Digging Into Your Family's History Should Come With A Warning

It seems more and more people are interested in finding out where they came from and so Ancestor.co.uk is allowing people to have a free look at the passenger lists of the ships which took Scottish emigrants to the Americas. The Mitchell Library in Glasgow also allows people to have a look at the Poor Law records which detail the poverty and suffering of those that came before us. But anyone with a romantic notion of their ancestral past should think carefully before investing time and energy researching their family history.
It might be my sick sense of humour but as well as being slightly disturbed at the image I couldn't help but laugh when I read the story of the Australian who researched the details of his ancestor's transportation to the colonies. He assumed his forefather had been on the prison ship for rebelling against the famine and the Crown by stealing corn to put food on the table so that his family may survive to see the next morning. Imagine his surprise when he discovered the documentation showing the reason for the one-way trip to Botany Bay was for his carnal knowledge of horses. And to think that Australians like to make fun of the Kiwis for sheep shagging.

For Those That Made The Sacrifice Then And Those Who Will In The Future

How do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the great fallen in 1916,
I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

Did you leave a young wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
Though I know that you died back in 1916,
In that faithful heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Enclosed and forever behind a glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

The sun shines bright on the green fields of France;
The warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance.
The trenches are scattered long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses are mute where they stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation that were butchered and damned.

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

I can't help but wonder, young Willie McBride,
Do those who lie here really know why they died?
Did they believe when they answered the call,
Did they really believe that this war would end wars?
The suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, and the dying, it was all done in vain,
For young Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

This song was written after after the writer visited a military cemetery in France. It does a fine job of illustrating the meaningless absurdity of war. The First World War was the last real trench war and in France and Belgium battles could last weeks or months without any progress.
A researcher from a Belgium war museum has delved in a stack of burial records to find the real Willy McBride. Among the 1,700,000 names he found ten William Willy McBride's, but only one died in 1916 at the age of 19.
During the First World War No Man's Land was clearly defined by the trenches. Sometimes the contending parties where so close to each other that they could overhear the conversation of their opponents and many men, unaware of the nearness of the enemy snipers, died on their first day in the trenches.
In contrast with what the term might suggest No Man's Land was by no means abandoned. Under the cover of darkness the parties continuously repaired or extend the barbed wire fencing and carried out reconnaissance missions. Consequently artillery shelling of No Man's Land was common. Those who got injured often had to suffer a whole day before being rescued, while corpses were seldom salvaged.

The Last Post and The Flowers of the Forest are compositions associated with the final farewell.
In wars of a previous age bugles and drums marked the phases of a soldier's day, which started with the wakeup call Reveille. At the end of the day officers, accompanied by bugle players and drummers, made a round along the posts. The start of this round was announced by The First Post and the end by The Last Post, therewith signalling that all sentry posts were manned and that it was safe for off-duty soldiers to go to sleep. In the course of time The Last Post was incorporated into funeral and memorial services as a final farewell and symbolises that the duty of the fallen is over and that they can rest in peace.
The Flowers of the Forest is a poem written in the mid-1750's. It refers to the Battle of Flodden, which took place in 1513 between the Scots and the English. The outcome was disastrous for the Scots as it is estimated that about 10,000, including King James IV of Scotland, were killed. The Flowers of the Forest, traditionally played on a bagpipe, has become a lament for lost relatives, whereas the bugle call The Last Post is a final salute for fallen fellow soldiers.
Sadly just as they did then, men are still making that same sacrifice today.

Ignorance is Bliss?

I don't want to read the paper. I'm sick of the bad news. Last week a young man got a a 6 inch scar in his face from a knife just for the crime of walking home. I'm sick and tired of reading about shit like that. I'd like to pretend that there is a reason for it that I cannot comprehend. I'd like to just ignore it.

I don't want to watch the news on the TV. When I do, I should cry. But I've become cold. I long ago switched myself off. When a man buys a gun and goes crazy in a school I no longer feel. I don't know their families. I don't ask them how they're doing. They're on the other side of the world but I don't want to think about it because it hit's too close to the bone.

I can turn off the TV, put aside the paper and go about my day. But just because you don't see it

It doesn't mean its gone away.

If you're not pissed off at the world then you're just not paying attention.

Every day there's something. Loser men beating their wives. North Koreans starving whilst their egotistical leader blackmails the superpowers with weapons he cannot afford to use. People judging their neighbours for practising a religion they've not taken the time to understand.

We switch ourselves off. We listen to the music on the radio, or watch some sport while a mother in Iraq mourns the loss of her son. We eat too much and throw the rest away while a million starve in East Africa. We drive our big cars, while the ice caps melt and deny that anything we can do will make a difference anyway.

Why don't I cry? Why am I not angry enough to make a difference? Where is the shame......

I Am No Longer Part Of The Young Generation

I might look young for my age, I might even feel young but today I realised I am kidding myself. I can no longer consider myself young. This epiphany happened with an email. An email that was written in text speak, well that's what I assumed anyway. It might as well have been written in Polish. In fact Polish would have been better. I could have sat a Pole on my seat, after all there is enough of them in Scotland looking for work, and had them decipher for me but with no Poles in sight this email had me stumped from beginning to end.
There seemed to be words missing, whole sentences even. The words that were visible seemed to be mispelt, I tried to put them back together again and still it made no sense. All things considered text speak should be my language of choice because I am the world's worst typist, I make typing errors all the time and rarely if ever check because I'm too lazy to do so and even when I do make corrections I do something silly like delete a word accidentally, so a whole sentence can mean something totally different from what I intended. With this in mind I should be able to empathise with the text writer but even then I still couldn't translate the email. I started to think maybe its not text speak at all, maybe its code! Maybe, just maybe, its deliberately mispelt, maybe if I use a mirror I can read it. So I got out the old mirror I used for putting my contact lenses in and smacked it against the screen and then tried reading the message from left to right, right to left, from below and from above but still it made as much sense as before. Which was not at all.
In the end I had to delete the message for the crime of not making feel old but for making me feel stupid. No email, no evidence. And no pulling out my hair trying to decipher the damn thing.

I Must Be Crazy!

You'd think i'd learn. But no, not me. The past couple of months have kept me so busy with work and life stuff that I have been unable to blog. It's not that I've not had the ideas to blog, it's just a major case of not having enough time in the day. When I have had a moment to myself to sit down for two minutes the blogging inspiration has inevitably passed or I have just had the energy to fight with my brain and get my thoughts into some sort of order and get them onto the screen. So what did I do today? I only went and made myself a new blog that i'm not going to have time for either. I must be crazy!
Anyway if you want to have a look at it, the link is in the top left corner of this page. Its called The Scottish List and it is my take on things you should do, or taste, or visit if you ever come to Scotland. It's only got two items in the list so far, but give me a break it will grow - slowly.

Wedding - Is It Over Yet?

What’s a blog for if it can’t be used to get something selfishly off your chest? At this moment in time I can’t think of a use so I am going to use this blog for that very purpose. Yesterday, I sat through what was possibly the most boring event I have ever been to. And as I sat there, straining to stop myself from slipping off my chair and under the table, I suddenly managed to crystallise everything I hate into just two things: injustice and big weddings.

Yes, it’s true, I have a very low boredom threshold – OK, I’m impatient – but surely everyone’s patience would have been tested by 10 hours of speeches, small talk and ceremonies. I felt like a child, fidgeting through something really boring and getting that sharp look that your parents used to give you, which means something like this: sit up, shut up, or else. Except I’m 29. I wanted to have a tantrum and roll around on the floor – anything so I’d be sent home in disgrace.

Of course, weddings are more fun if you know the people getting married really well or there’s a coach-load of your friends there too, but that’s nothing to do with the wedding itself. Think about it. The emperor has no clothes on. And weddings are boring.

Some of them are incredibly self-indulgent, too. It’s bad enough that I have to hear allusions to the groom’s sexual past from the best man, but why do I have to gaze in awe at photos projected on a wall of the bride and groom when they were three? Why do I have to hear the details of their first date? Why do people want to bare their souls? Just get on with it. Please.

It’s not just the bride and groom who spoil weddings – the guests can be horrible too. We all know people who just go to fill their faces and get drunk – and then spend most of the evening complaining very loudly that there wasn’t enough food or drink. I seem to be sat next to this couple all too often. Why? I smile at the appropriate times, like I really want to be there when I don’t. I behave myself. So why stick me next to someone who is pre-designed to act like a jerk? Let’s see, could it perhaps be because neither the bride nor the groom know me well enough to put me at another table?

How can you possibly know all 600 people at your wedding? And why do all the women try to out-bling each other with their dresses, hats and diamonds? Less is more, girls. Where’s the quality control?

When done right Scottish weddings can be fun – the men arrive in kilts looking smartly dressed but without looking like the let’s-bring-out-the-old-suit-brigade. The music can be excellent making it an event where you can laugh and dance for hours, and then there are events like yesterday’s where the music is crap and it’s just a long, long slog until the end of the night. There is of course a lot of sitting and eating – two things I excel at. However, I’d prefer to do them on my comfort of my own home with people I know, not in the function room of some horrid hotel with nasty carpets and mock Tudor chairs, getting backache from holding a false smile on my face for six hours whilst listening to Mr & Mrs B. O. Ring tell stories about their Persian cat.

I consider myself a generous person I spend more money buying things for other people than I ever do on myself. In truth I don’t really like money, I enjoy spending money on others but even my generous spirit is challenged when faced with the wedding gift list. You used to be able to go to a wedding and spend the amount of money you thought appropriate on the couple. The amount you would spend on the couple’s gift would depend on how much you knew them. Now in the interest of not getting 10 toasters, 7 irons and 4 knife sets, the couple get together and make up a list of the items that they want, complete with prices. By the time you get your hands on this price list, after 400 other guests have got their grubby paws on it you are left with the – chopping board - £75.

£75 chopping board, you have to be kidding me, it looks like, strangely enough, a chopping board. At £75 I’d want it to get the vegetables out the fridge and the knives out of the knife block and do the chopping on its own, unaided with the help of man. In truth I don’t mind spending £75 on a present; I don’t mind spending even more than that, after all they invited me to their wedding. Ok so I might not have wanted to go in the first place but still they invited me to their big day, getting them a gift is the least I can do. It’s the idea that they have priced every item out, it takes away all the pleasure of buying the gift, knowing that the couple expected you to spend a predetermined amount.

When I was a kid and people asked me what I wanted for Christmas my answer would be ‘nothing!’ I didn’t want other people to spend money on me, but I would spend all the money I had on them, I was a strange kid in that I enjoyed buying for other people but felt guilty when they bought for me. I got much more joy from giving than I did receiving. When I got older and I realised that ‘nothing’ ended up as something more expensive than I intended, I thought I could get around that same question by looking up the catalogue and asking for the £6.99 Bullseye dartboard. Not that I wanted the Bullseye dartboard but then I didn’t want them to spend even more money on me either. As a kid I foolishly thought I could manipulate relatives into spending less, in reality they would get me the £6.99 dartboard and something else but they felt good about it.

Today peoples attitudes have changed somewhat to a ‘I want, I want, I want.’ It gets to the stage you just want to turn round and say ‘You’ll get what you are given!’

If one lesson was learned this weekend it was that I much prefer small weddings. If I ever get married, (not going to happen anytime soon since I’m single) I want mine to be a mercifully short, intimate do for 30. A small gathering of people that I know, people who I want to be there, no-one that comes under the category of a friend of a friend of a long distant relative that I have never seen other than being present at weddings and funerals. If my future wife wants to spend six months drowning in vast lists and worrying about cakes and cars, and seating plans then the relationship can only be doomed to failure and is the perfect reason for not getting married in the first place.