Kay has been doing research into our family tree for some years now and not long ago she’d discovered that I had five first cousins still alive in the west midlands, Edward, Betty, Jean, Margaret and Barbara. Edward and Barbara we had met three years ago in Trentham and now we had the opportunity to meet up with them again.
Edward and his wife Brenda arrived at the RV on Tuesday and we all departed to the Bell Inn in Haughton village for lunch. During the meal they informed us that there were even more relatives living in the local area. Some we later found out were so local that they’d actually been on the site with us in a campervan and that we’d sat next to them having lunch without even knowing who they were.
On Wednesday Kay wanted to do some Tombe-stoning (researching the local records and grave yards) as I had an elder brother George who died in 1935 in Hanley, so off we went to Hanley Library to delve into the records of deaths and grave locations. We found the record of his death quite easily and also the map of Hanley cemetery where he was buried.
So the next stop was a visit to the cemetery; the graves were mostly overgrown as the cemetery has been declared a conservation area (I think that is technical jargon for ‘we can’t afford to maintain the graves’). It took quite a while tramping through the long grass and crumbling grave stones searching for the site and eventually we did find the grave but not the stone (if there ever was one).
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| Hanley Cemetery |
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| Kay Tombe-stoning |
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| George's Grave |
Today we had a surprise visitor, Graham Crook who lives in Gnosal the next village where we had eaten lunch and cycled through several times. Graham is another relative ‘a second cousin’ so he and Kay swapped notes on who was or was not on the family tree.
From Edward and George we now know that a local retired vicar ‘Terence Coyne’ is also related to us and we hope to be in contact with him before we depart on Sunday (it really is a small world). On Saturday we will also have a visit from Barbara as it turned out it was her grandson who was on the site with us in his campervan and they will come and join us for lunch in the tea rooms.
On the RV front… the cycles have now been fitted onto the cycle rack on the back of the RV and that job became a bit of a mensa test. Why you may ask! My cycle has the standard cross bar so that was no problem but Kay's is a woman's cycle a frame without a cross bar so to get that to fit I had to raise the front end quite high as you can see in the photo to get it to clip into the clamps.
Three of the wheels have been removed and they will be stored in the back of the IQ on the trailer, it looks a mess but they are secure. The long vehicle sign has arrived, but mounting it will need some thinking out. Philip our neighbour has taken it into work to add a stiffer back to the sign so it’s just a matter of where to site it.
Three of the wheels have been removed and they will be stored in the back of the IQ on the trailer, it looks a mess but they are secure. The long vehicle sign has arrived, but mounting it will need some thinking out. Philip our neighbour has taken it into work to add a stiffer back to the sign so it’s just a matter of where to site it.
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| MENSA Test |
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