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July News letter

We are nearly into the month of July and this year has just gone by so quick it does not seem to long since we was buying Christmas presents does it I know there have not been many newsletters but it does take time to set them all up . This month the news will be mixed I would like if I may try each month to concentrate on just one subject and so on this months newsletter we will do the area of Birmingham and areasaround. We have had a few new members this week so we welcome them to the group and hope that we have some luck in finding lost ancestors for them sometimes we get lucky and times we get so frustrated when they dont pop up.

Hello everyone and hope you enjoy our latest Newsletter. Firstly, Vera and I would like to welcome our latest new members: 13 June 18 June 18 June Sandy from Sydney, Australia Gillie Helen

19 June 19 June 19 June 21 June

Maureen in Birmingham Deborah in Jacksonville, Arkansas, USA IMcBurnie Pauline

We are very busy at the moment with helping everyone with their family trees. The number of messages for June last year was 362 but this year, the number was 645. We have had lots of success and have broken down quite a few brick walls.

Thoughts are with Pat Wareing, who has spent quite a lot of time in hospital - she went in at Easter and has only been home a week or so. So pleased you are on the mend now Pat! We wish you all the best for a speedy recovery.

We have a sister site called Lost Ancestors which is mainly used for links to lots of interesting genealogy websites. Here is the link if you want to join it: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/LOSTANCESTORS/

Most popular links added recently that you may want to save to your Favourites:Searchable online passenger lists www.angelfire.com/ks/windshipgenhelp/shiplist.html www.deceasedonline.com www.suffolkfhs.co.uk/links.htm - For Suffolk Research www.olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/toausp01.shtml Passenger List Ships http://valmayuk - British India Family History

Anyone doing Irish research go to message no. 13275 11 June 2011

Update on Members ---------------------Melissa - She has been busy recently with her fa mily but thinks she keeps up to date with everything that is going on. However, she has recently discovered a new Beedle family member from her husbands side. She was due to meet up with some family members to compare notes but unfortunately this was postponed, so Melissa, keep in touch with any news! Marcia - Has been trying desperately to identify a possible family member from an old photo she has, taken somewhere in Edinburgh. Pat Wareing - Pat has been quite poorly recently with a chest problem and has been in hospital since May. Good news though, Pat is now home and recovering slowly. Pat S. - Still researching her Mormon ancestors and has traced many of them on their journeys from Gloucestershire/Wiltshire to Utah in the USA. Pat has recently come across a Birthday Book belonging to her mother and we have been helping her go through it and identify members of her family who are listed there. We are still busy doing this. Frances - Has been researching her family who came from the Gorton area of Manchester, in the names of Smith and Wilson. Frank H - A busy man but always makes a point of reading all our messages with interest and gave us some interesting advice on naming customs in Wales and Ireland. Irene - Has been researching her Dawson family in Barrow -in-Furness. Dianne - Has been busy researching her ancestor Barnabus Redfern and family.

Grace - We have been helping Grace find a lot of her Abby ancestors from London and have been able to help her ad d quite a lot of names to her family tree. Janice - Janice has recently retired after working many years for the Royal Society for The Blind in Adelaide, Australia. She is now taking a well-earned rest and is enjoying putting her family tree on Ancestry. Janice has caught the genealogy bug and is on her computer most days researching her English and Australian ancestors. She has recently sent in some interesting biographies of her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother etc. - all good reading. Please c heck them out, there are so interesting. Here is the letter she has sent explaining what work she has done from starting work .

As some of you may know, I have just retired from work. I have been in the workforce for 45 years, only taking time off to have my children. When I first left school at the age of 14, I worked in the city at a wholesale company, and then when I was 17 I went to work for my dad in his company. This was a building company and I worked in the office until I had my daughter. When my son was 2 I went to work for a Wholesale Butcher in the office and worked there for 12 years. Over the last 15 years I have worked for the Royal Society for the Blind in their factory. Now that I am retired I am able to get on with my Family Tree and getting that going, and I am also helping my sister, Joy, get her husbands Family Tree up to date. It is really interesting and quite addictive as you would all know. I am going to craft every Thursday which I thoroughly enjoy. There are about 20 ladies that go and we have a lot of fun and sometimes not much craft gets done due to too much talking. I have also joined an over 50's group where we have speakers on all different subjects which is very interesting. I am really enjoying my retirement and all that goes with it. Janice.
We All wish you a happy retirement Janice and good luck with the tree I remember starting your tree with some help from you and your sister nearly going on 2 years now it was a pleasure to do and I enjoyed doing for you .

Shirley - Has been researching her hubbys side of the family - James Beaman/Beamond.

Maureen - Lovely to have you back Maureen! She had a short break from the group but is back again trying to find out more on her ancestor, Bridget Rhatigan, whom we think was an Irish convict who was deported to Tasmania, met her husband there, had a family and moved to Australia. We have been looking for Bridget for a few years now do you think we will ever find this lady. Gillie - Gillie has been busy researching her Woodman family from Somerset. Jenny - She has four James Brownes to sort out who is who. Maureen (BHam) - She has been researching a very interesting branch of her tree involving her Veale family members. They emigrated from England to Canada and we have been helping her trying to find them, with quite a bit of success.

Apologies for those who we have missed out - . At the beginning of June we had some very interesting discussions about where our fathers and mothers came from and also why did us start doing our family tree. We had some very interesting answers.

So, briefly, May and June has been a very busy and interesting month and it looks like July will be going the same way. Thanks again everyone for keeping the group so active and sending in your requ ests for help. We have had some great success and if you are stuck on a branch of your tree that needs some shaking, just send in what you are stuck on and then we can watch the new shoots grow.

Vera and Christine

Birmingham and areas

If people were blood and their body was Brum the heart would be the Bullring the centre of our city and the life that as survived for hundreds of years. The meeting place of countless thousands of people who have trod the streets of the Bullring with their hard graf t and selling prowess. Stall holders shouting their wares and the hum of the buyers looking for bargains, the place would be throbbing with excitement, entertainers with magic and spiel, the evangelists with their gospels berating from their soap boxes abo ut the evils of society. All this added to the hustle and bustle of a thriving and proud community. It's hard to put into word what a visit to our Bullring what it was like. All the different smells wafting across the market drifting among congregation of visitors from far and wide not just brummies but from all corners of this wide world of ours.

The Bullring as passed through many changes in its life time the upheaval of modern man but it as never changed the spirit of the coming together of we the Birmingham people, were ever we come from in this city or other conurbations; the flow is always to the heart and soul the Bullring. The flower sellers with lucky lilac sprigs, the old lady selling handy carriers. Holy Joe the fire-eater and mighty Samson trying to break free from chains wrapped around his body .The peddlers getting ready to do a bunk if a copper appeared so many evocative memories shopping with Nan, Mom or some other relation. A day with pals mooching and being amazed at some of the goings on in this magical arena a cacophony of sounds, of mystery and delight us young kids who scrounged the tram fare or walked just to join in with the thronging crowds. No one can explain the magnetism and

sheer enjoyment that in our minds will last a life t ime where ever we have trod life's path with thoughts always of our meeting place the Bullring the heart of Brum.

Ansells Brewery

How They Started It was in 1858 that Joseph Ansell established the malting's at Aston Cross and when his sons were old eno ugh William joined him in 1867
and Edward in 1876. It was through Gladstone abolishing the malt tax that they decided that the brewing industry would be better and in March 1882 Ansells Brewery Ltd at Aston Cross was born. It was also an ideal place because of the artesian wells on the premises, which the City Analyst Dr.Bostock Hill said in a letter "The artesian wells that I have examined are some of the finest I have ever seen".

Ansells Bottling Plant c1937

It became a Limited company in 1901 and in 1 923 took Rushtons Brewery over, 1928 they took over Lucas and Co. of Leamington and in 1934 Holt's Brewery was taken over by them growing even bigger in 1934 when the bought out Plant and Co. HP Sauce was another company in that area A "Bottled" History 1800 to 1924 Edwin Sampson Moore born 1851 Newcastle Staffordshire, wives name Mary, she was born in Birmingham 1851, and they had seven children all born in Birmingham. He started the Midland Vinegar Company in Tower road Aston Manor in 1875 after persuad ing his cousin Edward Eastwood. (Eastwood was a cousin of Thomas Telford) to invest in the Midland Vinegar Company, after he asked him to be the godfather of his son Edwin Eastwood Moore. They lived at number 234 Tower roads Aston Manor till moving to York Lodge, Edgbaston, and his wife was relieved to get away from the smell of vinegar at last. The name HP sauce came about when Edwin Moore and his son were on a business trip to Nottingham, they decided to call on a Mr F.G.

Garton a grocer who owed the company money, he also made his own sauces which aroused the keen smell of Mr Moore. Suddenly he spotted a small basket cart with a board attached saying Garton's HP Sauce this was what he had been looking for. When asked for an explanation of the letters HP, Mr Garton replied that he had heard a rumour that a bottle of his sauce had been seen in a restaurant at the Houses of Parliament. And that's how the name was born after he bought the recipe and settled Mr Garton's arrears, and gave him 150. Sampson Moore as he was now known as due to his son's name being Edwin Moore, was delighted and full of excitement, what a name for his sauce. The Houses of Parliament. Soon to be a worldwide product he sent his sales men to the far corners of the empire to let the rest of the world taste his new found HP Sauce. After many prosperous years Mr Edwin Samson Moore retired in 1921. The business was sold to The British Shareholders Trust in 1924 and he later died in 1928 aged 77.

Manor Vinegar Tower Road

The employees of The Manor Vinegar at Tower Road were greatly saddened by a tragedy that occurred to two of their fellow workers in 1886. James Huddle stone and Thomas Wilkins had been lifelong friends and worked side by side at the brewery. One day an accident occurred in which both men drowned in a vat of vinegar. Their joint headstone in a local graveyard (Aston Parish Church) bears the touching inscription " In their death they were not divided ". James Huddleston left a widow; Sarah huddle stone aged 42 and four children. Edith aged 13 Frank aged 10 Arthur aged 8 Henry James aged 2. Thomas Wilkins left a widow; Selina Wilkins aged 38 and three children, John aged 19 William aged 16 Henry aged 3. Jennings Basket Carriage Hire Mr Jennings 34a Parliament Street Aston, manufacturer of lath carts and basket carriage for hire to the general public and traders mainly market traders. Most of the hiring for traders was on long term contracts; this sometimes incurred latepayments that had to be collected by Mr Jennings himself. A visit to the traders to help them to pay their hire charges. Hire tariff charges four pence and sixpence depending on which cart or carriage you hired.

The yard in Parliament Street had been used in the past for selling coal and the making and repair of lath carts and basket carriages. At the top of the yard there was a building which housed a forge for the ironwork with very large leather bellows. All along the back wall where benches for the wheelwrights to carry out their work, huge vices to hold their work, this building itself wise the full width of the yard. All the tools for their trade were still there when as young lads we played in the building which had become obsolete due to the advent of the motor vehicle. Mr Jennings had amended his business to incorporate the new age of wireless by carrying out the charging of the accumulators to power the new invention of the wireless radio receiver's. This he did in a shed next door to the house which to us at that time was mind boggling to see all those dials and wiring the spitting and popping of the acrid smell of acid as the accumulators where charged. Many a moon light flit had been done using the lath cart to transport your few chattels to another abode in the neighbourhood to escape the landlord for non-payment of rent. We once hired a lath cart to fetch furniture from a house in Witten to our house in Parliament Street, a distance of about five miles. The furniture was very old my mom had bought or scrounged it from some friends whose relative had died. When Mr Jennings died the business was taken over by relative Mr and Mrs Cox the grand parents of my friend Kenny Cox, we went through school together, and became friends and still are friends fifty five on. We both now live in Aldridge. Mr Jennings had a brother in Lower Tower Street who carried out the same trade later to move over to the motor trade and turned his Carter's business into a garage for the repair and servicing of the motor vehicle. From hiring of his lath carts and basket carriages, to the new mechanical mode of transport. The Jennings had a hucksters shop next door to their shop was a woodyard which cut logs down to boards for their furniture businesses Mr Jennings later bought the yard which he operated his hire trade from he also bought another shop opposite and sold dairy products fresh milk and cream from churns.

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Birmingham and the button trade

Birmingham was long known as 'Toymaker of the World', 'toys' being things of fashion such as buckles, buttons, snuff boxes, etc., and by 1759 about 20,000 people were involved in the manufacture of 'toys', with 8,000 of them working in the buckle trade. Then in the 1700's buckles began to go out of fashion to be replaced by metal-buttons. For many years a man named John Taylor made a fortune from gilding metal buttons at his factory, first in Crooked Lane off Dale End, and then in Union Street, leaving a private residence in Bordsely, extensive landed estates in Yardley, Sheldon and Coleshill, and a fortune of about 200,000 in his Will when he died in 1775. It is interesting to note that this same John Taylor teamed up with a Sampson Lloyd II to form Birmingham's first Bank, Taylor's & Lloyds, now trading as Lloyds T.S.B. In 1749 another well-known man was taken into partnership in a flourish ing Birmingham button making business. This man expanded the business to include all sorts of plated goods, silver, and jewellery, and eventually set-up the Soho Manufactory on Hockley Brook in Handsworth. When he died in 1809 he left 150,000 in his Will. His name was Matthew Boulton Between 1770 and 1800, twenty-one patents were granted for improvements in the fastening of clothes, nineteen of them originating in Birmingham. During this time it was calculated that each operation was so simple that one button would pass through fifty pairs of hands, and each pair of hands would shift up to 1,000 buttons a day. Even children of 6 or 8 could do many of the jobs and could earn from 10d. To 8/ - a week. Initially buttons were covered with a thin layer of gold leaf, or were plated in a similar way with silver but towards the end of the century a method had been found to dip the buttons which covered the buttons with a minimum layer of precious metal and so was cheaper. However gilt metal buttons were dependant on whims of fashion just as buckles had been before them, and the fashions changed again at the beginning of the Victorian period. Some metal button producers continued to manufacture their products for uniforms and fancy wear, but others changed to the production of brass, jet, ivory, tortoiseshell, pearl, bone, horn, and glass buttons, many of which were then covered with cloth, silk, linen, and also buttons made from 'Corezo Nuts' from Central America. These 'Nuts' were a beautiful white colour, rather like ivory, and they could be easily turned on a lathe and then be dyed in numerous shades. The button trade Parliament had banned the import of pearl buttons at around the end of the 18th century and Birmingham had become an ideal place for pearl button manufacture. The material, which was generally obtained from mother-of-pearl, Abalone, and good Mollusc shells, was very

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fragile and so it had to be carefully worked by hand. For this reason the more robust 'Yellow-lip' Oyster shell from the west coast of Australia was greatly preferred whenever it was available. Because of the fragile disposition of the material the pearl button industry was only to be found in small workshops and these were manned by highly skilled workshop craftsmen and were run by small masters. Yet other materials started to be used for buttons. It was not unusual to find yards at the back of button manufacturers full of hoof and horn imported from overseas, the whole lot heaving with maggots and smelling vile, and steam would exude from the doorways carrying the same foul smell. Button manufacturers operating at this time included William Dowler & Sons Ltd (1774) of 11-15 Brearley Street, Firmin & Sons (1677) of Newtown Row, and W. Elliott & Son in Regent Street. By 1865 machines were beginning to be introduced into the button trade and so only about 6,000 people worked in the various branches of the button trade compared with about 17,000 in 1830, and many of these people were women. Even with machines it still took about 14 girls and women working with incredible rapidity to put together a single button. These buttons were then attached to a piece of card, fourteen buttons on each, and one girl was capable of sewing 3,600 buttons onto cards in one day. Each card was sold at 1d or 11/2d each. Pearl buttons however, because of their frailty, continued to be made entirely by highly skilled craftsmen who made up one third of the 6,000 employed in the whole button trade, and who could earn between 2 and 4 a week compared with the 7/ to 9/- a week that the women were earning. Then, because of increased competition from abroad a group of leading button manufacturers got together in 1908 to form Buttons Ltd, in exactly the same way and for the same reasons that gun manufacturers had formed the B.S.A... Buttons Ltd. operated from two factories, one in Portland Street, Aston, and a smaller one in Warstone Lane in the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham. Employed many people, particularly in the factories where a division of labour was necessary to cover the various processes. However, there was one type of button which could not be produced in this way and that was the pearl button.

A FEW OF THE BUTTON MANUFACTURERS IN BIRMINGHAM:FIRMIN & SONS, Newtown Row, Birmingham 6. (est.1677) WILLIAM DOWLER & SONS Ltd., 11-15 Brearley Street, Birmingham 19. (est.1774)

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BUTTONS LTD., Portland Street, Aston (est.1908), and Warstone Lane, Birmingham 18. GEORGE HOOK & SONS, Villa Street, Lozells, Aston. T.A.CARLYLE, Warstone Lane, Birmingham 18 MATTHEW BOULTON, Soho Manufactory, Handsworth, Aston. JOHN TAYLOR, Crooked Lane (off Dale End) W.ELLIOTT & SON JULIUS HARDY BUTTON MAKING

Buttons.The earliest record of button-making we have is dated 1689, but Mr Baddeley (inventor of the oval chuck), who retired from business about 1739, is the earliest local manufacturer we read of as doing largely in the trade, though sixty or seventy years ago there were four or five times as many in the business as at present, blue coats and gilt buttons being in fashion. By an Act passed in the 4th of William and Mary foreign buttons made of hair were forbidden to be imported. By another Act, in the 8th of Queen Anne it was decreed that "any tailor or other person convicted of making, covering, selling, using, or setting on to a garment any buttons covered with cloth, or other stuff of which garments are made, shall forfeit five pounds for every dozen of such buttons, or in proportion for any lesser quantity;" by an Act of the seventh of George the First, "any wearer of such unlawful buttons is liable to the penalty of forty shillings per dozen, and in proportion for any lesser quantity." Several cases are on record in which tradesmen have been heavily fined under these; strange laws, and before they were repealed it is related by Dr. Doran (in 1855) that one individual not only got out of paying for a suit of clothes because of the illegality of the tailor in using covered buttons, but actually sued the unfortunate "snip" for the informer's share of the penalties, the funniest part of the tale being that the judge who decided the case, the barrister who pleaded the statute, and the client who gained the clothes he ought to have paid for, were all of them buttoned contrary to law. These Acts were originally enforced to protect the many thousands who at the time were employed in making buttons of silk, thread, &c., by hand, and not, as is generally supposed, in favour of the metal button manufacturers, though on April 4, 1791, Thomas Gem, the solicitor to the committee for the protection of the button trade, advertised a reward for any information against the wearers of the unlawful covered buttons. The "gilt button days" of Birmingham was a time of rare prosperity, and dire was the distress when, like the old buckles, the fashion of wearing the gilt on the blue went out. Deputations to royalty had no effect in staying the change, and thousands were thrown on the parish. It was sought to

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revive the old style in 1850, when a deputation of button makers solicited Prince Albert to patronise the metallic buttons for gentlemen's coats, but Fashion's fiat was not to be gainsaid. John Taylor , High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1756, is said to have sent out about 800 worth of buttons per week. Papier mach buttons came in with Henry Clay's patent in 1778. He also made buttons of slate. Boulton, of Soho, was the first to bring out steel buttons with facets, and it is said that for some of superior design he received as much as 140 guineas per gross. Horn buttons, though more correctly speaking they should have been called "hoof" buttons, were a great trade at one time, selling in 1801 as low as 5-1/2d. Per gross. "Maltese buttons" (glass beads mounted in metal) were, in 1812, made here in large quantities, as were also the "Bath metal drilled shank button" of which 20,000 gross per week were sent out, and a fancy cut white metal button, in making which 40 to 50 firms were engaged, each employing 20 to 40 hands, but the whole trade in these specialities was lost in consequence of a few men being enticed to or imprisoned in France, and there establishing a rival manufacture. Flexible shanks were patented in 1825 by B. Sanders. Fancy silk buttons, with worked figured tops, were patented by Wm. Elliott, in 1837. Porcelain buttons, though not made here, were designed and patented by a Birmingham man, R. Prosser, in 1841. The three -fold linen button was the invention of Humphrey Jeffries, in 1841, and patented by John Aston. In 1864 so great was the demand for these articles that one firm is said to have used up 63,000 yards of cloth and 34 tons of metal in making them. Cadbury and Green's "very" button is an improvement on these. Vegetable ivory, the product of a tree growing in Central America and known as the Corezo palm, was brought into the button trade about 1857. The shells used in the manufacture of pearl buttons are brought from many parts of the world, the principal places being the East Indies, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, Panama, and the coasts of Central America, Australia, New Zealand, &c. The prices of "shell" vary very much, some not being worth more than 20 per ton, while as high as 160 to 170 has been paid for some few choice samples brought from Macassar, a seaport in India. The average import of shell is about 1,000 tons per year, and the value about 30,000.There are 265 button manufacturers in Birmingham, of whom 152 make pearl buttons, 26 glass, 8 horn and bone, 14 ivory, 12 gilt metal, 3 wood, and 5 linen, the other 45 being of a mixed or general character, silver, brass, steel, wood, and Papier mach, being all, more or less, used. Nearly 6,000 hands are employed in the trade, of whom about 1,700 are in the pearl line, though that branch is not so prosperous as it was a few years back. Pearl Button Makers by John Houghton The Mother-of-pearl which is cut into buttons is of various kinds, and some of great value. The white-edged Macassar shells are fished almost entirely from the seas round Macassar, in the East Indies. these shells, the

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"mothers'' of the orient pearls so coveted by beauty, are the finest in size and the purest in grain of any the world. The Value in this town varies from 140 to 160 per ton. The yellow-edged Manila shells are similar in size and character, but have a yellow tinge on their border, which diminishes there. Value, and, moreover, they are more brittle in turning. They are used chiefly in the Sheffield trade for knife handles; their value is from 100 to 120 per ton. The Bombay and Alexandria shells, smaller in size and a less delicate in tint and clearness, are found in the Black shell is from the Archipelago of the Pacific ocean, this is a beautiful coloured shell and polishes to a very dark shade, but giving out all the colours of the rainbow with exquisite blends. The least valued pearl shells are the Panama variety been of a size akin to oysters, these only allow a small percentage the shell to be used commercially this was the main reason for their low tonnage price. Most of the button trade was carried out in small family run concerns, which was a cottage industry in the premises, were they lived. The outlay required to carry out these tasks was a small nominal expense, labour was the main criteria many hands working for small wages. There were no idle hands everyone had a job to perform in dirty squalid conditions, from sorting the shells, then the experienced man of the house would work out the best cuts from the shells, for the blanks, these would be collected for the driller to put the holes in the blanks, next the polishing and sorting in to sizes and quality ready for the carders to sew the finished buttons on to the cardboard ready for the sale. Usually this would be the owner of a large button making business. Mr John Bitthel manufacturer of pearl buttons a family concern that had been going on for decades. They lived at No 15 Parliament street' he had a small factory in the yard of court five, which consisted of two buildings for making of pearl buttons. This had been a mystery to us for years. We had moved in to 1/15 Parliament Street during the Second World War. At this time the only remains of this pearl making trade was one lean to building and the remains of the main building, this was mainly now at ground level with numerous boxes shells and pearl button blanks. Which we used to dig up for friends and the girls from Burlington Street School. I came across this information about the Bitthel family during my family history research when looking up the 1901 census and then covering the 1881 and 1851 censuses they had been in the pearl button trade over this time span more research is required if I want any more information. Been in the pearl button trade over this time span more research is required if I want any more information.

Links for you to look at

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http://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/cms/community -and-living/records/search-our-records/onlineindexes.aspx http://www.westmidlandsbmd.org.uk/ www.westmidlandsbmd.org.uk http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/england/worest ershire/worcestershire_censuses.htm http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ blanchec/EMidBaps.htm

http://www.ellisisland.org/

This is the ship that one of our members ancestors sailed on

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CYFYNG COTTAGE This lovely old cottage belongs to Christine's family and has been a place that all the children during the last 25 years, have holidayed at. 'Cynfyng' is pronounced Cuffin. It was built circa 1720 and was originally two shepherd's cottages. The cottage is perched high above the Wymbrant Valley, about 3 miles from Betws-y-Coed in North Wales. The nearest neighbour is about a mile away and the nearest main road about 2 miles away. The building to the left of the cottage was the old Presbyterian Church, built about 1875, funded by the people from the local villages, so their children could have an education. During the week, the chapel was used as a school for children from about ages 5 until about 12 or 13. The pews had built in desks, which were folded down when they were used for prayer on a Sunday. The chapel closed in the 1960's. To the right of the cottage is the original log store. Further to the left of the chapel is the boys and girls loo. The loo for the cottage was a little way into the field opposite. Many, many children were born and died in the cottages. I must say here that the cottage and chapel is haunted. The cottage is haunted inside and out by children and an old axe man. Over the years, many occurrences have taken place whe n the children have been too young to know about ghosts. For example, if they were playing out for too long, they would be asked, "What have you been doing? "Oh, just playing with the little boy and girl outside the chapel". Eeeeeekk. When asked what they were wearing, they described clothes from the 17th century. Many objects have been moved or hidden around the cottage and about 5 years ago when I was staying there for a couple of days, whilst in bed, I could hear the 'family' talking and moving downstairs. I have many more tales if anyone is interested. Now right in front of the cottage is an ancient Roman drover's road. The custom has stopped now of course, but it was

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not usual to see a herd of cows or a gaggle of geese walking past, on their way to the Market towns near Chester. Also the Roman soldiers used to hide their precious possessions near the road, with the intention of retrieving them when they had finished their time in Chester or Deva as it was then. I have always meant to take a metal detector up with me, (note to one). I suppose as the population increased, the cottages were knocked into one, giving four bedrooms (one is now a shower room). When the school was built, there was a resident vicar in the cottage, the last one having 6 children. Life must have been tough there, as when the cottage was bought, it was in a terrible state, no running water or electricity. Water was sourced from a very old underground well, situated amongst the ferns near the log store. The water was fresh off the mountain. Lighting was by candle and oil or paraffin lamps. The was the situation right up until about 10 years ago. Now electric has been installed and running water. A septic tank has also been dug. It cost thousands of pounds to get all these modern facilities. I am sure, though, it was a good investment. I think the cottage and chapel was bought for about 10,000, it has now been valued at about 250,000. You have no idea how bad the road is up to the cottage and only the most fearless 4 x 4 can attempt this nowadays. However, it is worth the journey up there to just escape the rat race. My brother-in-law has no TV up there and would never allow one but we take a DVD player up with us to watch a film, what he does not know wont harm him!

This is going back to Yorkshire now Have you heard about Ben Shaws pop or even drunk it I remember this company which was based in Yorkshire and was famous for the drink

Here is a little bit of history about that company

1871 BACK IN THE DAY 1871 saw Ben Shaw leave his job in the textile industry in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire and set up his own business bottling and selling natural mineral water from the nearby Pennine Hills. The move proved successful and he soon expanded his business introducing traditional soft drinks made with only the finest ingredients, in his purpose built factory.

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In the Willow Lane Factory, every morning at 10.30am, the workers were allowed to listen to a radio programme called Music While You Work at the machines. It was a very happy place for everyone to work, with the bosses and workers holding a mutual respect for one another. For a shilling an hour, Ben Shaws grandchildren would watch the bottles coming off the production line to make sure there were no specks of dirt on any of the m before they were put into the boxes. Technology soon advanced and Ben Shaw wasnt one for being left behind! Many of us still remember the Ben Shaws pop van coming round once a week and excitedly running out to buy our favourite soft drinks. The drinks came in glass bottles which once returned also earned you some pocket money!
We hope you have enjoyed this small news journal and would like you if possible to send in to let us know what you think about it Please

Vera and Christine