Detective work

Following my quick research a few days ago in to the history of my wooden garden dibber, have got hooked on it.

My main motive is to get as much recorded for my children to have, and then to do with as they please ..... luckily most modern recording machines have a "DEL" button so I don't feel I am burdening them.

One part is the family tree bit. On fathers side, the maternal side is well documented on paper however his father's side stops abruptly and will require lots of work. On my maternal side there is very little and I hope I may be able to get some info from my uncle, Jochen in the Heidelberg area.

My father was the youngest of 5 children and he spent most of his time abroad and so we had little opportunity to see & talk about the places & things of his childhood. While I do have some artifacts, I think most of the family heirlooms and photos of old are now with long lost cousins. One thing which would have been nice to have had and something he talked about fondly, was the Purdey shotgun he had as a boy to hunt pigeons and rabbits on the family farm in Norfolk. He often spoke of it and while he was everything but a "bloodthirsty" type, I think it was the closest memory of a childhood in the country at a difficult time - the depression and a sick father trying to keep his family's heads above water. Sadly the guns were stolen from the storage firm's premises when he left them there in 1947 to go to the West Indies.

This evening I wrote an email to the current owners of the house in the photo, hoping they might have copies of the deeds showing exactly the dates the family lived there (around 1930). Might then help me to trace back exactly what my grandfather won his two Royal Agricultural Society of England medals for in 1929.

Online information seems to be difficult to get hold of. Royal Show was in Harrogate that year and I now understand there are no more Royal Agricultural Shows and the RASE seems to be going through hard times. The descriptions on the coin edges with his name aren't clear as to the categories ie no "Best Shorthorn Bull"

Well hope Angelique & Phoebe win Class 7 of the dog show at the Alresford Agricultural Show this weekend "Dog Most Like its Handler". The other novelty class they could consider is No. 10 but I suspect much too proletarian for Phoebe: "Prettiest Bitch". Have fun & trust MrA will meet up with his County Tractor colleagues and do some reminiscing. Hope you have it all digitalised MrA! Can't rely on the RASE to keep any more records.