The church of St Peter and St Paul, West Clandon


This small Surrey church may be next to a busy road but it is best to reach it by walking along a pathway of pollarded trees from the grounds of Clandon Park just as Lord Onslow's family did over many years.

         

On a sunny day the church is bathed in bright colours as the sun shines through the stained glass.
  
   

 The beautifully carved pew of the Onslow family.


 One of the many hand sewn kneelers.

John Bone senior and Elizabeth his wife give to the poor widowers and widows belonging to the Parish of West Clandon 20 Sixpenny loaves on Christmas Day and 20 more the Sunday after Midsummer day and the Money to be Paid out of the House he now lives in that joins to Clandon Park and Lodge that was late at Rydes of Merrow. To be Paid by his Heirs and Assigns for ever. June 24, 1817.
The Dole Shelves



 This 12th century church had a major restoration at the beginning of the 20th century. 



Part of an old wooden panel which may have been on a rood screen show St peter and St Paul either side of St Thomas of Canterbury



The Isle of Man #MondayBlogs #Photographs

When my children were young we visited the Isle of Man regularly so that they could see their grandparents.  We were rarely lucky with the weather but there were always beautiful places to see.

The Calf of Man at the south-east point of the island, a great spot for bird watching.
 


The Point of Ayre in the far north, the only flat part of the island
 

Ramsay, a popular place in Edwardian times, on the north-east coast facing the Lake District


Looking towards Milner's Tower from Port Erin, a lovely spot on the south-west coast



The Tower of Refuge 
 
If you sail into Douglas on a ferry you will see this tiny castle on a rock at the harbour entrance.  In 1830 Sir William Hillary, who started the RNLI, commanded a lifeboat which rescued the crew of the packet boat St George foundering on the rock.  Afterwards Hillary raised money to build the Tower of Refuge on that rock.

Peel at the centre of the west coast facing Northern Ireland

Peel castle and the ruins of St German's Cathedral on St Patrick's Isle
St Patrick's Isle is the site of a ruined Celtic Monastery, Viking burials and a 15th century prison.

The remains of St Peter's church, Peel which was badly burnt in 1958

And this hasn't shown you any of the glens or mountains in the centre of the island.

She would like to know her birthday ~British Home Children #Canada

We know very little about the girls who arrived at the Guthrie Home in London, Ontario before it closed in 1893.  But the records of the Inspectors who visited them in their new habitation, for some a home, for others a place to endure, provide a few phrases about the experiences of these lonely girls.

SS Parisian

In 1881, wheelwright, Benjamin Sink was living with his wife Jane and their three little girls in Farthing Lane, Wandsworth, but Benjamin came from Ockham, Surrey where most of his family still lived. By 1883 the lives of Ruth, aged 7, Beatrice, 6, and Ada Sink, aged 3 had been turned upside down. Their mother Jane had died and Benjamin was imprisoned in Wandsworth jail. The family in Ockham took in the three girls, but their grandmother was 64 and nearly blind so they were soon given up to the Union Workhouse in Guildford.

An earlier group of Middlemore girls who arrived in Canada in 1877

Miss Spottiswood, the only female Guardian on the Poor Law Board, was a wealthy educated woman who had taken some of the workhouse teenagers to work  as staff at her home. Each summer she invited the children to a picnic in her garden at Shere and she arranged for Christmas visits to a pantomime.  Always anxious to give young people a better start in life, she had studied closely the migration of "orphans" to Canada where they would be employed as farm servants in homes around the country.  Despite the misgivings of some of her fellow Guardians she began to entrust children to Mr Middlemore's organisation to start a new life in Canada.  So in June 1884 the sisters set out from Liverpool on the Allan Line steamship Parisian, with 115 other girls from various parts of Britain.

Guthrie House

At first they were taken to Guthrie House in London, Ontario and then they were taken to their new "homes" or a habitation where they would work very hard until they were 21. Along with Alice and James Hart, who were also from Guildford, they were placed with families who had requested a young person. Beatrice and Ada seem to have been lucky in their positions but Ruth, whose name was misspelt by the government inspector, was not so happy.


It is recorded in Ontario that Mark Smallpeice, Clerk to the Board of Governors of Guildford Poor Law Union, requested feedback on the children's situations, as did other workhouse Boards and thus we have it on record that Beatrice, "would like to know her birthday if possible," that Ada, "thinks she has a brother in the Union, (Guildford Workhouse) while poor Ruth is so unwell she has been returned to Guthrie House. We do not know whether Beatrice discovered her birthday or whether Ada really had a brother "in the Union (workhouse)".

Update

Thanks to Maureen Salter, a descendent of the Sink family, I now have a little more information.  
Beatrice Sink was adopted by the Burton family and took their surname. Later she married a cousin of her adopted family.
Ada also went to a caring home in Ontario where, at the age of 6, she was adopted by Ephraim Snell. Sadly in 1893 she died of typhoid fever.
The children's birth father Benjamin Sink died in Richmond Workhouse, Surrey in 1938.
There is no record of a brother in Guildford Union Workhouse, and we do not know whether Beatrice was given her correct birthdate.




1966 and all that: Music and films

1966 was a year of great change for me. In January I was living in the middle of nowhere in the Yorkshire Dales. By August I was in Singapore having the time of my life.

When you are 15 and all your friends are miles away, you depend on TV and radio. On the radio it was Radio Caroline, on TV, Top of The Pops and best of all, Ready Steady Go.


I don't remember hearing them sing together but I certainly bought records by both acts.


The Rolling Stones were frequently on Ready Steady Go presented by Cathy McGowan but my best memory of the Hollies was when they all gave me their autographs after their concert in Weymouth.



Even today "These Boots were made for walking" is played.


I'm not sure this skirt did anything for Lulu.

In Singapore we didn't have a TV but we went to the British Army cinema 3 times a week. 


Elvis was singing in his 22nd film, California Holiday.


Robert Vaughn and David McCallum had taken my favourite TV programme "The Man from Uncle" into the film studio.  I wonder if Ducky from NCIS looks back fondly on those days.


Robert Redford was amazing as the fugitive in "The Chase" also starring Marlon Brando and Jane Fonda but he had yet to appear with Paul Newman in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".


Paul Newman fresh from his success in "Hud" had just completed "The Moving Target" in which he appeared as a Private Investigator.



And the unforgettable film was to be "Dr Zhivago" starring Omar Shariff, Julie Christie, Tom Courtney and Geraldine Chaplain.