Our March meeting began with our Annual Business Meeting at which the new committee was elected. The retiring Secretary, Brian Churchill reported satisfactory progress over the past year. Ian Miller, a member of the SoG, was elected as the new Chairman, and his first duty was to preside over the presentation of heirlooms provided by members. It was immediately obvious that many of these objects, while having little cash value, were nevertheless treasured by their owners as being sentimental links with long-dead ancestors. As might have been expected, a couple of family Bibles were in evidence with attached family trees covering many generations. Those symbols of the Victorian era, the moustache cups also made an appearance together with personal inscriptions. Teapots were also represented, one of which carried a regimental inscription relating to the quelling of some Corn Law Riots in Bristol in 1831, and a humble china rolling pin is now a treasured souvenir mounted above a mantel-piece. A tattered newspaper described the problems of life in a village school around 1890, and a well-worn diary recalled the hardships inflicted on a Life Guard in the trenches in 1914. More mundane items such as a lady's purse, a pair of tailor's scissors and a small soapstone jar from India, when accompanied by family stories, suddenly assume a new significance. A pair of small china dogs, which had been given as security for a sixpenny loan for medicine in 1849 and never redeemed, emphasized the harshness of the times. A sad collection of rings from deceased relatives had been used to embellish the traditional family tree, and a giant crow-bar stamped by a blacksmith ancestor, accompanied by suitable anecdotes, brought the curtain down on a very successful evening.

 

Tony Johnson