Family History

Late Night Cleaning and Polishing. I first cleaned these brass ornaments, belonging to my mother when I was 4-5 years old. Two-minute read, 3 pictures

Tonight I went on Facebook and asked my family to think about my end of life plans – specifically what to do with all my personal effects.

Mike & Diffi’s Steam Punk Wedding + 11

Coincidences – In one of life’s little coincidences, last night while working on de-cluttering I chanced upon my father’s (rather sparsely populated) sailing logbook.

Spring Break 2013. Sam and Kat’s wedding, St. Augustine, Florida. 190 pictures

One door closes as another opens by Gary

One door opens as another closes (365:034) – I’ve just received news of a death in the family back in the UK, and This morning we went to the hospital to see the latest addition to our family, Natalie Anne, born yesterday evening to Betsy and Matt. Just as one life ends another has begun.

Ginger and Gary’s Wedding day – At four pm on 20 February 2009 we got married. Here are a small sample of the 800-odd photographs we have of the day. Album: 15-minute read, +64

Identity Crisis – My mother’s Christian name is a little different, being a combination of two fairly common names into something a little more unusual. When Ginger was staying I told her the story of my mother’s name, producing my birth certificate with a flourish as proof I had to eat my words when I saw her name wasn’t spelled the way I thought it should be. I had to make an excuse about the story behind her name obviously being a family myth… Two-minute read

Now we’re officially engaged, that puts the seal on things, and today we posted the huge pile of papers that makes up my visa application. With current processing times we’re looking at my having my embassy interview sometime in November.

A special event – Gary and Ginger get engaged – Okay I admit it, this isn’t a special picture in the photographic sense, but it isn’t every day you get engaged.

Decree absolute: Unknown to me at the time, but on this day my Decree absolute was declared.

Flickr meet (365: 217)

Hormead Church of England Infant and Junior School – This was my school from age 4½ to 11. One-minute read, 5 pictures

Hadham Hall School – I’ve not visited my senior school since I left in July 1972. One-minute read, 13 pictures

Denouement (365: 161) – This morning I told Elaine I wanted a divorce. One-minute read

Robert’s ‘Official’ Christening Picture.

Old cuttings of my father – I’ve had these pictures for years I thought it’s about time I posted them. +1

Form 5T Hadham Hall School, 1972

A friend posted a mnemonic on Facebook for the sequence of the royal houses of England in chronological order. It reminded me of one my uncle taught me, which in turn reminded me of a couple I learned at school. Two-minute read, 2 pictures

Hadham Hall School, October 1968 – Today (March 11, 2021), spurred on by an email I recently received from another ‘old boy,’ I did a quick stitching job on the pictures. Unfortunately, neither Photoshop nor Lightroom’s auto stitch could merge the images, so I ended up doing so by hand. As the image is low res, and time is short, that was the extent of my repairs to the photograph.

Photograph from the Herts & Essex Observer of Len Thomsett and Steve Allman with their yacht Miga

They Built Their Own Yacht – Packed away in a box under the bed I found this newspaper cutting from 1960. It tells the story of how my father and a work colleague built their own yacht. I’ve also written about some of my early sailing experiences, in particular a couple of attempts at drowning myself. Five-minute read, 5 pictures

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