Family history

I went to a good friend's 60th birthday party at the weekend. I have to say that 60 must be the new 40. None of us look our age! Or maybe it's more about not acting the age you once thought 60 represented! Everyone there was young at heart and having a great and lively time. Tamla Motown to dance to and a very nice live band to listen to,featuring my friend's husband and fellow blues musicians. Friends are the family you choose for yourself or so they say. That's how it feels for me, and there were people there I have known for more than forty years. It's a different style of family history. When we were young we called our parents' friends by the title of Aunty or Uncle. That tradition seems to have been lost, but there's nothing to replace it. Some of my good friends play that role in my youngest son's life, and have helped him to find a full time job with their caring and practical support. Family history for my youngest son is already turning out to be a very different experience too. His father has children by 3 different women, so my son has 5 half siblings who share his father, as well as his brother and sister who are my older children from my marriage. When his father left us, I never imagined that we would connect with the oldest family of siblings, but one night Charlie was watching his dad's performance at a folk club on YouTube. He posted a comment about his dad. Within minutes someone else had posted, that's my dad too! You must be my younger brother! And so Charlie connected with a whole bunch of half brothers and sisters, in-laws , cousins and nephews.My daughter is working on some aspects of our family history, and I used to help people trace theirs when I worked in the local library. I can't imagine how future generations will unpick their family stories, though I am sure the Internet will help, perhaps in some unexpected ways.

Flog It! Blog It!

Flog It! Blog It! In early October BBC’s Flog It! got in touch with Haddon Hall, where I work, to discuss the possibility of filming in November. Members of the production team came to have a look at our facilities and to discuss how Haddon could be used for a Flog It! Valuation Day. The proposed date of filming came during what is now laughingly known as our closed period in November. They came at the end of a week that had included a two day Rowan Yarns photoshoot and a TV shoot for David Starkey’s new series ‘Music and Monarchy’. The Hall may have been closed to the public, but it was certainly open for business. When Flog It! choose a venue they have to be sure that everything from power supplies, parking and refreshments can be provided, as well as a steady stream of people with items they would like to have valued and ultimately sell. One of the attractions for Haddon was that the programme is due to be aired in March or April 2013 – ideal publicity at the start of the season. They make 5 episodes from each venue, and then they repeat and repeat and repeat – you get the picture! I am involved with the Old House Museum in Bakewell, an award winning independent museum, run by volunteers. The Museum is part of the Bakewell and District Historical Society and had been left a very generous bequest by a former member of the Society. There were some interesting antique items and a decision had been made to keep the Blue John and Ashford Marble pieces as they could be included in the Museum’s collection, but the ivory pieces were more problematic. I realised that I could take them to Flog It!’s valuation day, and possibly get some publicity for the Museum into the bargain! At this point we weren’t sure when the pieces dated from, and the magic year is 1947. After that CITES rules came in, and ivory can’t be sold on. Some of the pieces were a mystery – a long stick, and an elongated dragon carving looked as if they might have belonged together once, but been broken. There was also a small round ivory container with a lid – the kind of thing that might have once been part of a dressing table set. The two main pieces were carved groups of figures – an Indian god and his rather voluptuous attendant, and some Chinese or Japanese boys playing with a horse. Having dropped various hints to the researchers, I didn’t get an offer to be fast-tracked, so at 10am on Saturday November 17th I joined a long queue of hopefuls outside Haddon Hall. It was great fun, because everyone had a story, and in the two hours it took to get through the main queuing process I heard them all! Paul Martin, the presenter, was filming short pieces to camera, and I am always amazed by the tediousness of a presenter’s job! It’s a lot of repetition and re-takes. I have seen the Antiques Roadshow being recorded several times, and was once on a TV quiz, as well as on a Time Team dig. To me there’s nothing glamorous about it! As lunchtime approached James Martin, Bamford’s auctioneer came and asked if anyone had items they definitely wanted to put forward for auction. Some people go for the valuation and information, but don’t wish to sell. Unlike the Antiques Roadshow, Flog It! depends on people going to auction for its entertainment value. I was able to catch his eye, and Michael Froggatt , their expert on ivory, came over to have a quick look at the carvings. I was then taken into another waiting area – where hot drinks and sandwiches were provided! - and again was there for a couple of hours. More interesting people with fascinating stories, especially when they came back to report on their valuations. On the Antiques Roadshow you get taken into hair and makeup before filming – even the men - but there was no such preparation here! Eventually Michael Froggatt sat down at a table with me and told me about the pieces, repeated a couple of times for the camera. All were pre-1947, which was good news. The Indian god was Krishna, and was probably 1930s. It was very good quality ivory. He turned the Japanese carving upside down to show me that it was carved from a walrus tooth. There was even a little design underneath to disguise the soft centre of the tooth, and the artist had followed the curves of the natural tooth. To my surprise he told me the ivory ‘sticks’ weren’t connected. One was Indian and possibly ceremonial. The other was Chinese, and was probably a parasol or walking stick handle. He painted a lovely picture of a woman strolling in Shanghai in the late 19th century with a beautiful parasol, its handle formed from an exquisite ivory carving of a dragon with the pearl of immortality in its mouth. He gave me valuations too, and guide prices for auction. The pieces were signed for and taken away to be photographed and catalogued for the sale that would take place at Bamfords new salerooms at Peak Village, at the beginning of December. I was glad I didn’t have any attachment to them. Michael’s enthusiasm for them and the information he gave would have made me want to keep and appreciate them! The Flog It! team kept in touch with me about arrangements for the auction on December 5th. There were several familiar faces from Haddon and the Old House Museum, as well as new acquaintances from the valuation day. Everything was behind schedule, but eventually it was my turn. Huddled in front of the camera with Paul Martin and Michael Froggatt, with a massive stuffed animal display cabinet as backdrop, there was hardly time to think as the bidding for the Indian figures started. No second takes here, I was disbelieving as the bidding soared past the estimated £120 to a magnificent £340! Unbelievable! The Japanese figure reached its top estimated price of £120, but sadly the group of bits and bobs, including the parasol handle didn’t attract any bids. The parasol handle had become a favourite for Michael and I. Bamfords offered to put it into the next sale, so perhaps by now it will have found a loving home. The programmes will be broadcast in March or April. I was aware that Paul Martin was trying to give the museum a plug during the auction, so I hope it doesn’t get edited out!

It's a new year

I claimed in a recent blog that I could probably remember most of the Christmases in my life. I love Christmas as a time to get together and celebrate mid winter. I find New Year just as meaningful now. It' s a time to review what's gone, leave behind what you don't want to carry with you, and a chance to look forward to the adventures and changes to come. Looking back over the years, and all the New Year's Eves I can recall I would struggle to choose a favourite. As children my sister and I would leave a stocking at the end of the bed. In the morning there would be some sweets and an orange in it. What a lovely tradition to raise the spirits after all the excitement of Christmas seemed to be over.Family parties before my father left to work in Nigeria were another highlight.He made ham and pea soup in a pressure cooker and created multi layered club sandwiches, cut like a cake. I heard She Moves Through the Fair sung for the first time by Angela Mangan, not much older than me. When my parents lived in Sarawak I had a couple of strange equatorial New Year Eves.For one I was so ill with a tropical fever that I watched sunrise to sunset flash past my bedroom window in a matter of minutes. After I left school I had difficult few months, and was whisked off to Devon by an older and very kind friend. We went to stay at an amazing manor house outside Barnstaple with a well known band he was doing some work for. Wives,parents, children and friends made it an unforgettable house party, and at midnight on New Years Eve we rang the bells of the private chapel in the grounds. Another year,when my family were back in England I got a New Years Eve transatlantic phone call from a boyfriend in San Francisco telling me he was coming home because he missed me so much. He didn't materialise, but my dad did make me my first Rusty Nail. I didn't know alcohol could be so delicious!I saw my first New Years Eve fireworks in Casablanca, and heard the ships blow their foghorns in the port there at midnight. I saw Christmas tree bonfires in Rotterdam. What a practical way to celebrate a New Year. Once I had my own children, there were New Year Eves with young babies, coughs and colds, and occasionally friends and their offspring gathered round for impromptu parties when none of us could afford or secure babysitters. We always stay up until midnight, and first footing is part of the tradition most years. A dark haired person sent to stand outside in the cold at five to twelve, with a lump of bread, a piece of coal and a coin.It seems important to be with the people you want to be with, whether family, friends or very occasionally one significant other, and in a place that feels like home, my own or someone else's . Pubs, clubs and hotels don't work for me, and I don't like kissing strangers !My father died in the early hours of New Years Day 2010 and some of the family spent New Years Eve at the nursing home with him. My mother was there with him to the end. It was a blue moon, the second full moon in a calendar month that year, and I thought it was a very good time for him to leave us. The following year I spent New Years Eve watching TV with my mum, quiet and cosy.Nowadays its Jools Holland and his Hootenany (recorded in September I am told!) rather than Andy Stewart's White Heather Club.Last year I spent it in a remote country cottage with someone who I thought was going to be significant in 2012, but like the Californian boyfriend, it didn't materialise. This year I was with good friends and my daughter and her partner. It was lovely. My youngest son had a gig, and I remembered the frustration of his father having a New Years Eve gig when he was a baby and we were left home alone.That's the beauty of looking back. Every year starts with hopes, resolutions and expectations, and then life intervenes, and I go through the whole process again 12 months later.Happy New Year!