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On Giants’ Shoulders – Clifton Suspension Bridge & Museum, 26 September 2024. A personal view

My sister-in-law has just acquired a black Alsatian puppy in place of my brother’s old dog which died recently.  I asked the pup’s name. She said: “Brunel! You know he was Colin’s hero?”  Yes,...
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Kingswood Park Bandstand

The Fantastical Kingswood Park: Then and Now

I cannot say that a visit to Kingswood Park is my first memory, but one Sunday, 9 May 1943 would easily make the top five.  I was just over a month short of my...
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A “shaggy heifer” tale, or “One thing leads to another”

Going off in tangents, so I’ve been told, is a symptom of ADHD. A few days ago, (January 2024) I was merrily researching steamships to complete another project, “The Life and Sea-Faring Times of...
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Norman and Doreen Lindegaard smiling

The Linden Tree – The Lindegaard Family History

I wrote this a long time ago and refer to it as “my juvenelia”! I need to revisit it and improve it. It charts the story of how my husband’s family (by the name...
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“Free Coloured Persons”: the ancestral story of Charles Walter Cumberbatch

“Going to Barbados” (a euphemism for being “under the influence”.)  Benjamin Franklin, 1737. (attrib.) [1] “Barbados is the other place where I like to be.” Cliff Richard. Introduction This is the sequel to “Pamela...
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My Pillinger Women: No. 4 – Martha Britton Pillinger and her daughter, Pamela Pillinger Cumberbatch

On 12th May 1850 when a baby girl was baptised at a small village in Somerset called Queen Charlton, her first name may have caused a slight flutter of interest, as it did to...
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Colin Pillinger and DP Lindegaard

Colin Pillinger – The ‘rock fan’ who set his sights on Mars

9 May 1943, something was up, my cousin Joyce Comley arrived “to mind me”. She was sixteen and very grand. Children then were supposed to be “seen and not heard” which didn’t suit me...
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St Swithin’s, Walcot.

My Pillinger Women: No. 3 Julia Pillinger

It will be no surprise if I say I am interested in those women who in days of yore, when it was doubly or trebly difficult, managed to have a life outside the domestic...
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My Pillinger Women: No. 2 Amelia Pillinger (1835-1882)

In the present year, 2022, Amelia is number 3 in the top one-hundred girls’ names. Before we get to Amelia Pillinger let’s start with…two historical Amelias: The name first became popular when the German...
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My Pillinger Women: No. 1 Hephzibah Day Pillinger

The first in my new series of my Pillinger women ancestors starting with Hephzibah Day Pillinger. When I began my family tree back in Palaeolithic times like most newbies I was guilty of racing...
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