Who do you think you are? 2012 series part one

Having thought I had listed all there was to experience, remember and write about before the London trip last Friday I had forgotten about one of the most engaging series on the BBC which commenced a month ago Who do you think you are? I find this oversight extraordinary given the amount of work undertaken since 1999 to discover the background of the family of my mother who lived for 100 years and of my father, both born in Gibraltar, one of a Wiltshire, Spanish and Italian ancestry and the other Maltese. The other aspect is that when the series was an advertised I noted that the majority of the personalities involved were people I knew about and admired.

This was very true Wednesday week when the programme Annie Lennox took precedence over the Paralympics. Annie is known first for her work as a singer with the Eurhythmics a duo with Dave Stewart from Sunderland and then as an International humanitarian particularly concerned with AIDS becoming a UNESCO ambassador and with poverty and human rights in general.

Annie set out to discover about the grandfather she knew only as a little girl but where she had established a good connection remembering all her life to date that he had caught and cooked for her a fresh salmon. There was an associated issue that he had been illegitimate. Annie comes from Aberdeen and the first surprise was that her grandfather had worked as a game keeper/Gillie on the Balmoral estate and because of this the BBC arranged for her to visit to the castle and speak with a specialist with access to the castle and its grounds. She discovered that there is a record of his employment on the estate as there is of his wife who also worked in the house. There is record that as a young man he was one of those chosen to dance with the Queen’s mother at the Gillies’ ball when she was in residence.

　

The grand father was legitimate but it was his father who had been brought up with his single parent mother. While I thought I had paid close attention I am now confused about the two branches of the family she explored although I remember the details of one instance.

This was of a young woman who grew up in the town of Banff on the coast and who was summoned before the elders of the Kirk to explain her immorality in giving birth to a child outside of marriage. Eight years later she had appeared before the same group of men again, although on this occasion she volunteered the appearance to try an obtain justice from a man who had promised marriage disclosed to other members of the family but had gone off when the pregnancy was realised. She had later lived on her own in an isolated cottage with a beautiful Grampian vista keeping poultry until her eighties and becoming eligible for a state pension when it was introduced a couple of years before her death.

I believe the other single parent situation involved the grandmother’s branch of the family and was brought up in a town close to Aberdeen. The story begins with a young woman who has a child by a local solicitor who appears to have become engaged a short while before her child was born. This is where my memory is hazy but my present understanding is that when the mother died the child was placed in care and with the sister of the solicitor. The child appears to have stayed for a few years but when she was 10 years the woman returned the girl to the parish because she was no longer of use and the girl was then placed in lodgings working at large flax making factory the ruins of the building still in existence and was visited by Annie in the programme.

The programme provided insights into Victorian rural and town poverty with Annie concluding that both were horrible but which perhaps explains aspect of her own approach to life and interests.

There was a similar connecting link between present day and past personalities in the programme on the life of Patrick Stewart, now Sir Patrick, who became internationally known from his work at Captain Piccard in the follow up TV series to the original Star Trek and subsequent films and then the X Men series of films. In fact Patrick has remained a major classical actor.

It was evident from the outset that Patrick and his older brother had found their father very difficult with Patrick meeting him effectively on this return from World War II having before this had wonderful memories of his relationship with his mother and older brother. The importance of the programme was the level of the depth into his father’s character and the cause of his behaviour which changed his perception regretting that this knowledge had come to him and to his brother after the death of their father and mother.

His father had run off and joined the army when his brother was born and his mother had to summon his father to court to obtain maintenance being awarded ten shillings a week. His father had joined the military police and only later married his mother. When World War II was declared he had been called up as a reservist and attached to a support regiment of men who were given the minimum of training, so as an experienced soldier he was given responsibility for helping and organising other men. He was sent to France with expeditionary force to provide manual work support behind the front lines but was caught in the German advance into France when the Panzer division came from the south and attacked Abbeville raising the town to the ground with aerial as well as tank bombardment. The train which they been travelling in was stopped and they moved into nearby fields where they witnessed the attack on the town and they then had experienced the plight of the refugees and the way German planes had slaughtered men women and children as they attempted to escape the fighting. Patrick is shown a newspaper article revealing that his father had suffered shell shock on returning home. Patrick had worked as a cub reporter for the same newspaper without previous knowledge of the article.

At the age of 38 his father has volunteered for the new Para 2 regiment and had dropped in the South of France in advance of the allied assault from the sea. His role had been to defend the HQ team and also to take charge of surrendering German prisoners. What was considered unusual and commendable is that he had volunteered at age when most would have looked for role which did not involve such danger. Para 2 was also involved in the ill fated Anaheim drop when a large number were killed, injured or captured. His father had been promoted to the rank of Sergeant Major and was asked to take responsibility for rebuilding the regiment with men as well as equipment where it is reported he was regarded as a father figure with pastoral responsibilities.

The background previously unknown to Stewart enabled him to reappraise his father. He then relayed the information to his brother who indicated he would need time to reflect on what had been learned.

George Wallace

was only known to me through being a judge in the Master Chef programmes and from this I knew he had been greengrocer who now runs his own restaurant. His interest was his great grandfather who had abandoned his wife and children including his grandfather and therefore his impression of the man was not favourable so he wanted to find out the circumstances. What he discovered significantly changed his understanding and feelings. He found that the mans wife had been guilty of infidelity and that the man experienced a series of tragedies in his life. There was a similar story relating to his great grand mother which involved a placement in an institution. I was interested by the aspect that the three times married celebrity had such an interest in the impact of a man who was alleged to have left his wife and child.

Samantha Womack

featured in the first episode, a minor actress in the great history of actressing, famed for her role Ronnie Mitchell in Eastenders. I was put off by her girlish wonderment which meant that I paid less attention although the subjects were of interest although no longer remembered.

This brings me to someone else who again I regarded as a minor personality Hugh Dennis and although the subject of last night’s programme was a well trodden track along the reality of the First World War, the story of his great grandparents experience was of interest.

I am struck by the reported comment of Hugh’s first wife that he was boring, restrained and unexciting. I see what she meant although this will be viewed by many people as responsible maturity.

He followed the lives of two grant parents, possibly great grandparents. The first on the paternal side was the more interesting in the son of a miner, gained a place at a grammar school and went on to Officer training for six months at Cambridge University before landing in France a couple of months before the war ended before being wounded out. His maternal relative had entered the Great War early on with the first tasks burying the dead at what is now a memorial cemetery, followed by involvement in Ypres and Passechendaele and then in remaining in control of hill on the basis of the order of no retreat in which he was one of nine who survived and where from the regiment three quarters had perished or become badly injured. Neither man had talked of their experiences with latter never happier working in the garden.