deceased.

Children of EDWARD SILKE and CAROLINE RICH are:
i. AMY7 SILKE, b. 1836; d. Deceased.
ii. EDWARD HOWAD SILKE, b. 1837; d. Deceased.
iii. CAROLINE LOUISA SILKE, b. 1840; d. Deceased.

So Louisa had a brother too. Maybe he went to CH London. As you say, her father died when she was 5, and maybe her mother died too, while she was still young (mum was 31 when Louisa was born). Certainly, by the time she was 20 she had moved from Bristol to East Preston and from then on lived in Sussex/Kent. I wonder why she went east?

One could spend hours ferretting away for information!

[englishangel]

You mean you had to google that CH was founded in the time of Edward VI?

[Vièr Bliu]

In a Halloween mood, currently dipping into Lord Halifax's Ghost Book.

[blondie95]

Just finisghed The Island by Victoria Hislop set around the Lepra colony just off Crete.....i was reading it whilst in Crete which was apt. What a fantastic book-so well written, it was like you were there and the story took you on so many twists and turns it had me laughing and in tears! easily one of the best books i have ever read

[J.R.]

"The Magic Army."

Leslie Thomas - AGAIN.

(Yes - I amit to being addicted to his novels.)

[jhopgood]

"Who'd be a Patient" by John Paterson (Prep A/La A 31- 39)

*Sent to me by the author whom I met when he lived in the South of France. (He wrote a book called "Housey Doctors", the proceeds of which go to CH).

Light hearted memories of being a GP for 24 years with a special interest in back pain. (I've a feeling I will need his expertise in the near future).

Only just started but force of habit made me have a look at the last few pages, where he has a go at the NHS.

*(Probably typical of the medical profession, but we arrived just before lunch time, to be told that he would take us to lunch, but that we could not come in as his wife was "on her way out".
I knew she had been ill but didn't realise the significance of his remark until we got back and the oxygen delivery van had just arrived.
His daughter had been there all the time and we got more of the story from her.
John's wife died a couple of days later.)

[J.R.]

"The Magic Army."

Leslie Thomas - AGAIN.

(Yes - I amit to being addicted to his novels.)

Just finished it this morning, all 700+ pages.

A BRILLIANT read, based on truth and so descriptive.

[Katharine]

I've just read Two Lives by Vikram Seth and found it fascinating. The two lives are his uncle and aunt, Uncle a dentist who trained before the war in Germany, came to Britain and served in the army dental corps, lost an arm and went back to dentistry. Aunt a German Jew he lodged with in training, almost the only one of her family who got out before the war. She never went to India to meet the family.

[J.R.]

"The Stepford Wives"

Ira Levin.

Have any of our Hertford contributors read it ?

[kerrensimmonds]

Very tame in comparison but I am currently devouring 'Nella Last's Peace' - extracts from the diaries of this contributor to the Mass Observation Survey, this volume covering 1945-1948 (the austerity years). I have read most of the published materials which have emerged from the archives of Mass Observation (in one of the most recent, one of the WW2 diarists, with a very unusual surname, turned out to be the great uncle of a girl who was in 7's at Hertford in my time, 15 or so years after WW2. I contacted the diarist's son via the internet and was put in touch with his cousin, the 7's OG, who now lives in USA!). One of those publications is 'Housewife, 49' - the wartime diaries of Nella Last (also televised, with Julie Walters taking the part of Nella). I am humbled to think that, only 60 years after Nella was trying to cope with returning to domestic drudgery following the 'freedom' from husband-bound domesticity which she gained during WW2 through working independently for the WVS and the Red Cross, and both during and after the War continuing to produce tasty and wholesome meals for her (unappreciative) husband, also continuing to look after the garden, her neighbours and her friends and family, as well as making do and making mend - I slob around doing not very much apart from my employment, eating ready made meals and paying people to look after my garden, do my housework and ironing. How times have changed, indeed, and how quickly.

[kerrensimmonds]

You must have one of the three volumes of contributions from Mass Observation Survey diarists published by Simon Garfield, Alan. They cover the middle of WW2, the start of it, and the end of it - each volume takes a blending of four or five diarists through the defined period, chronologically. Not all the diarists appear in all three volumes. I, too, am fascinated by the whole thing - which is why I not only have those three volumes but also several other relatively recent publications produced from the wealth of primary material recorded by MOS and now stored in the archives at the University of Sussex. I think that the (prolific) Nella Last is the only MOS contributor whose diaries have been published 'separately' - the first volume covering the war years and the second (which was published in 2008 and which is gripping me now) covering the austerity years.
The comparison between the 'way they lived then' (not only in WW2 but afterwards) and the 'way I live now' is horrendous.

[Angela Woodford]

covering the austerity years.
The comparison between the 'way they lived then' (not only in WW2 but afterwards) and the 'way I live now' is horrendous.

the real insights into people's lives in a way conventional history doesn't.
there are millions of people out there with stories to tell but nobody listening.[/quote]

Wonder if I can do a double quote?

Still listening to my sister's stories of wartime evacuation. My parents were born in 1906. I listened and listened. Oh, the guilt! Sorry, this has struck a raw nerve.