Treasures?..(1)

Are your feet cold?...... How about trying these?!

Emptying out seldom used cupboards ready for my decorator the other day, I came across a few "treasures". These are two of them.

Can you imagine having these in your bed to warm it, and to warm your feet on. I shudder to think how many bruised toes one would get in the night, hitting oneself against them.

Wonder if they`re valuable or rare? Not that I`d sell them anyway, they`re part of our history, but it would be interesting to know.

Look out for another, even more unusual object tomorrow!

Thoughts from Records

Touching and reading some books this afternoon, I suddenly was stuck by the realisation that what I was handling was over two hundred and twenty years old. That someone that long ago had handled the same and written in them, and here I was all these years later reading what he had written. I suddenly felt very priviledged to be doing so.

What I was looking at were some old church records.

One of the things I found interesting, gave an insight into the life of people in the 1780`s, was that alongside the names on the registers they had also given the trade or circumstances of the person.

Amongst the, to be expected, Labourer; Farmer; Sailor, etc., I found a lot of more unusual jobs - Mantlemaker; Twine spinner; Besom maker; Caulker; Watchmaker; Tide waiter (wonder what that involved?); Rope maker; Coal heaver; Chopper (wonder what he chopped and why); Shop maid, Cutler. A few had Pilgrim against them, one even had Gent - which set me wondering why he should have that description.

A large number were Servants, Invalid was written against another name, then I came across the one that seemed to me an even sadder description against several names - Pauper. And one even said gone to the Workhouse.

Actually handling books and seeing the handwriting in them, as against just learning history from printed books, really brought home to me the hard times that people had as against our lives today.


It also set me thinking, that maybe we should do the same with the records we keep in this day and age, so that people in years to come could look back and think... what did a dustman, traffic warden, check-out girl,.etc.... do?!

What`s the equivalant value?

Writing about the old account books that I`d been reading, I got to pondering, what would those figures actually be the equivalant of today? For instance hiring a horse for 5/- was that expensive or not in the 1890`s

We often when looking back think about things, that didn`t cost much then, look at how much we pay for it today... and I hear many people when shopping saying that. But I always say to them when they pass that comment to me.... Yes, but what was the average wage then, how does it compare to that.

Does anyone know of a website, or place where one can find such comparisons? Even going back to the late 1800`s early 1900`s, as I`d like to try and compare some of the items I was looking at the other day. I`ve tried a quick search on Google, but not found anything useful. I`m sure there must be something `out there`, I can`t be the only one to wonder such things.... or can I?!

Money Shortage!

I`ve had an interesting morning reading through some very old church account books, from the late 1800`s to the early 1900`s, and what fascinating and at time amusing reading it became.

Reading the expenses, there was firstly "horse hire", then "horse and trap hire", followed by "cycle expenses", "railway travel expense" and finally "motor hire". Makes one realise how things have changed so much. And coal, logs and gas mantles were also on the expenditure. Wonder what people in 100 years time will be thinking about the things we use today.

But, I think the thing that really struck me as, at first as amusing to read, but then as one took in the reality and seriousness of it, was that in the quarterly Accounts for several quarters (3 months) of the year, the income was sigificantly less than the expenses - and at the end of the expenses column it showed that the shortfall would be paid to the Minister/s in due course! In other words that they couldn`t pay him his full salary as the income was insufficient !

I wonder what would happen if we today told our ministers we couldn`t do that??!

Writing History

I`ve never been one to like a lot of history. It was my least favourite subject at school because I couldn`t see the point of learning about what happened hundreds of years ago. But, I`ve had an interesting day today with history. A much better day than I`d thought.

Looking through old documents and meeting minutes from the late 1800`s and early 1900`s it was fascinating reading. Getting a insight into the people and situations then, a lot of which haven`t really changed over all those years. I had to smile on reading one particular entry in which it said. "If Mr. X hasn`t done the job by Monday we`ll get someone else to do it". Which had a tone of saying we`ve waited long enough for him and we`re fed up with waiting. And also in another section they were trying to remedy the problem of the draught the organist was complaining about, also a problem I`ve know of here in recent years.

One thing that had changed is the length and detail which we write now-a-days compared to then. The earliest reports I was reading, of whole meetings, were no longer than half the page of an exercise book size, today we type at least 2 or even 3 large A4 pages per meeting, which when hand-written into a ledger cover 4 or 5 pages of A4, and that`s with writing it small.

It started me wondering, what will people in 100 or more years time think about Minutes from meetings that I write in ledgers in this era? What will they make of the things we write about. Makes me think, I should be careful in the way I phrase my writing. Until today, I`d never thought about them being read that far into the future, that what I write could be the Hitory of the future, it`s a scary thought!!