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Non-Fiction
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| Package up your Grandma | |
| By jean.day | ||||||||
| 21 December 2006 | ||||||||
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I wrote this for a U3A assignment to write on Immortality. That was a few years ago, before I started writing on this site. Those of you who have followed my writing will know that Charles' diary is on this site - and so is the historical fiction book I wrote about him - or half of it anyway, in the story called Mary Eagle's Journal - and the first book I published with Lulu is a combination of her diary and his journal updated and obviously changed by me to make it fit 1859 instead of the 1851 in which it was written. Package Up Your Grandma "Living forever. Never dying." "Likely or worthy to be famous for all time." These are the two main dictionary definitions of immortality. I believe that the soul lives forever, and may possibly be reincarnated in future lives. But I don't wish to spend this essay talking about that. I think we all have an obligation to try to bring a bit of immortality into the lives of those we know or have known. Many people do this already, without even knowing that they are doing it. They repeat stories to their children and grandchildren that they have heard from their mothers, and grandmothers and great-grandmothers. This oral tradition has gone on since the beginning of time, and as a result many of our "old wives' tales" are really words of wisdom made immortal. Perhaps a better way to create immortality is by writing down in some more permanent form, the stories and facts about the lives of our family and friends who we deem to be worthy of being remembered and then sharing this information. "For all time" seems like a big goal - but from small beginnings great things happen. If you don't start the process of making your grandmother's words immortal, then it won't happen by itself. There is a great hobby these days of finding out and writing down the facts relating to one's ancestors - their dates of birth, marriage and death, and how many children they had, etc. But to my way of thinking, these facts are bare and cold. What would be necessary for someone to become immortal would be their thoughts and actions written down, and read by others, and passed on to future generations. I've made an attempt to create immortality for someone I am not related to, never knew, and only found out about by accident. His name is Charles Walker, and he lived from 1830-1908, most of his life in Worcester. I came to know about him when we found his diary for 1851 stuck amongst my father-in-law's books. Nobody knows for sure how it got there, because Charles was not a relative. He was no doubt a family friend, as we have found a picture addressed to his daughter, and a photo labelled with his name from about 1890. But my idea is that either when he died, or perhaps when his daughter died, his books were given as a job lot to my husband's grandfather (he was the person in the picture which was addressed to Charlotte Walker). Another theory might be that the diary was lent to some family member (as it contains many interesting details relating to the Great Exhibition of 1851 which Charles attended on two occasions) and the diary was never returned. Charles (or someone) made a sort of index in the front of the diary mentioning the dates for some of the more interesting entries. Friday 28th March, 1851 Mr. Needham [Charles' boss] found his drawer open Wednesday morning and two of the half-crowns missing; consequently unpleasant proceedings, consultation with Sergeant Chipp, & suspicions, chiefly laying on Charles Cale and Bishop, the watchman, examining, questioning all day. Yesterday, the questioning etc. was renewed; suspicion lying heaviest on Mrs. Cale; Charles discharged & ordered to quit his house.- Today began by Mrs. Cale coming to me on going down to the office & asserting her innocence & indignation at the charge. I began to think that none of our regular men have done it.- Mrs. Cale on hearing Mr. N.'s accusation of her in the yard came to the office & talked, argued, protested with him from 1 until half past four, & mastered him; ended by Charles being recalled to his place. [In Accounts it shows Mrs. Cale being given 1/3 worth of tea - perhaps to make up for the insult]." July 27, 1851 "...at 8 this morning Uncle & I started to London reaching there at 1/2 past 2; Father & Ned Walker meeting us in the Station, & afterwards Mr. Robt Eagle, Alfred Harris & a Mr. Tait; to the Gen. Wolfe in Little Grays Inn Lane; dinner there; didn't like the place; took 1d packet to Westminster Bridge & secured lodgings with Mrs. Schofield, 21 Mount Gardens, Westminster Rd. for Father & Ned and I, back to Grays Inn Lane for luggage, calling in at Westminster Abbey. evening prayers, dim, solemn, & rich effect; Up & out by 9 o'clock & away across the Green Park & Buckingham Palace to the Exhibition with many thousands of others; a 1/ paid we enter this palace of wonders; from 10 til 6 examining one portion of the building- the Brown & Sheffield ware; noting especially Gillotts stand on Pens & Holders, the Fine Arts Court, the Medieval Court, until tired with wandering we came out, had tea in the Knightsbridge Road at a French cafe & went to Drury Lane Theatre, which opened this night with a company of American & French equestrians; Caroline there, being the main attraction, a very dull American clown had to be hissed deservedly off. July 30, 1851 This morning we crossed by the Horse Guards & went to the Vernon Gallery at Marlboro House; Hogarths paintings wonderfully minute & careful, full of deep meaning; modern paintings by Etty, Turner, Ward, Landseer, Roberts, Maclise, Stanfield & Others; then to the dreary collection at the National Gallery, then to the Coliseum, the music and quiet beauty of which was quite enchanting; a real waterfall too in the Swiss scene; in Regent St. we put Ned in a bus with a wrong address, & had to make to our lodgings after him; crossing the Horse Guards saw the Hero of a Hundred Fights- the great Duke of Wellington, a tottering feeble old man now, mount his horse; found Ned at home, then Father & I went to the Lyceum Theatre, highly delighted; the scenery is King Charming, very wonderful, Chas Mathew was in Only a Clod, excellent, the general acting, costume reflects of Court Beauties marvellous." First I transcribed the diary, which although written in beautiful copperplate, was somewhat difficult to read. I then researched all the references that were not immediately clear from the entries in the diary. It was important to establish first of all who the writer was, because he had not signed his diary - no doubt never thinking it would need to be identified by anyone as belonging to him. He does mention that he wrote off to a newspaper commenting on the work of some clairvoyant, and he signed the letter "Walker". The assumption I made was either that it was his name, or that for some reason he had chosen it as a pseudonym. The name Walker comes up in talking about his relatives throughout the diary, so it seemed fairly certain it was his last name. However, I found an entry that I thought would give me absolute confirmation of his name. He was the executor of his uncle Henry Mayfield's will and whose death date and place were given. So I wrote to the record office in York, and asked for a copy of Henry's death certificate. Sure enough, amongst the details were the names of his executors, including Charles Simpson Walker. I was so pleased that I had found out who my diarist was. Having done all the research I could by finding out the details of Charles birth, death, marriage, will, and details of his work in Worcester, mostly found through the Worcester records office, I felt that I knew him pretty well. But I felt a compulsion to share this information with others. I couldn't find any details of surviving relatives. He had had a son who died young, and four daughters. Two left home in their mid forties, and as a consequence were more or less disregarded by Charles after that. His other two daughters I assumed had never got married. There would no doubt have been many descendants from his dozens of cousins mentioned in the diary, but I have no direct knowledge of any of them. When I wrote up the diary along with notes of what I had found out about it, I assumed that it would be of interest to a publisher. I sent if off to several, and had it returned immediately. I sent an excerpt to the Birmingham Genealogy Society, and they published it in their little newsletter, but nothing more came of that. I tried other publishers, but again with no luck. I took a copy to the Worcester Historical Society and another to the Worcester Record office, but little interest was shown. So I thought that Charles might be immortalised via the internet. I had webpages as part of the package connected to my internet server, so I went on-line with my story. That was about 10 years ago. I have had perhaps 15 "hits" so to an extent it has done what I wished it to do. I have had letters from relatives of people mentioned in the diary - friends or neighbours of Charles. I had an email from a student writing up his PhD in Vegetarianism. Charles was one of the first who belonged to the Vegetarian Society, and in fact was the Secretary for Worcestershire (although he says there were only 2 other members in the county). So through that PhD book, Charles will have a mention in a more permanent form. I have had emails from people who thought they were relatives, but when the birth and marriage details were looked into, it turned out that although they were most likely related to Charles' relatives, (he was listed as the best man at their relative's wedding) they were not direct descendants. I know that my website will not outlive me, but hopefully the contents of it can be transferred to my children's websites, and their children's after them. So in time to come, and perhaps in 150 years some people will still be able to read about and know who Charles Simpson Walker was. Why should he be immortalised? You might well ask, Why should Samuel Pepys Diary be remembered? Charles wrote about life in mid Victorian times, and he wrote well and in great detail. Who cares? I do. So package up your grandama, write a story about her life and her sayings, put in a few pictures of her, send copies to all her grandkids, and make her immortal.
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