You never know the ways in which genealogical research will enrich your life

A photograph of our grandfather turned up in December last year— stirring some excitement. Despite my intention to write about it immediately, though, I got involved with other things and let it wait. Then, when my husband and I travelled to England recently to visit our daughter Tammy, I expected to do some genealogical research on the ground, but it happened to be during the heatwave in July. Not a good time for driving from one county to another and pouring over microfiche machines to locate copies of original documents!

Luckily, there is no pressure to update the blog or track down records. The records I would have been looking for had nothing to do with my application for UK citizenship. I'm happy to say that good progress has been made in that regard. All the effort I have put in over the years to source evidence of our English roots has at last paid off.

I will never regret the fact that the process of proving that Grandad was born in England took so long because it got me started on this family history journey. It is a journey I wouldn't previously have attempted but it has yielded enormous pleasure. Travel has taken on new meaning since I began taking note of where my ancestors came from. Whereas places like York and Ipswich never meant anything to me before, their names now ring with significance as I recall what I have unearthed about my great-great-grandparents on my mother's side. My taste in reading, too, has changed; I never used to be much interested in historical fiction but now I relish the chance to read about characters living in England during the 1800s and early 1900s, especially when authors have taken the trouble to research the socio-economic conditions of the day and describe the landscape in a way that conjures up its very smells and sounds.

The photo in this blog post depicts Grandad with his mother Maude. I know this because of the names scribbled on the back in pencil, but I'm not entirely sure who scribbled the names and whether they are even correct. All I know is that the photograph was in a tiny silver frame from my mother's collection of tiny framed family photographs. Mom, it must be said, was known to have put artificial flowers in pots and collected pictures of strangers to achieve a cottage look in her home, so nothing is guaranteed. Yet there seems to be a resemblance between the woman in this photograph and the other pictures we have of Maude, and the little boy in the sailor outfit could very easily be David, aged somewhere around four years old. If that is the case, the picture dates back to about 1906.

As I write this, I realise how far behind I have fallen in recording what I have learnt in the past few months. Hopefully, I will find time to remedy that soon. If anyone has found this blog interesting and can contribute any information to my ancestor search, please do get in touch.

Evidence of a good start in life

The search for evidence of Grandad's early life continues, but recently I made a couple of discoveries which I will write about in two separate blog posts. This post is about a medal I found, and the following one will be about a previously-forgotten photograph.

The story begins with my daughter Tammy coming out from England in September and asking to look for the ring my mother left her. Putting aside an afternoon at the end of her visit, we took out all the boxes I had stored containing my parents' special items. Tammy found the ring and a couple of gold wristwatches, well-worn but still very pretty, which I put aside to have checked by our jeweller. Then we proceeded to look through the other trinkets in the box to see what else was there. The last time we had gone through the trinkets was when we had been sorting my mother's possessions after she died, and that was eleven years ago.

Tammy came across what looked like a very old metal shield. It was difficult to read the inscription on it but she eventually succeeded. It said: "King's Medal, Awarded by the London County Council for punctual attendance, 1910-1911". The name "David Scott Ritchie" was also inscribed on the reverse of the medal, although it was extremely faint.

This was an Amazing find, since we have no other artefacts relating to Grandad's schooldays. In 1910 he would have been eight years old! The medal had been presented to him in his second or third year of school, and the fact that he attended regularly said a lot about his stable life at the time.

Tammy looked up the provenance of school attendance medals and learnt that they had been manufactured in several versions. Originally, they bore the name and face of Queen Victoria, then King Edward VII, then King George V. Grandad's King's Medal showed King George V on its face. It was presented by the London County Council to all children who attended school regularly, but only children with a 100% attendance record for the school year and whose behaviour was considered commendable by the headmaster qualified to receive it.

Apparently, the medal came with an orange ribbon but Grandad's medal had lost that, no doubt due to rough handling over the 110 years since it was awarded! I like to think of Grandad being proud of his achievement and of him holding onto the trinket as a reminder of his early years at school.

I took the medal, along with Mom's two gold wristwatches, to our jeweller for cleaning. Imagining that the King's Medal would come up shiny and new-looking, I was disappointed when I was told it couldn't be polished. Apparently, the metal they used was ordinary tin, or something like it, so any attempt to polish it would probably damage it. Later, when Tammy visited again, she  looked at the object I had taken to the jeweller and pronounced my mistake; I had taken an ordinary belt buckle, so it was no wonder the jeweller was confused about my claim that it was a family heirloom. Fortunately, there was no need for us to search in the boxes for the actual King's Medal because Tammy had images of it on her phone from when we had shared the discovery with my aunt and cousins. Maybe I could still get it polished, but the images are fine for now!

While the discovery of a school attendance medal cannot replace a birth certificate as proof that Grandad was born in England, it certainly adds something to the story. We know from the 1911 census that Grandad was at the home of his aunt and uncle, Emily and William Smith, on the night the census was taken. From what I have found out about his parents [see other posts about his father, David Scott Ritchie Sr and his mother, Maude], I feel certain that he was living with the Smiths permanently. From what I have learned about the Smith children and grandchildren, it appears that Emily and William placed a high value on education. So then, while the medal awarded to the nine-year-old David doesn't tell us how he became an engineer, it does satisfy my curiosity about how he avoided the long-term effects of having a mentally-ill father and a mother who worked as a cook in residence for aristocratic families. Thanks to the Smiths of St Johns Wood, my grandmother Sandy, mother Wendy, aunt Gillian and all their descendants benefitted from a stable home life, optimism about the future, and a sense of responsibility that translated itself into a sound work ethic and professional success.

Photo: Grandad's medal for good attendance at school..

  

Looking for relatives in Saskatchewan, Canada

When I first started researching my roots, I fully expected to discover that my maternal grandfather wasn't the biological child of David Scott Ritchie Sr, the footman from Mayfair. I had grown up with the family myth that Grandad's strong resemblance to Henry Duke of Gloucester suggested some sort of misattributed paternity. Perhaps his mother Maude had been seduced by her employer or had a liaison with another man. Yet a solid DNA link to a cousin in Canada confirm the documentary records, eliminating all doubt on that score.

In spite of this, I did not pay much attention to the Canadian link. Since my grandparents left England and came directly to South Africa, it seemed more useful to focus on connections in England itself. Months have gone by with little progress however, and so, in an effort to get things moving again, I am revisiting the story. My hope is that someone in Saskatchewan or thereabouts may come across this post, recognise some of the names and places in it, and get in touch.

The story begins with my great-grandfather's brother, William Ritchie. He was born in Stratford, Essex, England on 6 September 1871, the eldest son of William  and Emma Eliza Ritchie. His father died of ptomaine poisoning when he was 11, leaving his mother to raise her four children, including an infant, on her own.

William, it appears, left home as soon as he finished school. He became a furniture dealer and married Ada Sarah Ann Burfoot in Blackfriars, London. The couple settled in Brixton and had three sons; William, born in 1902, David Scott,,, born in 1903, and Thomas Scott, born in 1904. Then, In 1913, they emigrated to Saskatchewan, Canada and became Canadian citizens.

I should say at this point that David Scott of Brixton is not the same David Scott who was my grandfather, even though they have the same name and were born just one year apart. David Scott of Brixton was Grandad's first cousin — not that Grandad ever spoke about him, or any other cousins for that matter. The two boys could have grown up as close friends had the Brixton Ritchies not left England. It isn't clear why they moved, unless William and Ada simply felt like a fresh start. Perhaps they wanted to escape having to look after William's sister-in-law, given that his brother — my great-grandfather — had been sent away to an asylum. Whatever the case, William must have been relieved to have gotten his wife and sons out of Europe by the time war broke out a year later.

I haven't researched all three of William's sons but I do know that David Scott of Brixton married Lula Belle Samuels in Winnipeg, Canada in 1927. Lula Belle was the daughter of Edgar F Samuels and Sarah Jane Warren. She was born on 23 March 1902 in the United States, emigrated to Manitoba in 1912, and moved to Saskatchewan in 1916. David and Lula Belle lived in Melville all their lives. David died on 9 December 1972 and Lula Belle died in 1982.

David and Lula Belle had one daughter named Dorothy Elizabeth Ritchie. Dorothy Elizabeth was born on 9 July 1928 in Melville, Saskatchewan and married Charles Edward Stewart in  Melville in about 1950. The couple had several children, many of whom are still living in Canada today. Dorothy Elizabeth Stewart died on 19 July 2005 in Toronto.

As I said, it's my hope that this blog post will  attract the attention of readers with shared connections to William and Ada Ritchie. If that happens, we will be able to exchange information on the parents of William Sr and my great-grandfather. I am especially interested in hearing about how my distant cousins in Canada feel about the so-called "old country", since I too am descended from immigrants. Please contact me if this post rings any bells, or share it with others whom you think may benefit from it. Thank you.

Photo credit: "White-tailed Deer, provincial animal of Saskatchewan" by Daryl Mitchell.

 Daryl Mitchell

New information gleaned from oral interview

Some exciting new information has come to light about my grandfather's whereabouts following the 1911 census. It came through an interview I did with my oldest living relative, my aunt Gillian. I conducted the interview via Zoom using the recording function, then transcribed the important parts into my notes. Here is what I learnt:

My aunt travelled to Europe with her friend in the fifties. While in London, she visited several  elderly relatives, among them her father's uncle, Uncle Alf. This would have been Grandad's mother's youngest brother whom I had on record as Alfred Parker. According to my aunt, Uncle Alf was like a father to her dad and her Dad was very fond of him.

 "He was a big man and he was a lovely man," said my aunt Gillian. "He really was. He and his wife, they were very happy and they lived very simply. At that stage, I didn't really take much notice, I went over there, we had a cup of tea, and that was Uncle Alf sorted out." She added, "To us, he was old. I don't know what age they were but to us they were old, whereas we were young, we were hitching around Europe."

Hearing my aunt talk about her visit, I was surprised. According to what I had found out so far, Alfred was born in 1884 in Marylebone and was living with his widowed mother Jane in both the 1901 and 1911 censuses. This had led me to assume Alfred had never married but I was wrong. Preliminary research turned up a record on  Family Search that showed he married Florence Edith Harper in 1912.

Even more surprising was the information that Alfred was like a father to David. Did this mean David had lived with Alfred and his wife? The 1911 census showed that David was at the home of his maternal aunt and uncle, Emily and William Smith, in St John's Wood. Now I wondered if he had just been visiting, or if he had moved in with Alfred and Florence when they married the following year.

I did my best to imagine how the relationship between Alfred and David had developed.  Alfred would have been 18 at the time David was born. He would have been 25 when David's father, David Scott Ritchie Sr, was admitted to the Hanwell asylum. The Hanwell admission records show that he was with Emily and William in 1909, which is where he was in 1911 as well. Perhaps, then, he did only move in with Alfred after Alfred got married. The marriage certificate might provide clues but even more useful would be the 1921 census, showing where David was living at age 19. Access to the 1921 census is currently prohibited by the 100-year privacy rule but that restriction will fall away next year.

  I'm not sure what year my aunt visited Uncle Alf in London. The record on Family Search states that Alfred died in 1956 at the age of 72. Gillian would have been 24 at the time. I doubt she and her friend would have travelled to Europe earlier than that, so her memory of him as an old man was accurate.

My aunt Gillian is 88 going on 89 as I write this, and in very good health. It's truly a privilege to be able to learn family history from her first-hand accounts. Speaking to her gave me some excellent leads which I will be following up with online research and assistance from a professional genealogist. Look out for more information as I come across it!

Photo credit: "Wood Marylebone, Marylebone, NW1" by Ewan Munro

 

New and surprising possibilities arising from my study of shared DNA matches

The lockdown in South Africa has created more time for pastimes like family history research. This week, I've had fun devoting several days to working through my DNA matches, Looking specifically for relatives on the Ritchie side. In this post, I will summarise my method for finding missing information and lay out my findings thus far.

As mentioned earlier in this blog, I tested my DNA through 23andMe in early 2019. The platform has some really useful features, including a place to make notes on the profile page of every one of my DNA relatives. I use this area to write down interesting facts about each person, such as whether they list a significant family name and which branch of my family they might belong to. I also keep track of when i message them, as well as anything they tell me by return message.

Last year, i took advantage of a special offer and had my aunt’s DNA tested as well. She is the daughter of David Scott Ritchie and Florence Sanderson, the only remaining relative I have in that generation. This time the test was done through My Heritage. I copied my results from 23andMe and added them to My Heritage. This let me compare our results with a view to clarifying which set of relatives I should focus on.

Both 23andMe and My Heritage offer excellent features for amateur genealogists. Furthermore, each has its own database of new matches. Using them together, I came up with my own little treasure hunt that kept me absorbed for hours.

The method involvs listing the surnames on my aunt’s chart of DNA relatives, then searching for those surnames among my 1400-odd matches on 23andMe. Here is an example of what I was able to learn:

One of the surnames on my aunt's list was Knight. when I turned to my list of DNA relatives on 23andMe and typed Knight into the search bar, seven results came up. The strongest match was someone with the surname H and the name Knighton on their surname list. Not very encouraging at first glance, until I discovered that the name Bland was there as well. Bland is the surname of my great-grandfather's mother, but on my grandmother Florence Sanderson's side, not David's

Further investigation showed that another relative linked to the surname Knight may have come from East London, which is where Florence Sanderson [Sandy] was born. I messaged the person to ask for more information. If the Knight surname does indeed belong on Florence's side, I will need to pursue some of the other, apparently weaker, surname matches to identify the ones that belong on David's side.

Meanwhile, I made what I thought was an exciting discovery on 23andMe. I found a DNA match with the surname Hilliard, a version of which belongs firmly on David's side. Emma Eliza Hillyard was the mother of David Scott Ritchie Sr, my great-grandfather. On the profile page of this DNA relative, I wrote excitedly, "I messaged her on 20 April 2020. It is very possible that we are related through the parents of William Hillyard [born about 1830 in Suffolk], who was the father of Emma Eliza Hillyard. If this turns out to be so, the DNA link will confirm my genetic connection to David Ritchie Sr, and thereby prove that Grandad was not adopted."

The reply I received didn't sound very hopeful, however. The person concerned provided lots of interesting information about her branch of the Hilliard family but they live in Australia and have little information about their English roots.

Undaunted, I visited the profiles of all the DNA relatives shared by my Hilliard relative and me in an effort to confirm the connection to Emma Eliza. Initially, I was encouraged because many of them either live in the UK or can trace their roots to Great Britain. however, one DNA relative put paid to this hope. He came up as a shared relative between me and someone who is almost certainly connected to me through my Dutch ancestors.

Even so, there is a glimmer of hope. My Hilliard relative is over ninety and lived for some time in the Netherlands after WWII. It is possible that our shared relative with links to Holland may be a young person descended from one of her children. 

If that is the case, it may completely scramble my theories up to this point. I have been confidently placing anyone with hints of Dutch ancestry on my father's side of the family, since his mother descended from a very large and established family in the Rotterdam area. Now it looks as though several of  these DNA relatives with links to Holland may, in fact, all fit on my mother's side. How fascinating! I might actually be close to a breakthrough!

Photo credit: "Amsterdam canal houses by Johan Teyler (1648 -1709)" Original from The Rijksmuseum. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

Refining my search for DNA relatives

I had intended to keep this blog updated regularly but, unfortunately, I have let my reporting lapse. This is a catch-up post. Contrary to the way things appear, I have made some progress in my search for my grandfathers background.

Most importantly, my cousin and I took a decision at the end of 2019 to get my aunts DNA assessed. We ordered the kit from My Heritage and my aunt supplied a sample for analysis. When the results came back, I uploaded my own DNA results from 23andMe to My Heritage so the two samples could be compared. This made it possible to separate the DNA relatives on my maternal grandparents’ side from the DNA relatives on my paternal grandparents’ side

Even so, the process of tracing family lines is fairly complicated. Most of the DNA relatives that come up are third to sixth cousins. They could relate to people in my grandmother Sandy’s lying and not my grandfather David’s line. I will have to keep plugging away until I find DNA relatives with surnames I recognise or, at least, from distinctive locations in the UK before i can say for sure that a particular grouping of matches belongs to David himself.

Other news is that I have made an application for David Scott Ritchie’s unabridged death certificate in the hope that it will show his place of birth. As described earlier in this blog, all attempts to find his birth certificate have been in vain. In order to apply for UK citizenship, I need some sort of official documentation proving that he was born in England. The unabridged death certificate should, theoretically, have this information on it although I still don’t know whether it does because it has not yet been found. This in spite of the fact that I have been waiting on the South African Department of Home Affairs for a full 12 months.

Such are the challenges of tracing ones lineage! I could get frustrated but prefer to keep a positive outlook and regard it all as one big, fascinating adventure. When all is said and done, the past is the past and we must live in the present.
Photo credit: "DNA Kit" by Geoff Stearns.

Who in the world was Ivy Francis Smith?

I wrote in my previous post about the surprise discovery that Ivy Francis Smith, child of Emily and William Smith, was actually a girl, not a boy. ivy was, of course, the contemporary of my grandfather, David Scott Ritchie Jr. She is one of the siblings whose lives I am currently investigating in order to locate contemporaries of mine who might function as second cousins by virtue of shared adoptive great-grandparents.

Grandad was obviously not Ivy's biological brother because he was the son of Maude and David Ritchie. Maude, you will remember, was in full-time service as a live-in cook, while David was in the London County Asylum being treated for insanity. Ivy, on the other hand, appears to have been fostered. When she lists herself on the 1939 Register along with two other members of the Smith family, she gives her surname as "Batchelor [Fordham[".

Now, it would make sense if Ivy was born Fordham and married somebody called Batchelor before 1939. However, things weren't that simple. I found a marriage record stating that Ivy F Fordham married James L Batchelor in Wandsworth, but the marriage date is 1945. Could it be that Ivy and James became engaged or unofficially married before he went to war and only registered the event after he returned?

There were no children, which is not surprising, considering that Ivy would have been 37 at the start of the Second World War and 43 when the war ended. She lived till the age of 76 and died in Wandsworth in 1978.

Am I disappointed with these findings? Yes, in a way, because ivy and James' children would have been contemporaries of my mother and aunt, and it would have been interesting to learn about where they lived and what kind of careers they followed. Their children, in turn, would have been accessible online to me today, and I could have contacted them via Facebook or some other social media network to compare notes about Emily and William Smith. Yet I have no other connection to the Fordham family besides the fact that ivy, like Grandad, spent many years living with Maude's sister Emily. I might just be wasting my time if I work on taking this line of inquiry further.

At this point, I feel rather stuck with regard to the members of the Smith household. If all of the Smith children were fostered or adopted as I suspect, I should rather focus my attention on something else. Admittedly, I could be missing some important clues by not consulting newspaper archives, and perhaps I will seek help at some stage in this regard. At present, I'm only able to consult records which have been transcribed and are accessible to my screen-reader.

Photo credit: "1941 Soda Ad, Royal Crown Soda with British Actress Anna Neagle" by Classic Film.

The strange case of the Smith family of St John's Wood

This post is a continuation of my previous post about finding second cousins on my mother's side. In that post, I reached the conclusion that I should examine the children of Emily and William Smith, the couple who cared for my grandfather David Scott Ritchie from about 1909 onwards. This led to some frustrating research, a surprising finding and an illuminating dream.

Emily and William had 5 children of their own, as far as I can tell from census records, plus Grandad, their "adopted" son who was living with them in St John's Wood in 1911. Here is what I managed to find by trawling through hints on Findmypast.co.uk:

LS Smith, a daughter born in 1892 in Marylebone, could be one of several people in the military records, death records and 1939 Register. There seems to be no birth or baptism record . Perhaps the date of birth on the census is incorrect, except that Emily and William only married in 1891, making it unlikely that she was born before 1892.

Frank E Smith, a son born in 1893 in Marylebone, is slightly less mysterious, although I still had to make some big assumptions based on the year of his birth. I believe he was born on 20 July 1893, served in the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment in 1914, and married Ella B [maiden name unknown]. Together they had a son named Vernon F Smith, who was born on 28 August 1929. At the time of the 1939 Register, Frank, Ella and Vernon were living in Dorchester Way in what appears now to be a 5-bedroom semi-detached house. Frank was a post office sorter. He died in Marylebone in 1960. Note that no birth or baptism record turned up for him either.

Alice M Smith, a daughter born in 1899 in Marylebone, is once again a very mysterious individual. She may have served as a nurse in a volunteer unit but another record of a nurse with a similar name gives the wrong birth date. An Elsie M Smith crops up in Marylebone married to Ernest Smith, but they would have had to share the same name before marriage if she had remained a Smith after marriage, which seems unlikely. Again, no birth certificate turned up in the hints and no marriage certificate.

Ivy Smith is a really difficult case. A son born in 1902 in Marylebone, he was Grandad's contemporary and would likely have been in the same class at school. I will come back to him.

Richard William Smith, a son born in 1904 in Marylebone, is thankfully a little less complicated. However, as in the case of Frank E Smith, I had to guess his identity based on his birth year, there being several other Richard Smiths in the mix. I believe he was born on 16 January 1904 and became a general clerk. He married, although his wife was not present with him in Wandsworth on the 1939 Register, nor any children. He died in Wandsworth in 1981.

Now to the surprising finding. Although Richard William Smith's household in the 1939 Register didn't include his wife or children, it does include his widowed mother, Emily Eliza Smith. It also, interestingly enough, includes an Ivy Francis Smith, born on 2 January 1902. You will remember that Ivy was previously listed as a son of Emily and William, but now she is listed as female, working as a saleslady in a drapery shop. Clearly, the earlier census record was incorrect on this point. But there is something else which is troubling. Instead of giving her surname as Smith, she gives it as "Batchelor [Fordham]". If the name "Batchelor" is not confusing enough, harking back to the question of her gender, then surely the name in brackets, her maiden name, should be Smith, not Fordham?

I went to bed pondering this issue, then had a dream which brought clarity. In the dream, I was questioning a little girl about her parents' names, trying to solve a mystery about where Ivy fitted in. I awoke with the conviction that she must have been adopted. Fordham was the name of her biological mother. Hmmm. Interesting....

What if Emily and William could not have children of their own? What if all their children were adopted? It would certainly explain the absence, as far as I can presently tell, of birth records for them under the Smith name. It would also fit in with their informal adoption of my grandfather. This is all a matter of speculation for now as I'm still very much in the middle of my research into this family, but it does point a way forward. I believe that, by further investigating Ivy Batchelor [Fordham[, I will discover more about the rest of the family, even if it doesn't lead to second cousins who are actual DNA relatives!

Photo credit: "Frost fairies" by Plum leaves.

In search of second cousins on my mother's side

I've decided to take a break from reporting on David Ritchie Sr's mental illness in order to post a couple of updates on my search for DNA relatives. According to 23andMe, we each have about 250 first and second cousins, which I find amazing and hard to believe. my own family is really small, with just 2 cousins on my mother's side and 2 on my father's side. How can it be that this number could multiply so quickly?

Let's look at definitions. A first cousin is someone who shares a set of grandparents with you. He or she is the child of one of your parent's siblings. In my case, my mother's sister had 2 children who are my first cousins on my mother's side, and my father's sister had 2 children who are my first cousins on my father's side. Neither my mother nor my father had a brother, so that's it.

A second cousin, by definition, is someone who shares a set of great-grandparents with you. he or she is the child of one of your parents' first cousins. At this point, i find myself rather stumped. i don't know any of my parents' first cousins. Why? It never even occurred to me to ask about it while my parents were alive. Now that I am looking into my family's history, it strikes me as rather puzzling and worth investigating.

I'll focus today on my mother's side. Her parents, Dave and Sandy Ritchie, were both only children. At least, that's the story. Grandma definitely didn't have siblings. Grandad always claimed that he had no brothers or sisters but that's not completely true. i have a census record where his mother Maude states that she gave birth to 2 children, one of whom is living and one of whom died. Then there is the fact that Grandad appears on the 1911 census as the "son" of Emily and William Smith. Did they formally adopt him? I don't think so, as it is Maude, not Emily, who is pictured in photographs of my grandfather and my aunt as a baby. Yet they must have thought of him as part of their family to have called him a son on the census.

To give some background, Emily was Maude's elder sister. Emily and William were looking after Grandad because his father, my great-grandfather, had been committed to an asylum a couple of years earlier. Their children would have been like brothers and sisters to my grandfather while he was at school. That being the case, it follows that the Smiths' grandchildren should have been like my mother's cousins. And, taking the argument to its logical conclusion, the children of those grandchildren should be like my second cousins, if not by blood then by virtue of descending from a common childhood home.

As far as locating these people is concerned, I'm making slow progress. I've managed to establish that the Smiths had 5 of their own children, all of whom were born in Marylebone. They are, in order of birth, LS Smith [a girl] born in 1892, FE Smith [a boy] born in 1893, Alice M Smith born in 1899, Ivy Smith [a boy] born in 1902, and Richard William Smith born in 1904. Now the challenge is to track their spouses and children, and those children's spouses and children, until I eventually find descendants of Emily and William who belong to my own generation.

Granted, these descendants wouldn't actually be my second cousins, but so what? I'm going to be painfully short of second cousins if i don't count them. Besides, they are still my relatives on the Parker side. If they don't have old photos and stories about my great-grandfather's childhood, I can still ask them if they are interested in taking a DNA test and locating second cousins of their own.

Photo credit: "Ascending the Stairs" by Thad Zajdowicz.

Found: Letters from the ancestor about whom nobody spoke

It is a rare thing to read the words of an ancestor who lived in a lunatic asylum. I honestly never expected to have this privilege. Yet the casebook which Judy Lester of Kerrywood Research accessed for me contains 3 letters written by David Scott Ritchie himself to the staff at the London County Asylum, giving me insight into both the kind of person he was and his state of mind.

I think I will deal with the letters individually over the next few days. That will give me time and space to fill in background detail and reflect on what they mean for my family. For now, I am going to pause and share my personal feelings, in order to capture the significance of the letters and mark the beginning of a new phase of genealogical research.

I am struck, first, by the realisation that these letters represent the private and most pressing concerns of a man whom I never knew. Had he lived a normal life, he would probably have featured large in my mother's stories, having worked as a footman in Mayfair and a butler in Piccadilly. I might even have met him myself, as he was still alive when I turned 4. Yet no-one ever talked about him, so no-one who is alive today can say what he was like. Now, for the first time, I have a chance to get to know him through his own words and form an impression of him apart from the facts of his occupation and illness.

Second, I feel awed that the letters even exist. As my sister wrote on Facebook, "I'm grateful for the UK's remarkable online archive of ancestry records. It is fascinating to find that documents from the early nineteenth century are available, and the more you look, the more you find." We live in a throw-away culture where letters and formal applications are generally discarded soon after they've been read. Perhaps my great-grandfather's letters survived because they related to a medical case, but even the fact that archivists have taken the trouble to catalogue them and make them available for viewing is extraordinary.

Third, i am moved by a sense of connection with my great-grandfather. It's as if he is communicating with me about his situation, making me aware of things the rest of the family chose to hide. No doubt, they ddid this with the best of intentions, wishing to shield the children from any shame or alarm that such knowledge might cause. I take a different view. Given the increase in understanding around mental illness and its treatment, I believe much can be gained by owning psychological problems in the family.

In fact, had I known that David Ritchie Sr had been committed to a lunatic asylum, I might have initiated the investigation, but I didn't. I wasn't even interested in family history before I started my application for UK citizenship. So, despite the fact that I wasn't looking for him, he made himself known. And now my own experience with and interest in matters of the mind is being called on to tell his story.

This feels like more than just a quest to solve a family mystery for the sake of curiosity. It feels like a mission to bring about truth and reconciliation. Using the letters as a starting point, I am embarking on a journey towards healing in my family and beyond.

Photo credit: "Ancient Wonder" by Lou.

Growing old at St Bernard's Hospital, Hanwell

The 1939 Identity Register for England and Wales was far-reaching. Among those people it enumerated were patients of mental hospitals. Thus we find my great-grandfather, David Scott Ritchie Sr listed as an inmate of St Bernard's Hospital, formerly the London County Asylum, in the month that England declared war on Germany.

The entry is straightforward. David S. Ritchie, born 1874, is married and worked as a butler before admission to the institution. The stated birth date, marital status and occupation tell us this is the right person. From here, we can fill out the picture with what we already know, and this is where it becomes both interesting and extremely sad.

David Ritchie Sr was admitted to the lunatic asylum in 1909. At the time of the 1939 Register, therefore, he has already been an inmate for 30 years. He has a wife named Maude who is 60 years old and temporarily out of work. it is possible that he has not seen her for years because of his mental illness. He has a son who is 37 years old and an electrical engineer heading up an overseas office of a big international company. This son may or may not know where he is or whether he is still alive. He has a daughter-in-law and two young granddaughters who, at the time of the 1939 Register, are holidaying in Dorset and visiting relatives in London. He has a brother, Thomas Scott Ritchie, who is still alive and living nearby, plus grown-up nephews and nieces, the children of his deceased older brother William, living in Canada. All these family connections could have provided meaningful relationships and yet he is alone and being looked after in a paupers' institution for the insane.

I can't help comparing attitudes towards the mentally ill in those days with attitudes today. Times have changed, to be sure, and much has to do with advances in treatment. if David Scott Ritchie Sr suffered from what we now call bipolar disorder, for example, his doctor would have diagnosed lunacy and ordered him to be locked up as a matter of course. Today the same symptoms can be managed with medication and those suffering from it can generally go on with their normal lives, pursuing professional careers and making valuable contributions to the world. Moreover, there isn't the same stigma attached to mental illness as there used to be. Whereas families were inclined to hide away their so-called "mad" relatives, nowadays we extend compassion, encouraging treatment and offering support to those who are afflicted.

Because of the way things were back in the first half of the 20th century, a diagnosis of insanity meant that my great-grandfather was cut off from the outside world. The First World War would have completely passed him by. The Second World War would affect him more personally as the hospital at Hanwell would take a couple of direct hits from German bombers in the Blitz, but even so, the deprivations, losses, hardships and movements to and fro as a result of fighting would probably touch him very little. Spending his days working in the garden, baking bread, doing handcrafts or playing cards, he would go through the war only dimly aware of the changes taking place beyond the hospital walls.

Photo credit: "The Bedroom [1889] by Vincent van Gogh," photographed by Rawpixel Ltd.

Finding Maude Alice Ritchie on the 1939 Register

Documents never cease to amaze me. The 1939 Identity Register taken at the end of September, just weeks after Britain declared war on Germany, is a veritable goldmine of family information, which is why I was so glad when Judy Lester did what I could not and traced Maude Alice Ritchie in that record.

To put this in context, Maude had been separated from her husband David Scott Ritchie Sr since 1909. Her son David, my grandfather, had been cared for by his aunt and uncle, the Smiths, so that she could work. She had been occupied as a cook in domestic service since at least 1911, the year of the census, and possibly many years before that. The First World War had taken place during her late thirties, and she had said goodbye to her son and his wife when they moved to Cape Town, around her 50th birthday. The outbreak of the Second World War and the 1939 Register happened when she was 60.

Thanks to the Register, I now know that Maude was living in a multi-occupancy house at 167 Fernhead Road, Paddington in the first month of the war. From descriptions of Fernhead Road on the internet [bearing in mind I can't read a map[, I gather it runs from Harrow Road in what was then North Paddington through Shirland Road and Fordingley Road. Tall 19th-century houses characterise the area's architecture, nowadays mostly converted into flats. The area is now called Maida Hill and there is a daily market held in the piazza at the intersection between Harrow and Fernhead Roads. Incidentally, the house at number 91 Fernhead Road was the childhood home of the British comedian Norman Wisdom, although he would have been 24 when the register was taken and probably living elsewhere by then.

Maude's neighbours were middle-aged and elderly folk like herself. William and Emily Burge were in their late fifties, he a master builder and she doing "unpaid domestic duties" at home. Edward and Beatrice Winyard were in their late forties, he a porter at a medical institution and she a housewife involved in the preparation of food. The Taylors were a widow and her son, Sarah aged 77 and Stuart aged 39. Stuart was unmarried and a shopkeeper at a grocery store. Maude had no-one living with her and was temporarily without a job. Her entry on the register relating to occupation says "Cook when employed".

This, then, is where my grandfather and his family would have visited her when they travelled from Cape Town to England in the summer of 1939. It is hard to picture my mother at age 4 ascending the stairs of this house full of strangers. I know nothing about Maude's personality, whether she would have hugged the children warmly or maintained a rigid pose befitting of a servant in a well-to-do household. Was she jolly or strict, fond of little ones or disapproving of their playfulness? All I know is that Mom never spoke of her. If Maude encouraged visits to her flat, she certainly didn't make a big impression on her granddaughters.

Photo credit: "Squirrel, Maida Hill, W9: by Ewan Munro.

Locating my maternal grandparents in the first month of World War II

I told in my last post about my grandfather David Scott Ritchie taking his family to England when he travelled on business in 1939. They sailed into Southhampton in July. Then England declared war on Germany on 3 September. I can only imagine their horror at the thought of what this might mean and how they were going to get back to Cape Town.

Since Grandad had meetings to attend in London, however, they could not depart immediately. They stuck to their plans for a holiday in the country and went camping and fossil-collecting instead. We know this because their names appear on the 1939 Register for Seadown Camp , Bridport Road, Dorset. This was another of the records found for me by Judy Lester.

According to the National Archives website, the 1939 Register was taken on 29 September that year. This surprised me as I thought it was taken much earlier in 1939, before war even seemed likely. Swift organisation and hard work must have accompanied the staging of the event and the nation is to be credited for pulling it off in such uncertain times. As for the information gathered, it was used to "produce identity cards and, once rationing was introduced in January 1940, to issue ration books. Information in the Register was also used to administer conscription and the direction of labour, and to monitor and control the movement of the population caused by military mobilisation and mass evacuation."

So to the register entries themselves. Grandad gives his name as David S. Ritchie, his date of birth as 31 March 1902 [the same date that appears on the statutory declaration made in 1918 by his mother Maude], and his occupation as "Electrical Engineer Accountant Machinery". Grandma gives her name as Florence M Ritchie, her date of birth as 28 Dec 1904, and her occupation as "Unpaid Domestic Duties". There are two redacted entries which presumably relate to Auntie Gill and my mother Wendy, aged 7 and 4 respectively.

Although David and Florence were not residents of Bridport Road, it is interesting to note the most common occupations of residents in that area. Men were typically retirees, farm labourers, gardeners, dairy owners, cowmen, general labourers, carters or carpenters. Women were typically involved in unpaid domestic duties, living by their own means, working as housekeepers, school teachers, cooks or house maids, incapacitated or retired. Clearly, this was where folks went to get away from the big smoke.

I'm pleased to see that Seadown Holiday Park is still going strong. According to write-ups and reviews, it offers families a simple, fuss-free holiday a stone's throw from the beach. Dogs are welcome so it could be a nice destination for me and my guide dog Tango when I visit the UK with my sister! Being there will allow us to vividly picture the family in their caravan listening to reports of the war on the radio. Also, to contextualise some oft-repeated stories featuring the campsite that have been handed down to us, but more about those in another post. For now, I'm just chewing on the fact that Mom and Gill were there when war broke out, rather than in far-off Fishhoek. How anxious Grandma must have felt, and how innocent the girls must have seemed as they hunted for shells, built sandcastles and scattered breadcrumbs for the visiting birds.

Photo credit: "West Bay, Bridport [Dorset]" by Michael Day.

Early days in the London County Asylum

Judy Lester of Kerrywood Research found a 1911 census record listing a David Ritchie as one of the inmates of the London County Asylum in Hanwell, Middlesex. Aged 37, born in Tottenham, married and a butler, this David Ritchie was definitely our man.

This was his second year under lock and key. He had been admitted to the London County Asylum in June 1909, the year that Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the South Pole was forced to turn back and the department store Selfridges opened in London. What was life like for him within the institution's walls? Did he dread the heat of the approaching summer? Was he in touch with his wife Maude and son David Scott Ritchie Jr? There is no way of knowing for sure but I can certainly inform my imagination with facts.

The London County Asylum was opened in 1831 as a home for the treatment of insane paupers. For the first time, the government took responsibility for lunatics by covering the cost of their keep and shifting the emphasis from long-term care to treatment and recovery. The use of mechanical restraints was phased out in 1839, thanks to the progressively-minded superintendent John Conolly, who believed that kindness worked better than cruelty. There were courtyards in the centre of the building where patients could get fresh air and sunshine. Work was encouraged and the asylum had its own bakery, brewery and workshop for carpentry. Overcrowding was avoided by continually extending and improving the buildings.

Even though conditions at the asylum were fairly humane, however, David Ritchie Sr must have suffered. As I try to imagine what thoughts swarmed inside his mind, I am reminded of the fact that his young sister, Susan Elizabeth, died at the age of 11. Her death took place just 2 years after the 1891 census in which David had stated he was a junior clerk. Had that tragic event destabilised him? Was he somehow responsible for her death? Is that why he became a footman? Now, 18 years later, was his sleep disturbed by nightmares about demons feasting on his flesh, his daytime fantasies haunted by memories of how he treated Susan while she still lived? Perhaps he felt so guilty and worthless that he shook with fear at the thought of being released from the asylum's highly-regulated environment back into the chaotic and stressful world.

What, meanwhile, was everyone else in his family up to in 1911? I've mentioned before that his wife Maude was working as a cook in Brown Street. As for his son David Scott Ritchie Jr and his mother Emma Eliza Ritchie, those stories will have to wait for another day.

Photo credit: "Park bench" by Bradley Gordon

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A tragic turn of events that led to insanity

I've told the story of how my great-grandmother Maude Alice Parker married a fellow servant, David Scott Ritchie Sr, in the house of the Viscount Hood in February 1901. Whether or not this was a marriage of convenience to legitimise my grandfather is uncertain. What is certain is that the marriage was fraught with problems, as evidenced by documents unearthed by professional researcher Judy Lester.

She found a record showing that David Scott Ritchie of Tottenham was admitted to the London County Asylum in Hanwell, Middlesex on 5 June 1909. He was 36 years old and had been married for just 8 years. Since his marriage, he had worked his way up from being a footman to being a butler, but now something had happened to cause a complete mental breakdown.

It is worth remembering that David's father was a commercial clerk, his older brother William was a furniture dealer, and his younger brother Thomas Scott was in advertising. David himself had been a junior clerk at the age of 17, as recorded in the 1891 census. How then did he end up as a footman in 1901? Did he begin to manifest signs of mental instability in his teens, forcing him to choose a less demanding career? I somehow doubt it. Being a footman and later a butler still demands dillegence and attention to detail. Besides, doctors had not yet come up with treatments for psychiatric conditions that would allow sufferers to continue leading a normal life in society. No, I suspect he found himself in a servant's role because he, like Maude, had done something which caused him to fall from grace.

Scuppered chances of a good career have been known to ruin men before. Particularly if a person has a sensitive nature, disappointment and despair can cripple him. Vincent van Gogh, a highly talented artist, was one such individual who ended up in an asylum. Which leads me to believe that David Scott Ritchie Sr may have been a frustrated genius who could not cope with the prospect of forever serving the gentry when he knew he was capable of more.

Call this wishful thinking, but it makes sense if he is my biological great-grandfather. Grandad, as I've said many times before, was an unusually brilliant man who had far-reaching interests. Had he been locked up in a lunatic asylum, he would have gone mad, especially given his thirst for travel and experiencing life in all its fullness.

I'll come back to the possible reasons for David Scott Ritchie Sr's breakdown in a future post but today I just want to pause and ponder the shocking event of his being diagnosed a lunatic. His freedom was completely taken away. He could no longer hope to regain his respectability in business nor even as a butler. Maude would have to raise her son alone and work hard to keep food on the table. A catastrophe if ever there was one, and no hope of recovery in sight.

Image Description - Corridor in the Asylum (1889) by Vincent Van Gogh. Original from the MET Museum. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel

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A census record that conveys the promise of a good career

Another document that Judy Lester of Kerrywood Research turned up for me was an 1891 census record for David Scott Ritchie, my great-grandfather. It shows him living in St Ann's Chambers in Blackfriars, City of London with his widowed mother and 9-year-old sister, Susan Elizabeth Ritchie. David Scott is 17 years old and working as a junior clerk.

This makes sense but is also surprising. His being a junior clerk is in keeping with his father William's occupation as a commercial clerk for an oil merchant. Evidently, David showed some acumen in mathematics and record-keeping which allowed him to find an entry-level office job. On the other hand, it is surprising because the following census, taken in 1901, lists him as a footman in Mayfair. His occupation on his marriage certificate a year later confirms the footman position. What brought about this change in fortune? Here is a riddle to puzzle over!

For today, though, I want to concentrate on circumstances as they were for David in 1891.

With his father gone and his older brother William chasing his own career, David and his mother must have found it hard to make ends meet. The census shows that Emma Eliza Ritchie worked as a tie maker. Between her earnings and the money David made from his bookkeeping job, there could hardly have been enough to pay the rent on their rooms and meet their basic needs.

As if struggling financially wasn't enough, David had another problem. His 9-year-old sister Susan wasn't well. She had, according to the census, suffered from epilepsy since birth. In those days, this would have been a serious and worrying complaint. Seizures were untreatable by medication and would have put young Susan in constant danger of hitting her head against a hard corner or falling into the fire.

Nevertheless, the City of London was where everything happened. Even if "junior clerk" only meant sitting at a desk and writing down names and addresses of job-seekers in a book, David was on his way to becoming a respectable office worker. Perhaps he dreamed, as he strode across Blackfriars Bridge, of one day owning a newspaper or running a transport business. Perhaps he gazed at beautiful women in passing carriages and pictured himself marrying into an aristocratic family. Despite the hardships at home, he was almost certainly ambitious and impatient to follow in his successful older brother's footsteps.

Photo credit: "A writer's friends" by Caseywest

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Young love in the streets of Mayfair

After walking through Marylebone and seeing the modest houses where Maude had lived as a child, we found Knightsbridge and Mayfair striking in their grandeur. We were approaching Chesterfield Street where my great-grandmother and great-grandfather were in service together. How they must have congratulated themselves on landing such enviable jobs!

As explained in an earlier blog post, the census record in which they both appear was hard to trace. I had been looking for Maude Parker in the 1901 census and eventually found her listed as Alice Parker. David, for his part, was listed as Daria. Finding them living and working in the same household was an incredible surprise. Better still, it explained how they must have met.

The census record revealed that they were both single and occupied as household staff. They were listed along with 10 other staff members, the most senior being Charles Dixon, aged 55, who must have been the butler. The head of the house was the Viscount Francis Wheler Hood and the only other family members living there were the Viscountess Edith Hood and their adult daughter, the Honourable Dorothy Hood.

We found the address very easily because I had researched the property and discovered that it was now the premises of the High Commission of the Bahamas. Although the house looks fairly compact from the front, it is apparently very spacious inside. In addition to the rooms having high ceilings, the property stretches far back, affording ample space for entertaining and accommodating guests.

In my imagination I can see Maude Alice Parker standing just behind the butler, Charles Dixon, as he holds open the front door. She is ready to take the cloaks and hats from the arriving visitors and show them into the parlour. Meanwhile, David, serving as footman, directs the carriage and horses to the courtyard at the back. Outside on the street, a young boy in heavy boots lights a row of oil lamps. From a house across the way, a silver-haired man with a walking-stick steps out for an evening of high-stakes gambling at his nearby gentleman's club.

I may not be accurate in my depiction of the details of this scene but the exercise is fruitful in making me contemplate

the actual lives of my ancestors. Standing in the street where they had possibly stolen kisses late at night, I came face to face with the fact that Maude Parker and David Ritchie were far more than names on a census. Nor were they staid and starchy as we tend to think the Victorians were. No, the young couple were adventurous, passionate and idealistic, no doubt as full of big dreams for the new century as I once was for the new millennium.

When finding the right location evokes discontent and puzzlement

The address we have for Maude Alice Ritchie in 1918 comes off a statutory declaration she made at the Marylebone Police Station. In it, she states that her son, David Scott Ritchie, was born in Paddington on 31 March 1902 and that her present address is 40 Brown Street. This, then, was where my husband, daughter and I headed after leaving Paddington Green.

Brown Street is near the Marble Arch tube station but not that far from the Marylebone tube station and Huntsworth Mews. It felt like a long way, although it wasn't really. I think the distance felt great because we had already covered several kilometres on foot and I'm unaccustomed to so much walking. A timely reminder that my great-grandparents' lifestyle was substantially more strenuous than ours.

Leaving the busy thoroughfare and passing a quaint-looking pub, we reached an intersection with brick terrace houses to the left and right. Everything was quiet, it being the middle of the afternoon with no-one around. I had the feeling that this was a neighbourhood of reserved, hardworking people who prized their little corner of tranquility in a sprawling, fast-paced city.

The house we were looking for was close to the intersection with an unassuming front door. I was sorry I hadn't done more research about the impact of the Second World War on Brown Street, since it would have been useful in ascertaining whether what we were seeing was the original facade of the house or something that had been added later. Then again, this could not have been Maude's own house since she wasn't a property owner. This was just another place of work for my great-grandmother. Grandad himself had probably never lived here.

All I could glean from my visit was a sense of how close Maude had lived to her childhood home and her siblings, if indeed they had all remained in the area. What I really wanted to know was why her own little family was so split up. Walking the streets she walked and seeing the house where she worked didn't really satisfy my curiosity. If anything, it raised more questions than it answered.

Geographical gaps and genealogy guesswork

Paddington wasn't the pretty, upmarket neighbourhood I had envisaged when planning my trip to London. Somehow I had merged my impressions of the old Victorian tube station with those of paddington Bear and come up with a picture of bright windows and cosy interiors. What I found was a bleak area crouching under a leaden sky, foul-smelling gutters and lots of traffic noise.

What was more, we were coming to a location that was extremely significant in terms of my genealogical research but for which I had very few addresses.

Here's what I knew about Paddington:

First, Maude Alice Parker and David Scott Ritchie had been living here at the time of their wedding in February 1902. In particular, they had been living in Albert Street. However, my husband and daughter had struggled to find an Albert Street address that seemed to fit the facts. So we could not visit the place where David and Maude had first lived as a married couple.

Second, their marriage had happened in Paddington. But I had forgotten to write down any details. My daughter had said something about a registry office, I thought, but none of us could be sure. So visiting the location where the couple signed the marriage register was out of the question too.

Third, my grandfather David Scott Ritchie had been born at Paddington Green, but that could either refer to the Paddington Green Children's Hospital or the general vicinity of Paddington Green. The fact that we had not yet found a birth certificate could suggest that David had been born at home and his birth not registered at all—except that, as I said elsewhere, Maude came from a family where such events were scrupulously recorded. Whether or not David was born at the hospital, though, that building still stands. it is now a health centre offering daytime consultations and its interior has no doubt been significantly modernised. nevertheless, the inscription that identifies it as once having been the Children's Hospital can be clearly seen.

The entrance to the building is directly opposite an entrance to Paddington Green, the park, so we paused there to take photographs. If my grandfather was indeed born there at the end of march 1902, I reflected, the weather in London would not have been very different from today. Perhaps it would have been a bit sunnier and the grass would have sprouted clumps of cheerful daffodils, but the wind would still have plucked at David Scott Ritchie Sr's coat as he turned into the gate

and hurried up the steps.

Of all the images that stayed with me after we left Paddington Green, this is the one that remains. A young father going to see his wife and newborn baby. Feelings of excitement mingled with guilt at having made her pregnant before they were married. Anxiety about whom he might meet in the maternity ward and what he should say to them. Worry about whether this inauspicious start would lay a burden on the child and what, if anything, he could do to make that burden lighter.

Walking in my great-grandmother's footsteps

A recent trip to England to see our daughter gave my husband and I an opportunity to look up some addresses that feature in the narrative of my grandfather's mother, Maude Alice Parker nee Ritchie. I had collated the addresses into a list from census records and other documentation. Google then assisted in the plotting of the points on a map and coming up with a route to link them all. This post is about the route we took, while future posts will detail the events which took place at each location.

Our starting point was Piccadilly Circus where we were staying. We boarded a tube for Marylebone Station and rose to street level via a couple of very long escalators. I believe Marylebone Station is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, underground train station in London, although this would only apply to the upper platform since deep-level tunnelling came later. It's hard to imagine what the old station would have looked like in the late 1800's, given the crowds of sneakered tourists and suited businessmen, not to mention electric cars, vans and double-decker buses that populate the area today.

Following the satellite navigation, we made our way to Huntsworth Mews where Maude lived as a little girl. Not much of the facade remains now but the secluded, paved road is just the same as it was.

Next we walked to Broadley Street, formerly Earl Street, where Maude lived in her early teens. The street is now an attractive residential road, although I have a sense that it comprised much less salubrious accommodation at the end of the 19th century. It has nice wide pavements now and the houses are set back a little from the street, suggesting that the upgrading of the area may have included some demolition of small cottages.

Our walk took us through a busy and very noisy part of town to what used to be the Paddington Green Children's Hospital. It is now a care centre but the red brick gate-posts and facade are reminiscent of times past. This was where my grandfather was born. Directly opposite the gates of the old hospital is Paddington Green itself, a fenced park with very wintry-looking trees. No doubt Maude would have known it well.

Heading into Westminster, we found Brown Street, the address given by Maude on her statutory declaration of David's birth. That was in 1918 when my grandfather was 16. Standing on the corner, I caught a snatch of conversation between two young men in suits and gleaned from their discussion about finance that they were probably in the banking sector.

By this time, it was mid-afternoon. Catching a bus, we emerged at Knightsbridge where some of London's most expensive property is located. After admiring the beautiful facades of buildings occupied by property brokers, accountants and lawyers in Curzon Street, we reached Mayfair and Chesterfield Street. This is another very impressive road, much quieter than Curzon Street and thick with blue signs identifying the addresses of historical notaries such as author Somerset Maugham, prime minister Anthony Eden and fashion leader Beau Brummell. Right in the middle of all this fame and fortune lived the Viscount Hood at the residence which now houses the High Commission of the Bahamas. It was here that Maude worked in 1901 as a kitchen maid and met the man who was to become her husband.

Staying amongst the rich and famous, we made our way across Green Park to St James Square. Our route took us along the mall and the area where the Queen's horses are stabled. There was a convoy of motorcycles ahead of us which could have been escorting an important official but it wasn't likely to have been any of the royals as they are currently in Sandringham, to the best of our knowledge. Anyway, we finally reached St James Square and the address where Maude was working in 1911. It is now the London headquarters of the Rolex Watch Company.

With the sun sinking fast and the temperature dropping, we hurried through St James Park back to Piccadilly Circus. Two things stood out to me from the afternoon's long ramble: Firstly, that what was for us just a tiny part of the city was, in Maude's day, quite a substantial portion of it. And secondly, that the 1939-1945 war must have wrought extensive damage in the streets through which we'd passed although I detected nothing but neatness and order.