Off to Europe

Tom with video camera

This is a bit of a strange week - Tom and Hannah leave London for Brussels this Friday where Hannah, who works for the Financial Services Authority, has a two-year (possibly longer) secondment with the European Union.

They have just managed to get a place in Brussels, a one-bedroomed flat at about €1,300 per month, after a couple of others fell through and they’re trying to find someone to rent their place in Highgate.

Tom has resigned his job with Associated Press and has bought some cameras so that he can try to develop a freelance business from Brussels. He’s had a few bits and pieces already, including a shoot for MCN and some days/weeks later this year with AP (in mainland Europe and London), so that’s a pretty good start. He also said he’d been offered two weeks on an oil rig off Thailand but I am not sure if he said he accepted that one.

We had arranged a farewell dinner in Highgate on Sunday. Max and Inna came up from Balham and Sam and Lucy (just back from holiday in Crete) also joined us. Sadly, Tom returned from his MCN job (photographing a chap - Faz - learning to ride the wall of death) not feeling at all well. He set off to the pub with us, but after a short way, he was feeling so bad he had to return home,so we had only one half (the Hannah half) of the send-off party to send off.

It’s a long time since I changed my job, but it is stressful. I tend not to worry about work too much these days (I’m only a year or so from retirement after all), but I remember when I joined Central Press, I got really bad flu,a really weird illness. I couldn’t do anything over Christmas (I was due to start in January), had a really bad throat, could hardly move and then all the skin fell off my hands. I was like a snake shedding my skin.

I’m sure that was due to stress, but thankfully, Tom doesn’t seem quite that ill, “just” a rotten cold and bad chest.

We went to the Victoria for a meal and everyone enjoyed it. Well, everyone except me. I thought the French onion soup was really bland, the beef extremely rare and extremely tough with roast potatoes that had to be soaked in gravy to soften the skin before they could be cut. Their big chance to save the day - sticky toffee pudding - turned out to be slightly rubbery. Still, it was good to see (almost) everyone and perhaps my enjoyment was tempered by having to drink diet cola because I was driving home. Margaret loved her dinner - she’s been on a low oxalate diet to try to improve her FMS condition and had given herself the night off. She was looking forward to eating some potatoes.

It was pouring down all afternoon, starting pretty much as soon as we’d got back from our morning walk and I’d come prepared with brimmed hat and Barbour coat. There was no wind and the rain was falling heavily, steadily and pretty much straight down.

On the way back Inna tripped and twisted her ankle (which she’s done a few times before, including the trampoline at Spaldings Farm, apparently). She had to have a few minutes to compose herself before limping on to get the tube home. Sam and Lucy spurned the offer of my spare Oyster card and got a taxi home from the pub. Sam is always talking about getting a bus here and a bus there, but Tom says he really just orders taxis - still the GTC!

Our journey home was pretty good. There was little traffic and so we were home about 11.20 and the rain eased further north.

I’ve spent a lot of time at Tom and Hannah’s since they’ve been in London, it’s been a regular stop-over and bike-watching venue. I’ll miss seeing Tom so regularly, but the move represents a really good career step for Hannah, who has done exceptionally well, and I have a few trips to Brussels to look forward to, including the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in 2015.

The stags are gathering

It’s interesting that during our summer walks across the fen, we’ve not seen any Muntjac deer. The only ones we’ve seen have been in the garden and we’ve also had reports from friends that they’ve seen them in their gardens. Janet Knights found a doe had built a nest in her garden and given birth.

It seems the big herd of some 20 deer that we saw regularly during the winter broke up in late spring and the females came into the village (around gardens) to give birth and raise their young.

Last weekend, when we walked the dogs, I saw a big (well big for a muntjac) buck standing watching us from the end of the dyke. He was not too concerned by us (even the dogs) and stood and watched as we approached before finally heading off towards Whittlesey, but not in a great hurry. He stood in the middle of the field a couple of hundred yards away and cooly watched us. On the same walk, we saw two other lone bucks, also none too concerned at our approach.

I think the males are gathering on the open fen looking to stake out a bit of territory and perhaps gather a harem around them. They are certainly keeping a respectful distance between one another.

This morning when we walked the dogs, Holly put up a large buck in the field by the track. He’d been well hidden, but she must have got a little too close for his comfort and he bounded up alongside us (so we got a good look at him) and then headed off to the east at a pace, clearing a dyke quite comfortably and then running across a harvested wheat field, easily hurdling a couple of bales of straw that were in his way.

We also saw a fine red kite hunting along the hedge line at the edge of the village. I’ve seen plenty of buzzards, but the kite is a new one. There are lots just to the west of Peterborough around King’s Cliffe so this one was probably having a look east seeing what the pickings were like out in the fen. It’s easy to tell a kite from a buzzard - the buzzard has a rounded tail and the kite has a shallow swallow tail and more distinct light patches under its wing. We got a good look at this one, it wasn't at all shy, and flew low over us several times.

On the way back along the main road, we picked some sloes for Sam, who might make some sloe gin for Christmas. Margaret is talking about making some this year, but I’ll try to dissuade her. My sister makes very good sloe gin and we generally get a little taste of that (and some of Sam’s too, no doubt). I think we should make something else, perhaps advocaat or limoncello?

There are plenty of sloes on the trees and while Margaret was picking them (I was holding the dogs) a man shouted out of his front window: "Are they for sloe gin?" Margaret said they were and he said he'd like some. I thought he meant gin, but Margaret thought he was cross because we were picking sloes that he'd had his eye on.

A couple of minutes later he came out of his house and across the road towards us, followed by a little black shaggy terrier. He asked if we ever took the dogs on holiday and gave us some copies of his magazine. Turns out he's Gareth Salter, the editor of Out & About - the exclusive guide to dog-friendly travel and holidays. It's a monthly magazine and he's always on the look-out for people to share their doggy experiences with him (no - not that kind of doggy experience!). I was reading one while Margaret cooked breakfast and there was an article about visiting Southwold which Daniella Falco had written about her experience with her labradoodle Mia.

The magazine is an easy read, but a little like "what I did on my holidays". Perhaps I could write a few pieces for him when I retire?

Cars I have owned - No 2

Bedford HA van

After I sold my share of the Ford Pop to Stuart Evans, it was back to the scooter for a while, but I had managed to get a job at the Northwich Guardian as a trainee reporter and I was soon able to save up £25 for another car. A lot of us bought vans rather than cars because they were much cheaper and my second car was a van - a Bedford HA van.

This was a very different vehicle to the Ford Pop. There was still a starting handle, but it had an overhead-valve four-cylinder engine of 1057cc, hydraulic brakes, four-speed gearbox (all synchro) and a “massive” 45bhp on tap. Compare that to the 165bhp of my car today! Top speed was not much more than 70mph and, at that speed, it was very noisy. There was also 12-volt electrics, so the headlights actually lit up the road!

The Bedford HA van

There were lots of these on the road. The GPO used them for years and I'm sure they carried on making them into the 1980s.
I bought the van for £25 from Ford’s Motors in Winsford. The place was run by a farmer, who bought and sold cars as a sideline, and had them all parked up in a field on his farm. The car was dark green with a fair bit of rust. It was a 1965 model, so seven years old.

The rear bumper was a bit deformed, and the locks on the front doors didn’t work. To lock the doors (and unlock them) you had to open the back doors, climb through and unlock/lock the front doors from the inside. On the passenger door, the interior lock didn’t work either, so I had to cut a hole in the interior trim on the door and pull the mechanism directly. It was a faff and one night I didn’t bother to lock it and it was stolen.

It’s an awful feeling going back next day to where you parked your car and finding an empty space. I couldn’t believe someone had stolen such a heap of a car, but they did. The police found it about an hour or two after I reported it. Someone had opened the door, ripped out the wiring and started it by shorting the blade of my Swiss Army knife across the ignition switch connectors. Because the wiring was all ripped out, it wasn’t charging the battery and the thief ran it for about eight miles until the battery went flat just north of Great Budworth on the Warrington road. The police had it towed to a garage, who fixed the wiring and charged the battery. I got away quite lightly. It wasn’t much of a car, but it was my means of transport.

The worse thing was that in using my pen-knife blade as a connector, the thief has burned half the blade away - it looked as if it had been seared by a spot welder. I hope he burned his fingers.

With all cars back then, rust was a major problem. The van had some bits of rust around the mudguards, but once I’d bought it I found lots of other faults. The worst was that water had obviously laid in the gutters all around the roof and had literally rotted the metal all the way round where the roof joined the sides of the van. You could get hold of the roof at the back doors and lift it a couple of inches - it was only joined at the front cab.

I was getting a dab hand with the fibreglass and I had to fix this by going all round the roof on the inside, filling and joining. It was an OK job in the end, although I didn’t do such a neat job with the rear doors, which were rotten at the bottom. I finished the job by painting the inside with the rest of the purple paint left over from the Ford Pop.

I was obsessed with trying to make the van as quiet as possible and filled the back with old carpet and rugs, which helped no end and also gave passengers somewhere to sit. I also fitted a new sporty steering wheel which didn’t seem at all incongruous to me at the time. The steering was rack and pinion and it was really light and precise compared to the Ford. There was a massive steering wheel as standard so the smaller, sporty wheel was actually rather useful even though it must have looked ridiculous.

The Bedford van was based on the Viva HA saloon, which was quite a good car for its day, much better than the Ford Anglia. It was rear-wheel drive and had hydraulic drum brakes. After those rod-and-cable-operated ones on the old Ford, they felt amazing, but there was no servo and ABS was miles away.

It was fairly reliable but needed a bit of coaxing at times.In those days I was always cleaning spark plugs or distributor caps to try to get a big fat spark. Sometimes, the van would just not pull and I’d find myself struggling to get over 50mph; at other times it would fair bowl along. It failed its first MoT in my ownership because the chassis was rotting and it also needed to have seat belts fitted. My cousin Bernard welded the chassis and I got a cheap set of fixed seat belts and put them in.

On the way back from Preston, where I was at college, the clutch started slipping and juddering, so we came home along the M6 at about 40mph. It turned out not to be a worn clutch, but part of the thrust plate which had torn off.

I finally got rid of the car when it failed its second MoT with more chassis rot. I think one of my dad’s mates had it for spares and I moved on the car No 3.

Cars I have owned - no 1

Ford Popular 103E c1959

This was my first car and I bought it in 1970 from a chap called Fred Anderson for £20, going halves with my friend Stuart Evans. Stuart lived in Rudheath and we’d both got jobs as ice-cream van drivers in Crewe after leaving school. We’d travelled there on my Lambretta SX200 for the first couple of weeks and those first weeks’ wages went on this car.

It was green, like this picture, but much faded, so we painted it purple and yellow like a red-and-yellow Noddy car. It was brush painted and we used ordinary household paint, so it wasn’t a great job, but this was 1970 and its was the closest to psychedelic that Lostock Gralam had got.

Fred Anderson couldn’t believe what we’d done. He said we’d ruined it - as if the car was a valuable antique! Mind you, I wouldn’t mind having a mint model these days.

So what was the car like to drive? It was two door, but quite roomy inside and with a fair-sized boot, although we had to secure the boot floor with fibreglass because it had rotted all around the edges and come adrift from the rest of the body, basically just sitting on top of the chassis. The car had a solid rolling chassis with the bodywork built on top. It had leaf springs, but massive wheels and the ride quality was not bad. It was a comfy, roomy car with a high driving position.

The car was also fairly quiet. The side-valve engine was low revving and compared to later cars I owned, this was nice and refined.

It was, however, from a different era. The electrics were 6-volt which meant the headlight was barely bright enough to see the road (it gave off a real yellow light) and when you pressed the starter button it really struggled to turn the engine over. In winter, when the oil was a bit thicker and the battery power a bit less lively, it was sometimes necessary to use the starting handle to turn her over a few times. Sometimes, the battery just wasn’t man enough and then it was starting handle or nothing.

The steering was fairly light, but very imprecise compared to rack and pinion steering then being fitted to many cars. I think the steering was also a bit worn as you’d often find yourself wandering from one side of the road to the other with a couple of inches of play in the wheel.

Top speed was 60mph and the brakes were drums,operated by rods and levers (a little like a bicycle. They were not good and you really had to stand on them to get the car to stop. There was a three-speed gearbox with no synchromesh on first gear, so you had to let the car stop before engaging first. However, it would pull well in second. The 1172cc four-cylinder side-valve engine didn’t rev and produced only 30bhp, but it did have good torque and it managed about 35mpg. Petrol was around 30p per gallon.

The car was something of an anachronism even then. Its styling was old fashioned and it didn’t even have flashing indicators. The indicators were two pop-out arms, one on each side, about eight inches long, with an amber light on the end of each. When you wanted to turn, you turned a switch left or right and the indicator (which was magnetically-operated) swung up and out. They were very easy to miss.

The windscreen wiper (only one) was mounted at the top of the screen and the motor was powered by the vacuum from the induction manifold. It meant that when you put your foot down to accelerate, the windscreen wiper would slow right down, but if you lifted off, it would go berserk. I liked the car, it was a step forward and we thought it looked cool. Stuart Evans bought out my share when I left the ice cream business and started at the Northwich Guardian later that summer. Some time later the head gasket blew and they couldn’t get the head off, it had welded itself on there. I think it was scrapped.

Gourds for Christmas Decoration

This one has grown up, over and along the hedge

For the last few years, we’ve grown gourds during the summer and Margaret has dried them, varnished them and used them for Christmas decorations and presents.

In 2008, we had an excellent crop and three people got gifts of dishes filled with varnished gourds. I’d have preferred a bottle of malt, but I didn’t get a dish of gourds, so can’t complain.

That was a good year for gourd growing (they like it hot) and I grew them on the ground like you’d grow courgettes. Those that did best were the ones that climbed up through the conifers at the bottom and hung clear. They have really strong tendrils that reach out, wrap around twigs and then coil into a spring shape so there is some flexibility and the tendril doesn’t snap in the wind (very clever, gourds). They are excellent climbers!

Next year, was wet and cold and the gourds did terribly. We hardly had enough for Margaret and none for presents.

In 2010, we had more success, but Margaret experimented with two coats of varnish and it didn’t work, they went all gooey. I’m not sure what went wrong. I suspect that not enough time was allowed between coats or that the gourds were not fully dried out.

Anyway, last year, we tried a new technique. Instead of growing them in the ground, we grew them in large old pots which had become a bit battered to hold flowers and look pretty. I grew them up against the hedge, so they were in sun, sheltered (to a degree) from the wind and I also encouraged them to climb up the hedge - not that they needed much encouragement! There’s no truth that this technique was developed to avoid cutting the hedge during the summer gourd-growing season.

It was a considerable success and Margaret also perfected the drying/varnishing process; then added some glue and glitter to really make them look Christmassy - bejazzled gourds.

They lasted until well after Christmas and would probably have still been OK this year. Anyway, we didn’t see any gourd seeds in the shops this spring so, instead of going on the Thompson and Morgan website, I decided to save the seeds from last year's. I carefully selected the best shapes and colours, scooped out the seeds and dried them. I experimented with a small selection and they germinated well, so I planted up the rest and got really good germination rate - well over 70 per cent.


The gourd plants went three to a pot and we had five pots along the hedge. The summer hasn’t been great weather-wise, but all except one pot, have done well. Oddly, the fruits from the seed is nothing like the parent fruit. I’d expected to get knobbly plants from the seed of knobbly fruit, but the plants are completely random. We’ve got some that have made massive fruits (almost like marrows) some long stripey one that I’ve never seen the like of and some familiar shapes. Nearer the house, the plants have grown up, over and along the hedge and there are some big fruits on the field side. I think we’ll find a lot of fruits when we cut the hedge that we just can’t see at present.

I don’t know why the size, colours and shapes are so different. Perhaps some pollen from my sister’s courgette plants drifted across or a bee dropped some pollen from the pumpkin patch at John’s nursery.

Anyway, I’ll update with a report on the crop and some pictures of the finished products ...












Gourd update 7/12/12

The gourds have been drying in the airing cupboard and some on the windowsill. Margaret has thrown away some of the less attractive ones and the remaining crop is now ready for varnishing and decoration.

Some of the colours have really changed and come out as the fruits have dried. It's not a bad crop and some quite unusual colours and shapes. Only disappointment was a large number of white egg-shaped fruits and also some very large fruits; almost marrow-sized.

Above and below: the gourd crop dried and ready for varnishing and decoration

Here is the finished product. After a couple of months drying in the airing cupboard, they have been varnished and Margaret added the glitter yesterday (December 15)

Could my ancestors vote?

An interesting aspect of family history research is fitting historic events around people’s lives. I’m not necessarily talking about whether Zachariah Burrows fought at the Battle of Waterloo, more social history.

For example my grandfathers, born in the 1890s, could have had a bicycle, but their mothers and fathers would not; Margaret’s father (born in 1911) witnessed the end of horse-power in agriculture and the advent of tractors powered by internal combustion.

My great, great grandfathers would have seen the building of the railways and my grandfathers would have (in one case) seen heavier-than-air flight progress from birds, to the Wright Brothers to the Moon landings. Sometimes it's more subtle than that. If I'd told my grandfather I was on Cloud Nine this morning, he would have wondered what I was on about. Cloud Nine didn't come into use until after the classification of clouds in 1895 and Cloud Nine in the classification was the Cumulonimbus - the biggest and highest cloud of them all.

A good marker of progress in social history is the right to vote and it’s interesting to consider which of my ancestors would have been able to vote and which would not. The general view of people today is that men have always been able to vote and that women won the vote after the First World War.

Truth is that prior to 1918 only 24 per cent of the adult population were able to vote and the Representation of the People Act of that year was as important in enfranchising men as it was historic in allowing women to vote for the first time, albeit not on an equal footing.

The voting rights we enjoy today, only came into place in 1969 when all men and women over 18 got the vote.

This is a summary of how voting rights have increased across the years; I’ve inserted where the dates approximately match with the generations ...

Great, great, great grandparents

In 1800, the right to vote was based on wealth and gender (male). Fewer than three adults out of every 100 could vote. No wonder there were so many riots. It’s very unlikely my great (x3) grandparents could vote. The women were not allowed to and the men were too poor. I hope one or two of them rioted, although I’ve not found any evidence so far.

Great, great grandparents

The 1832 Reform Act extended the right to vote to certain leaseholders and householders. It meant that five adults out of every 100 could vote, but would have made no difference to my ancestors (of either sex).

Great Grandparents

The Second Reform Act (1867) further extended voting in counties and boroughs. It meant that 13 adults out of every 100 could vote, but the right to vote was still based on wealth.

In 1872, the Secret Ballot Act introduced voting by secret ballot, but it’s very unlikely any of my ancestors were able to place a cross anywhere.

In 1884, the Representation of the People Act passed Parliament. It meant that any male occupying land or property with an annual rateable value of £10 could vote. Now 24 adults out of every 100 could vote. Again, I doubt it made any diffence to my great grandfathers and none whatsoever to my great grandmothers, of course.

Grandparents

After the end of the First World War, the 1918 Representation of the People Act saw all males over the age of 21 given the vote. Women over 30 could also vote. Women could sit in the House of Commons as MPs. Seventy-five adults out of every 100 could vote - my grandfathers might have voted for Asquith or Lloyd-George, but my grandmothers wouldn’t have been old enough.

Parents and Grandparents

Finally, in 1928 the Representation of the People Act meant uniform voting rights were extended to all men and women over the age of 21. Now 99 adults out of every 100 could vote. My parents were the first generation among my ancestors where all men and women would be able to vote.

My generation

The 1969 Representation of the People Act reduced the voting age to 18 for all men and women. It meant that I was able to vote (at the age of 20) in the first general election of 1974 which resulted in a hung parliament and the Lib-Lab pact. Harold Wilson called another general election later in the year and won a majority against Edward Heath. By that time I was 21 and would have been of voting age, but thanks to the 1969 act, I got two votes in that year.

We weren’t quite finished with electoral reform. In the 1985 Representation of the People Act, voters who, at the time of an election, were abroad, either working or on holiday, could apply for a postal vote; and the 2000 Representation of the People Act introduced changes to electoral registration and extended postal vote provisions.

For convenience, I now use a postal vote in all elections.

Letter from Amarica

There have been many amazing experiences since I have started researching mine and Margaret’s family tree (well, it’s essentially Tom, Sam and Max’s family tree). Recently, I’ve been looking at my mother’s mother’s father’s ancestors; family name Burrows, who came from Norfolk and, in particular from a small village called Burston just north east of Diss.

We visited Burston in July (as regular readers will know) and had a look around and since then, I’ve done some more internet research, found additional family members and unearthed various skeletons. I think we were all amused to find that we had a relative called Zachariah Burrows - it is an impressive name. He’s my 3 x great grandfather (so five generations back) and was born in the late 18th Century. He and his wife Ann had seven children, including my great, great grandfather Job and also a son named Zachariah after his father. 

Zachariah Burrows - part of the Great Migration

I got a trace of Zachariah junior having become an American citizen in 1868 (aged 53). I wasn’t absolutely sure that it was him and I was also faced with having to pay a higher subscription on Ancestry.com to  get access to overseas records. I’d taken the view that there was plenty of research in the UK to get on with but then, last weekend, Ancestry had a free weekend for US emigration records, so I spent some time looking up relatives who had emigrated, including Zachariah.

I was able to confirm very quickly that it was my great, great grandfather’s elder brother. The records showed he’d become an American citizen in 1868 and has settled in Rock Bluffs, Nebraska but had died soon afterwards in Plattsmouth. I was also able to find some people in America who also had Zachariah in their family tree, so I e-mailed them to say that we might be (very) distant cousins and were they interested in the information I had about the Burston Burrows?

One of the really nice things about ancestry research is finding people looking at the same people and sharing information you have. Ann Seymour (nee Burrows) from the USA sent me this reply the same day:

What a wonderful surprise to see this message and to share your tree. One of my mysteries is why my great great-grandfather, Zachariah, went to Canada West (present day Ontario) where he met Hannah Woodward. I am assuming that because there were 7 children maybe it became necessary to send some children there. I have an original letter dated Nov. 11, 1843 that Ann wrote Zachariah while he was in Canada and the letter mentions Job, I would be happy to send you a copy.

Zachariah eventually went to Michigan where William Perry was born. Then it was on to Nebraska where my grandfather, Charles Perry, was born.

My father, Charles Myers Burrows, died in 1996 in Lawrence, KS. He was born in Ottawa, KS where he met my mother. Mom (Beverly Jean Pope) was born in Ottawa and is still alive at 92 years. She lives in Lawrence, KS.

Thank you again for sending the email. My dream one day is to travel to England to find Burston parish and walk the ground where my ancestors lived.

So Zachariah had gone to Canada at first and had then moved into the US some years later. He’d married Hannah Woodward, originally from New York and almost certainly of British origin herself. Zachariah had escaped agricultural work in Norfolk to make a new life in Canada and then America, thousands of miles further west, in Nebraska. Sadly, he died aged 54, quite a young man compared to the other Burrows.

Ann sent me the letter written by my great, great, great grandmother over 160 years ago. I’ve pasted copies below and the high-res version (which is very clear) is on Flickr - just follow the links. This is the transcript of the letter, there are one or two words that I haven’t quite got. I haven’t changed any of the spelling or punctuation and it’s clearly written in the vernacular and by someone not used to writing regularly:

To Mr Zachariah Burrows
Clear vill Western district
Uper Canada
North Amarica

Page 1

November 11
Year of our Lord 1843
My Dear child I Reseved your letter the last day of oct I was glad to hare the lord has Blist you with a good helth and I are glad to hare you see it a grate Blefing in this world Dear child I am sorrow to hare you has met with Sutch Bad misfortshens this year one thing of grate comfort for me to hare that is to hare you are well of in the country and I hope it is true But it will have Been grater comfort to hare you was coming to England to see your pore afflicted mother for I am holy confined to my Bed I know a grat dell of Shear want I has only one and sixpence to live on in a week that is what your father allows your father is in good health and he is glad to hare you the same he is very sorrow to hare you has meet with Sutch Bad luck but he hop you will not give up coming to see him if there is an impossibility and he give his kind love to you and hope the lord will spare you to come again to England your Brother Job has had a grate lot of affliction this last year But thank god he is Better now Do you Remember giving him a walking Stick just Before you left that is laid up in my chest till you come Job give his kind love to you and hop you not give up coming for he will Rejoice to see you a gain

Page 2

Your Brother Henry and his family are well and he is glad to hare you are the seam he wish you good luck wareby you may cam and see him a gain he give his kind love to you and his family I sent your Brother Thomas a letter direckley and he sent me an answer direckley and he sed he should like to answer your letter his self so so I shall send him your letter and then he can write to you and say what he pleas But he Bad me give his love to you and that he and his wife and child was well now I will let you know a litel a Bout your old neighbours the aldriches are all living and they all desier to be Remembered to you and would like to see you the Spaldings all hef left Burston and the linstards has all  left and the lockwoods has all left thay are all gon down in the fen country John Simpson is deed an Buried the 5 of febury last he was taking with a complint in his noes he lived till the flesh droted of his feace thare has Bin a grate many deaths in Burston this year for the size of the place and sicknes Dear Son I am going to give you a piece of advice that is not to stay in Amarica till you has made all your money a way if you has got may But to cam to England for you can get a good living By your own Bussinefs hear if you like
Ann Burrows
So I Remain your Ever loving and Effectionate Mother
Burston Norfolk

The envelope is postmarked Diss, also marked ”More to Pay” and postmarked in Canada Dec 23/43. It was written on November 11, 1843, so 42 days to get there. Clearville is in Ontario between Toronto and Detroit on the north shore of Lake Erie. It looks to me (although this is conjecture) that when Zachariah was settled in Canada, he wrote to his family back in Burston. It’s not clear why he went, it seems he may have had some misfortune, but these were hard times working on the land and Ann (his mother) has a long list of grumbles, complaints and misfortune.

I thought when I first saw the letter, which has very neat handwriting, that it wouldn’t have been written by Ann. When she was married in 1806, she had made her mark in the parish register, so I had assumed that she was unable to read or write. I didn’t see how, with seven children surviving and clearly a pretty hard working life, that she would have been able to have learned to write. Having read the letter, I’m pretty sure that she had. 

It’s actually a very poignant letter and, as a parent, it’s very easy for me to put myself in her shoes. Her concerns are health, having enough money and seeing her son again (she’s desperate that he comes to England to see her). I’m also interested to see that she mentions my great, great grandfather Job, who hasn’t been in the best of health, Job would have been only 24 in 1843 and was not married. I don’t know when Ann died, but I know that she and her husband Zachariah were living with Job in Burston in 1851 and Zachariah (senior) lived to the age of 79.

I was interested in how the letter would have been sent to Canada. The Penny Post was established in England in 1840 and you could send a letter anywhere in Great Britain for 1d (about 0.45p). Sending a letter to Canada would have been much more involved. Until 1845 the carriage of mail overseas was the responsibility of the Admiralty. It was privatised after that and companies could bid for the contracts, with ships carrying the RMS prefix (including RMS Titanic). So this letter would have been carried across the Atlantic by Admiralty ship, probably a fast sloop, but certainly under sail, and then overland to Clearville. The St Lawrence River (main route to the Great Lakes) would be icebound in December, so it must have gone overland. It would have been quite a journey and the fact that the letter survived all these years is a testament to how much it must have meant to Zachariah to have a little piece of home.

Zachariah junior moved to Canada at a time of mass emigration. Some 800,000 people left Britain for Canada in the 35 years from 1815. It’s a hugely significant event in the history of Canada and basically imposed a Britishness on the culture of the country that’s still apparent today. It’s called the Great Migration. Many emigrants would have been Scottish or Irish, but there were plenty of poor English people seeking a better life too. As mechanisation increased in the countryside, fewer people were needed to work the land and many traditional industries were shrinking or disappearing. The Norfolk weaving industry basically disappeared in the first half of the 19th century and Zachariah senior, who was described as a weaver as his children were being born is an agricultural labourer as he moves into old age. I have two branches of my family from Norfolk - the Burrows on my mother’s side and the Mitchells on my father’s. A couple of members of the Mitchell family also emigrated to Canada around this time.

I did wonder how the letter had got from Diss to Upper Canada and, indeed, how Zachariah had made the journey. His journey would not have been as fast (or comfortable) as the letter. I’ve not been able to find him on any passenger lists, but he would almost certainly have gone by sail as the first steam paddle-wheel ships were not really active until The Great Western in 1838 but they were expensive and a rarity and the first screw-driven ship (the SS Great Britain) was not launched until 1843. Sail was still the main means of propulsion for another 30 years after Zachariah made the crossing. London was a major departure point and it’s more likely that Zachariah sailed from there rather than Bristol or Liverpool as it would have been the nearest major port to Norfolk and Suffolk. Ships registered as sailing for Canada in the 1840s are almost all around 300-500 tons, whereas the steamships (few as they were) all weighed in at much more than that. The Great Western was 1750 tons and the SS Great Britain was 3675 tons.

So my best guess is that Zachariah made his way to London and embarked for Canada. He would probably have paid for his passage and would have gone in a small sailing ship across the Atlantic. There’s an excellent website called Norway Heritage which is aimed at helping Norwegians in America and Canada discover more about their ancestors. It describes conditions on board ship.

Passengers would have travelled steerage (nothing to do with being above the rudder, the term was used for people travelling without a cabin, ie camped out on a lower deck with perhaps bunks or canvas sheets between and everyone claiming their own little space. These ships were not purpose-built for passengers and people would have been carried below deck, but able to go onto the deck for fresh air when the weather was fine. Ventilation and light was through hatches, which would have been closed in bad weather, so the air would have quickly become very unpleasant. Typhoid, cholera and dysentery would be major killers and children travelling with their parents would have been especially vulnerable. Norway Heritage puts the death rate at four per cent in transit and I guess it would be similar among British emigrants. Average crossing time was 50 days, but could take two weeks longer in bad weather. Many ships, having made the crossing, were quarantined on Grosse Isle in the St Lawrence River to prevent diseases being carried into the country.

Despite his mother’s pleas, Zachariah didn’t come to England. In 1848, he married Hannah Woodward (from New York) in Clearville and in the next 20 years, they moved west to Michigan in the USA and then to Nebraska, across the Missouri River. Nebraska was just being opened up for settlement and by 1867 had enough people to apply for statehood. It’s the 37th State in the USA and Zachariah (from Burston in Norfolk) was part of its history.

The envelope is postmarked Diss