PENELOPE HEMINGWAYThis is my Great Uncle, William Boothman, Gunner X8 Battery of Trench Mortars in the Royal Field Artillery. His unit were nicknamed ‘the Suicide Squad’. Men joining it, reckoned their remaining lifespan in days or weeks. He survived several years… William ran away to join up and was fetched back home, at least once. This […]
In this month’s ‘Yarnwise’, I took a look at the knitting sticks in the collection of the Bronte Parsonage Museum, here in Yorkshire. And came to some interesting conclusions about the knitting sticks, and the Brontes’ experience of knitting. One conclusion I came to was that at least half of the […]
“Is it a Memorial about his own history that he is writing, aunt?’ ‘Yes, child,’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose again. ‘He is memorializing the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Somebody or other—one of those people, at all events, who are paid to be memorialized—about his affairs. I suppose it will go in, one […]
When I went to see ‘War Horse’ recently, I thought of Uncle Jesse, famously a stunt rider in early films and trainer of horses for the Yorkshire Hussars. Last year, a fellow Boothman descendant had sent me some amazing photos of Great Uncle Jesse in WW1, training horses for the Front. The lovely Amanda Carter […]
Just a quick heads-up for the knitters and the genealogists. This month’s ‘Family Tree Magazine’ is running one I made earlier; ‘Skills for Life’, an article about our charity school ancestors. This is a fraction of the stuff I stumbled on, but has plenty of interest in it for both knitters and family historians; I […]
Apologies to descendents of George Debnam, who may stumble on this. Not sure how I’d feel if this was my ancestor – yet it is one intriguing aspect to genealogy.You never really know what you’re going to find. I wanted to find out more about the man my ancestor John Fisher was (allegedly) assaulted by, […]
My favourite ancestor, John Fisher, has just done it again, and given me another glimpse into his life, and personality. And what a personality. I thought I had found everything there was to find, on John. After all, few 19thC farm labourers left much of a paper trail. I counted myself lucky to find his […]
A few people have asked where they can find the pattern for the Adderback gloves, that featured in ‘Yarn Forward’, some time back. They’re here. Apologies for the amateur photography – I don’t have the rights to reproduce the professional photo shoot, so rather than seeing lovely models wearing these you can see my favourite […]
Have had a knitting filled week or two; from documenting the 1846 Dales glove up in Grasmere, to figuring out how to knit an 1860’s child’s stripey sock, to putting the finishing touches to our inland waterways ganseys and Yorkshire Dales knitting projects for the book. I’m even dreaming in knitting at the moment. That’s […]
Here’s Lewis Harding’s 1870 (ish) image of two little Polperro girls, Mary Jane Langmaid and Elizabeth Joliff, knitting. This is the iconic photo for people interested in the history of traditional knitting. A couple of people used it in their presentations at Ganseyfest, and folk wondered if the photo was staged. One or two even […]
PENELOPE HEMINGWAY 