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  • #6229
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      Gretton Tailoresses of Swadlincote and the Single Journalist Boot Maker Next Door

      The Purdy’s, Housley’s and Marshall’s are my mothers fathers side of the family.  The Warrens, Grettons and Staleys are from my mothers mothers side.

      I decided to add all the siblings to the Gretton side of the family, in search of some foundation to a couple of family anecdotes.  My grandmother, Nora Marshall, whose mother was Florence Nightingale Gretton, used to mention that our Gretton side of the family were related to the Burton Upon Trent Grettons of Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton, the brewery.  She also said they were related to Lord Gretton of Stableford Park in Leicestershire.  When she was a child, she said parcels of nice clothes were sent to them by relatives.

      Bass Ratcliffe and Gretton

       

      It should be noted however that Baron Gretton is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, and was created in 1944 for the brewer and Conservative politician John Gretton. He was head of the brewery firm of Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton Ltd of Burton upon Trent. So they were not members of the Peerage at the time of this story.

      What I found was unexpected.

      My great great grandfather Richard Gretton 1833-1898, a baker in Swadlincote, didn’t have any brothers, but he did have a couple of sisters.

      One of them, Frances, born 1831, never married, but had four children. She stayed in the family home, and named her children Gretton. In 1841 and 1851 she’s living with parents and siblings. In 1861 she is still living with parents and now on the census she has four children all named Gretton listed as grandchildren of her father.
      In 1871, her mother having died in 1866, she’s still living with her father William Gretton, Frances is now 40, and her son William 19 and daughter Jane 15 live there.
      By the time she is 50 in 1881 and her parents have died she’s head of the house with 5 children all called Gretton, including her daughter Jane Gretton aged 24.

      Twenty five year old Robert Staley is listed on the census transcription as living in the same household, but when viewing the census image it becomes clear that he lived next door, on his own and was a bootmaker, and on the other side, his parents Benjamin and Sarah Staley lived at the Prince of Wales pub with two other siblings.

      Who was fathering all these Gretton children?

      It seems that Jane did the same thing as her mother: she stayed at home and had three children, all with the name Gretton.  Jane Gretton named her son, born in 1878, Michael William Staley Gretton, which would suggest that Staley was the name of the father of the child/children of Jane Gretton.

      The father of Frances Gretton’s four children is not known, and there is no father on the birth registers, although they were all baptized.

      I found a photo of Jane Gretton on a family tree on an ancestry site, so I contacted the tree owner hoping that she had some more information, but she said no, none of the older family members would explain when asked about it.  Jane later married Tom Penn, and Jane Gretton’s children are listed on census as Tom Penn’s stepchildren.

      Jane Gretton Penn

       

      It seems that Robert Staley (who may or may not be the father of Jane’s children) never married. In 1891 Robert is 35, single, living with widowed mother Sarah in Swadlincote. Sarah is living on own means and Robert has no occupation. On the 1901 census Robert is an unmarried 45 year old journalist and author, living with his widowed mother Sarah Staley aged 79, in Swadlincote.

      There are at least three Staley  Warren marriages in the family, and at least one Gretton Staley marriage.

      There is a possibility that the father of Frances’s children could be a Gretton, but impossible to know for sure. William Gretton was a tailor, and several of his children and grandchildren were tailoresses.  The Gretton family who later bought Stableford Park lived not too far away, and appear to be well off with a dozen members of live in staff on the census.   Did our Gretton’s the tailors make their clothes? Is that where the parcels of nice clothes came from?

      Perhaps we’ll find a family connection to the brewery Grettons, or find the family connection was an unofficial one, or that the connection is further back.

      I suppose luckily, this isn’t my direct line but an exploration of an offshoot, so the question of paternity is merely a matter of curiosity.  It is a curious thing, those Gretton tailors of Church Gresley near Burton upon Trent, and there are questions remaining.

      #6227
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        The Scottish Connection

        My grandfather always used to say we had some Scottish blood because his “mother was a Purdy”, and that they were from the low counties of Scotland near to the English border.

        My mother had a Scottish hat in among the boxes of souvenirs and old photographs. In one of her recent house moves, she finally threw it away, not knowing why we had it or where it came from, and of course has since regretted it!  It probably came from one of her aunts, either Phyllis or Dorothy. Neither of them had children, and they both died in 1983. My grandfather was executor of the estate in both cases, and it’s assumed that the portraits, the many photographs, the booklet on Primitive Methodists, and the Scottish hat, all relating to his mother’s side of the family, came into his possession then. His sister Phyllis never married and was living in her parents home until she died, and is the likeliest candidate for the keeper of the family souvenirs.

        Catherine Housley married George Purdy, and his father was Francis Purdy, the Primitive Methodist preacher.  William Purdy was the father of Francis.

        Record searches find William Purdy was born on 16 July 1767 in Carluke, Lanarkshire, near Glasgow in Scotland. He worked for James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, and moved to Derbyshire for the purpose of installing steam driven pumps to remove the water from the collieries in the area.

        Another descendant of Francis Purdy found the following in a book in a library in Eastwood:

        William Purdy

        William married a local girl, Ruth Clarke, in Duffield in Derbyshire in 1786.  William and Ruth had nine children, and the seventh was Francis who was born at West Hallam in 1795.

        Perhaps the Scottish hat came from William Purdy, but there is another story of Scottish connections in Smalley:  Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.  Although the Purdy’s were not from Smalley, Catherine Housley was.

        From an article on the Heanor and District Local History Society website:

        The Jacobites in Smalley

        Few people would readily associate the village of Smalley, situated about two miles west of Heanor, with Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 – but there is a clear link.

        During the winter of 1745, Charles Edward Stuart, the “Bonnie Prince” or “The Young Pretender”, marched south from Scotland. His troops reached Derby on 4 December, and looted the town, staying for two days before they commenced a fateful retreat as the Duke of Cumberland’s army approached.

        While staying in Derby, or during the retreat, some of the Jacobites are said to have visited some of the nearby villages, including Smalley.

        A history of the local aspects of this escapade was written in 1933 by L. Eardley-Simpson, entitled “Derby and the ‘45,” from which the following is an extract:

        “The presence of a party at Smalley is attested by several local traditions and relics. Not long ago there were people living who remember to have seen at least a dozen old pikes in a room adjoining the stables at Smalley Hall, and these were stated to have been left by a party of Highlanders who came to exchange their ponies for horses belonging to the then owner, Mrs Richardson; in 1907, one of these pikes still remained. Another resident of Smalley had a claymore which was alleged to have been found on Drumhill, Breadsall Moor, while the writer of the History of Smalley himself (Reverend C. Kerry) had a magnificent Andrew Ferrara, with a guard of finely wrought iron, engraved with two heads in Tudor helmets, of the same style, he states, as the one left at Wingfield Manor, though why the outlying bands of Army should have gone so far afield, he omits to mention. Smalley is also mentioned in another strange story as to the origin of the family of Woolley of Collingham who attained more wealth and a better position in the world than some of their relatives. The story is to the effect that when the Scots who had visited Mrs Richardson’s stables were returning to Derby, they fell in with one Woolley of Smalley, a coal carrier, and impressed him with horse and cart for the conveyance of certain heavy baggage. On the retreat, the party with Woolley was surprised by some of the Elector’s troopers (the Royal army) who pursued the Scots, leaving Woolley to shift for himself. This he did, and, his suspicion that the baggage he was carrying was part of the Prince’s treasure turning out to be correct, he retired to Collingham, and spent the rest of his life there in the enjoyment of his luckily acquired gains. Another story of a similar sort was designed to explain the rise of the well-known Derbyshire family of Cox of Brailsford, but the dates by no means agree with the family pedigree, and in any event the suggestion – for it is little more – is entirely at variance with the views as to the rights of the Royal House of Stuart which were expressed by certain members of the Cox family who were alive not many years ago.”

        A letter from Charles Kerry, dated 30 July 1903, narrates another strange twist to the tale. When the Highlanders turned up in Smalley, a large crowd, mainly women, gathered. “On a command in Gaelic, the regiment stooped, and throwing their kilts over their backs revealed to the astonished ladies and all what modesty is careful to conceal. Father, who told me, said they were not any more troubled with crowds of women.”

        Folklore or fact? We are unlikely to know, but the Scottish artefacts in the Smalley area certainly suggest that some of the story is based on fact.

        We are unlikely to know where that Scottish hat came from, but we did find the Scottish connection.  William Purdy’s mother was Grizel Gibson, and her mother was Grizel Murray, both of Lanarkshire in Scotland.  The name Grizel is a Scottish form of the name Griselda, and means “grey battle maiden”.  But with the exception of the name Murray, The Purdy and Gibson names are not traditionally Scottish, so there is not much of a Scottish connection after all.  But the mystery of the Scottish hat remains unsolved.

        #6222
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          George Gilman Rushby: The Cousin Who Went To Africa

          The portrait of the woman has “mother of Catherine Housley, Smalley” written on the back, and one of the family photographs has “Francis Purdy” written on the back. My first internet search was “Catherine Housley Smalley Francis Purdy”. Easily found was the family tree of George (Mike) Rushby, on one of the genealogy websites. It seemed that it must be our family, but the African lion hunter seemed unlikely until my mother recalled her father had said that he had a cousin who went to Africa. I also noticed that the lion hunter’s middle name was Gilman ~ the name that Catherine Housley’s daughter ~ my great grandmother, Mary Ann Gilman Purdy ~ adopted, from her aunt and uncle who brought her up.

          I tried to contact George (Mike) Rushby via the ancestry website, but got no reply. I searched for his name on Facebook and found a photo of a wildfire in a place called Wardell, in Australia, and he was credited with taking the photograph. A comment on the photo, which was a few years old, got no response, so I found a Wardell Community group on Facebook, and joined it. A very small place, population some 700 or so, and I had an immediate response on the group to my question. They knew Mike, exchanged messages, and we were able to start emailing. I was in the chair at the dentist having an exceptionally long canine root canal at the time that I got the message with his email address, and at that moment the song Down in Africa started playing.

          Mike said it was clever of me to track him down which amused me, coming from the son of an elephant and lion hunter.  He didn’t know why his father’s middle name was Gilman, and was not aware that Catherine Housley’s sister married a Gilman.

          Mike Rushby kindly gave me permission to include his family history research in my book.  This is the story of my grandfather George Marshall’s cousin.  A detailed account of George Gilman Rushby’s years in Africa can be found in another chapter called From Tanganyika With Love; the letters Eleanor wrote to her family.

          George Gilman Rushby:

          George Gilman Rushby

           

          The story of George Gilman Rushby 1900-1969, as told by his son Mike:

          George Gilman Rushby:
          Elephant hunter,poacher, prospector, farmer, forestry officer, game ranger, husband to Eleanor, and father of 6 children who now live around the world.

          George Gilman Rushby was born in Nottingham on 28 Feb 1900 the son of Catherine Purdy and John Henry Payling Rushby. But John Henry died when his son was only one and a half years old, and George shunned his drunken bullying stepfather Frank Freer and was brought up by Gypsies who taught him how to fight and took him on regular poaching trips. His love of adventure and his ability to hunt were nurtured at an early stage of his life.
          The family moved to Eastwood, where his mother Catherine owned and managed The Three Tuns Inn, but when his stepfather died in mysterious circumstances, his mother married a wealthy bookmaker named Gregory Simpson. He could afford to send George to Worksop College and to Rugby School. This was excellent schooling for George, but the boarding school environment, and the lack of a stable home life, contributed to his desire to go out in the world and do his own thing. When he finished school his first job was as a trainee electrician with Oaks & Co at Pye Bridge. He also worked part time as a motor cycle mechanic and as a professional boxer to raise the money for a voyage to South Africa.

          In May 1920 George arrived in Durban destitute and, like many others, living on the beach and dependant upon the Salvation Army for a daily meal. However he soon got work as an electrical mechanic, and after a couple of months had earned enough money to make the next move North. He went to Lourenco Marques where he was appointed shift engineer for the town’s power station. However he was still restless and left the comfort of Lourenco Marques for Beira in August 1921.

          Beira was the start point of the new railway being built from the coast to Nyasaland. George became a professional hunter providing essential meat for the gangs of construction workers building the railway. He was a self employed contractor with his own support crew of African men and began to build up a satisfactory business. However, following an incident where he had to shoot and kill a man who attacked him with a spear in middle of the night whilst he was sleeping, George left the lower Zambezi and took a paddle steamer to Nyasaland (Malawi). On his arrival in Karongo he was encouraged to shoot elephant which had reached plague proportions in the area – wrecking African homes and crops, and threatening the lives of those who opposed them.

          His next move was to travel by canoe the five hundred kilometre length of Lake Nyasa to Tanganyika, where he hunted for a while in the Lake Rukwa area, before walking through Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) to the Congo. Hunting his way he overachieved his quota of ivory resulting in his being charged with trespass, the confiscation of his rifles, and a fine of one thousand francs. He hunted his way through the Congo to Leopoldville then on to the Portuguese enclave, near the mouth of the mighty river, where he worked as a barman in a rough and tough bar until he received a message that his old friend Lumb had found gold at Lupa near Chunya. George set sail on the next boat for Antwerp in Belgium, then crossed to England and spent a few weeks with his family in Jacksdale before returning by sea to Dar es Salaam. Arriving at the gold fields he pegged his claim and almost immediately went down with blackwater fever – an illness that used to kill three out of four within a week.

          When he recovered from his fever, George exchanged his gold lease for a double barrelled .577 elephant rifle and took out a special elephant control licence with the Tanganyika Government. He then headed for the Congo again and poached elephant in Northern Rhodesia from a base in the Congo. He was known by the Africans as “iNyathi”, or the Buffalo, because he was the most dangerous in the long grass. After a profitable hunting expedition in his favourite hunting ground of the Kilombera River he returned to the Congo via Dar es Salaam and Mombassa. He was after the Kabalo district elephant, but hunting was restricted, so he set up his base in The Central African Republic at a place called Obo on the Congo tributary named the M’bomu River. From there he could make poaching raids into the Congo and the Upper Nile regions of the Sudan. He hunted there for two and a half years. He seldom came across other Europeans; hunters kept their own districts and guarded their own territories. But they respected one another and he made good and lasting friendships with members of that small select band of adventurers.

          Leaving for Europe via the Congo, George enjoyed a short holiday in Jacksdale with his mother. On his return trip to East Africa he met his future bride in Cape Town. She was 24 year old Eleanor Dunbar Leslie; a high school teacher and daughter of a magistrate who spent her spare time mountaineering, racing ocean yachts, and riding horses. After a whirlwind romance, they were betrothed within 36 hours.

          On 25 July 1930 George landed back in Dar es Salaam. He went directly to the Mbeya district to find a home. For one hundred pounds he purchased the Waizneker’s farm on the banks of the Mntshewe Stream. Eleanor, who had been delayed due to her contract as a teacher, followed in November. Her ship docked in Dar es Salaam on 7 Nov 1930, and they were married that day. At Mchewe Estate, their newly acquired farm, they lived in a tent whilst George with some help built their first home – a lovely mud-brick cottage with a thatched roof. George and Eleanor set about developing a coffee plantation out of a bush block. It was a very happy time for them. There was no electricity, no radio, and no telephone. Newspapers came from London every two months. There were a couple of neighbours within twenty miles, but visitors were seldom seen. The farm was a haven for wild life including snakes, monkeys and leopards. Eleanor had to go South all the way to Capetown for the birth of her first child Ann, but with the onset of civilisation, their first son George was born at a new German Mission hospital that had opened in Mbeya.

          Occasionally George had to leave the farm in Eleanor’s care whilst he went off hunting to make his living. Having run the coffee plantation for five years with considerable establishment costs and as yet no return, George reluctantly started taking paying clients on hunting safaris as a “white hunter”. This was an occupation George didn’t enjoy. but it brought him an income in the days when social security didn’t exist. Taking wealthy clients on hunting trips to kill animals for trophies and for pleasure didn’t amuse George who hunted for a business and for a way of life. When one of George’s trackers was killed by a leopard that had been wounded by a careless client, George was particularly upset.
          The coffee plantation was approaching the time of its first harvest when it was suddenly attacked by plagues of borer beetles and ring barking snails. At the same time severe hail storms shredded the crop. The pressure of the need for an income forced George back to the Lupa gold fields. He was unlucky in his gold discoveries, but luck came in a different form when he was offered a job with the Forestry Department. The offer had been made in recognition of his initiation and management of Tanganyika’s rainbow trout project. George spent most of his short time with the Forestry Department encouraging the indigenous people to conserve their native forests.

          In November 1938 he transferred to the Game Department as Ranger for the Eastern Province of Tanganyika, and over several years was based at Nzasa near Dar es Salaam, at the old German town of Morogoro, and at lovely Lyamungu on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. Then the call came for him to be transferred to Mbeya in the Southern Province for there was a serious problem in the Njombe district, and George was selected by the Department as the only man who could possibly fix the problem.

          Over a period of several years, people were being attacked and killed by marauding man-eating lions. In the Wagingombe area alone 230 people were listed as having been killed. In the Njombe district, which covered an area about 200 km by 300 km some 1500 people had been killed. Not only was the rural population being decimated, but the morale of the survivors was so low, that many of them believed that the lions were not real. Many thought that evil witch doctors were controlling the lions, or that lion-men were changing form to kill their enemies. Indeed some wichdoctors took advantage of the disarray to settle scores and to kill for reward.

          By hunting down and killing the man-eaters, and by showing the flesh and blood to the doubting tribes people, George was able to instil some confidence into the villagers. However the Africans attributed the return of peace and safety, not to the efforts of George Rushby, but to the reinstallation of their deposed chief Matamula Mangera who had previously been stood down for corruption. It was Matamula , in their eyes, who had called off the lions.

          Soon after this adventure, George was appointed Deputy Game Warden for Tanganyika, and was based in Arusha. He retired in 1956 to the Njombe district where he developed a coffee plantation, and was one of the first in Tanganyika to plant tea as a major crop. However he sensed a swing in the political fortunes of his beloved Tanganyika, and so sold the plantation and settled in a cottage high on a hill overlooking the Navel Base at Simonstown in the Cape. It was whilst he was there that TV Bulpin wrote his biography “The Hunter is Death” and George wrote his book “No More The Tusker”. He died in the Cape, and his youngest son Henry scattered his ashes at the Southern most tip of Africa where the currents of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet .

          George Gilman Rushby:

          #5674

          “Damn it, too late again, Miss B won’t be pleased.”

          Ricardo was looking at the clandestine distillery from a distance. It had burst in flames a short while ago, and the local press was already covering the event.

          “But Sophie was right. Maybe there’s more to this particular… calling of hers.” Ricardo brandished his fake newsporter card in front of the officer at the police cordon and managed to slip unnoticed into the area. It had probably more to do with his ability to be unnoticed at times than it had to do with the card itself, but the card helped boost his confidence.

          There were a number of car trails leaving from the place, and the police would certainly take time to go through all of it thoroughly, including the rats’ and frogs’ trails if they could. But Ricardo didn’t care for meticulousness, but rather for efficiency, and of course, potent gossip. One trail in particular caught his eye.

          “You’re good at hiding in plain sight, Ric’, but you’re still a rookie.”

          Hilda was there, in all her usual flamboyance, hiding in plain extravagance. “You didn’t think Bossy would have let you without a senior chaperon?” she added cockily. “But I see you caught up on an interesting lead.”

          “How could you be there so fast? It’d been months we couldn’t reach you? And more importantly… How can’t anybody around see you, especially in this horrible, completely out-of-place mustard orange plastic leather suit?”

          Hilda guffawed “They can’t see what they can’t understand! You can’t imagine how invisible I become in America. They don’t understand diddly squat!” She turned intense again. “I was myself on a case, you see. A case of the mummies. Sanso told me I’d find a trail of clues at this place, but now it’s gone in flames, I started to wonder. Until I saw your interest in that particular one. It’s not a frog’s for sure,… or it’s got some big crummy tyres. I get a feeling it’s going to lead us to our next story.”

          “It better be.” Ric’ said glumily, “or Bossy isn’t going to be chipper about it.”

          “Not to worry, I’ll call my friend Blithe Gambol, P.I. to the help with the tracking and all. Could never beat her at the find-the-trail-on-gloogloo game.”

          #4819

          Took me a while to get the gist of the thing, but it’s working now. Wait, is it?
          I’ll never know for sure, I have that old phone with no chip in that somehow allows me to text with no mobile reception.
          If Prune hadn’t left so fast, I would have asked her to put the darn thing on my phone, but mainly I’m able to have fun with bot.
          fuirt jllly fckgn e key stickign now as well T
          etetetetetetetete
          Anyway, Sanso buggered off without notice thogh, left me hanging dry in front of the old tunnels. I couldn’t get inside, too narrow entrance, got a tunnel fright! Talk about mood killer. So unlike me.
          Spent a bit of time chatting to various old freinds, part of the old crowd back in th e day, including pople still there I havent seen in years and thats been nice.
          It’s like smelling Mater’s cooking and realizing it was me burning dog food.
          Now I’ll just go la la la la until I find clarity and inspiration.

          #4527

          The trial run was not a complete success, and so it was back to the cooking pot and the agonizingly slow wait.

          The spell and the magic concoction had rendered the three women partially invisible: it seemed that anything with the colour yellow in it (including of course green and orange and so on) remained plainly visible. Pathways of bile had been illuminated like never before: it was not a pleasant sight.

          “I always have trouble with the damn yellows,” remarked Eleri with a despondent sigh, as her hand absentmindedly rubbed her solar plexus. “Hey!” she elbowed Glynis in the ribs, “I just had a thought! Maybe you need to put something purple in the pot.”

          Glynis predictably enough rolled her eyes at Eleri and asked with a snort, “Such as?”

          “I don’t know but you know how they always tell you to twirl your yellows with purple.” Eleri’s face fell and her shoulders sagged. “I don’t know, Glynis, it’s all so discouraging. I miss the others, it’s too damn quiet around here these days. You’d think we’d be able to amuse ourselves, and that makes it even more depressing, doesn’t it? How on earth are we going to snap out of it?”

          “Speak for yourself you miserable tart, I’m busy trying to make this potion so we can get out of here. Just try to buck up, will you! If I had time I’d make you a Buck the Fuck Up potion, but can’t you see I’m busy!” Glynis slammed the wooden spoon down on the counter and burst into tears.

          Eleri raised an eyebrow and said sagely, “Who’s calling who a miserable tart now then, eh!” and then ducked as the wooden spoon came hurtling towards her.

          “Now now,” said Margoritt, “We’re all a bit stressed, no need to take it out on each other. Group hug!”

          “Oh piss off,” replied Eleri and Glynis in unison. “We’re not that desperate,” added Eleri.

          #4444
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            …Everyone including, and especially, Godfrey”, Finnley continued into the next comment.

            #4433
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              What the Huntingford’s hadn’t realized was that the doline on their land wasn’t the only entrance to the labyrinth, which extended considerably further than anyone would have imagined, even the Stripling Bryson’s.

              Aubrey Stripling Bryson, whose estate was a days ride up country from the Huntingford’s, was on an expedition in the tunnels when Emerald’s dog had fallen in the doline. His family had known about the underground galleries and passages for generations; indeed, the family had made use of the ones closest to the house for centuries. Nobody knew how long, although there were stories of ancient bones being found by the more adventurous, nobody knew what happened to them, and for comforts sake and the all too familiar fear of the unknown, many of the passages had been blocked off over the years.

              Aubrey had been an adventurous lad, and had ventured further along the tunnels during his childhood than anyone, other than his sister Evelyn, would have believed. When he inherited the estate at the early age of thirty three, he prepared a proper expedition including representatives of relevant scientific authorities, intending to map the subterranean network, and write a book about his findings. Evelyn wrote most of the book for him, in fact, but he was credited with it as was the custom at the time. Aubrey had done the physical explorations and obtained various reports from experts, but Evelyn assembled it all together.

              The book was in the final stages prior to going to print, when Evelyn had disappeared. And everything relating to the book had disappeared with her. Aubrey was distraught, and never recovered, and Evelyn was never found. He ordered the final tunnel to be blocked off, leaving an usual cave house cellar, nothing more than a curiosity.

              The story of Aubrey’s book that disappeared was told to generations of Stripling Bryson children, whispered along with other family ghost stories. And there were many. Even now, there are unusual goings on at the Stripling Bryson estate, adding to the repertoire of local stranger than fiction stories.

              #4424
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                Roberto, silhouetted in the frame of back door, smiled smugly as he fingered the skeleton key in his pocket. He was glad he’d brought a few artefacts back from the doline.

                He sauntered up to the trunk, whistling a tune about his mother, and tapped on the lid.

                “I ‘ave a key that opens everrrrything, including trrrrunks,” he whispered.

                “Who are you, please sir, I have a doubt,” the muffled voice inside the trunk replied.

                “I’m not surprised,” Roberto replied, somewhat cryptically.

                “Please, I need the lavatory only, very quickly need it,” Anna tried another approach.

                But Roberto had wandered into the kitchen to confer with Finnley and didn’t hear her.

                #4233

                By the following spring, Trustinghampton had fifty seven inhabitants. Under the leadership of Leroway, all had comfortable homes and enough to eat. There were numerous workshops, a bakery and communal brick oven, vegetable gardens and a traveling scavenging team with a mule cart. It was Lobbocks who had suggested a distillery: what we need now is a pub, he’d said. Somewhere to party.

                And that is how Leroway became the Lord Mayor. When the first spirits and wines were ready, the villagers held a party. The scavengers had found, among other things including additional wines and spirits and party drug stashes, a vast collection of clothing of all kinds, and so they had a fancy dress party. For fun they had a competiton of the best costumes, and Leroway and Jolly won, with their royal robes and tiara crowns. Eleri won second prize for her fetching maids outfit.

                Lest anyone be confused as to the nature of the workings of the village, there was no hierarchy and no laws. It was a mutual cooperation under the obvious and natural leadership of Leroway. The villagers were fond of him and grateful for the part he played, and Jolly was popular with everyone. The First Party was such a success and everyone loved their costumes so much that they continued to wear them, and play the parts. Thus, Leroway and Jolly became Lord Mayor and Lady Teacake, and Eleri played the part of their maid, although nobody was dictating to anyone else as it was just a game.

                It was the maids outfit that led Leroway astray. Try as he might, for he was devoted to his wife, he couldn’t subdue the flames rising in his purple clad loins. Eleri deftly avoided him as best she could, for she too was devoted to her friend Jolly. Had she fancied Leroway at all, she might have considered approaching Jolly with a view to an amicable ménage à trois, but the fact was, she didn’t. She had eyes for the latest arrival, the mysterious Mr Minn.

                #3996
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  The following is an e-mail from the past, composed on July 01, 2010. It is being delivered from the past through FutureMe.org

                  Dear FutureMe,
                  The Absinthe Cafe
                  Dawn and Mark had a bottle of Absinthe (the proper stuff with the WORMwood in
                  it, which is illegal in France) but forgot to bring it. Wandering around at
                  some point, we chanced upon a cafe called Absinthe. Sitting on the terrace, the
                  waitress came up and looked right at me and said “Oh you are booked to come here
                  tomorrow night!” and then said “Forget I said that”. Naturally that got our
                  attention. After we left Dawn spotted a kid with 2016 on the back of his T
                  shirt. We asked Arkandin about it and we have a concurrent group focus that does
                  meet in that cafe in 2016, including Britta. Dawn’s name is Isabelle Spencer,
                  Jib’s is Jennifer….
                  The Worm & The Suitcase
                  I borrowed Rachel’s big red suitcase for the trip and stuck a Time Bridgers
                  sticker on it, and joked before I left about the case disappearing to 2163. I
                  had an impulse to take a fig tree sapling for Eric and Jib, which did survive
                  the trip although it looked a little shocked at first. As Eric was repotting
                  it, we noticed a worm in the soil, and I said, Well, if the fig tree dies at
                  least you have the worm.
                  At Balzacs house on a bench in the garden there was a magazine lying there open
                  to an ad for Spain, which said “If you lose your suitcase it would be the best
                  thing because you would have to stay”.
                  Later we asked Arkandin and he said that there was something from the future
                  inserted into my suitcase. I went all through it wondering what it could be,
                  and then a couple of days ago Eric said that it was the WORM! because of the
                  WORMwood absinthe syncs, and worm hole etc. I just had a chat with Franci who
                  had a big worm sync a couple of days ago, she particularly noticed a very big
                  worm outside the second hand shop, and noted that she hadn’t seen a worm in ages
                  ~ which is also a sync, because there was a big second hand clothes shop next to
                  Dawn and Mark’s hotel that I went into looking for a bowler hat.
                  Arkandin said, by the way, that Jane did forget to mention the bowler hats in
                  OS7, those two guys on the balcony were indeed wearing bowler hats, and that
                  they were the same guys that were in my bedroom in the dream I had prior to
                  finding the Seth stuff ~ Elias and Patel.
                  Eric replied:

                  And another Time Bridger thing; a while ago, Jib and I had fun planting some TB stickers at random places in Paris (and some on a wooden gate at Jib’s hometown).
                  Those in Paris I remember were one at the waiting room of a big tech department store, and another on the huge “Bateaux Mouches” sign on the Pont de l’Alma (bridge, the one of Lady D. where there is a gilded replica of Lady Liberty’s flame).
                  I think there are pics of that on Jib’s or my flickr account somewhere.
                  When we were walking past this spot, Jib suddenly remembered the TB sticker — meanwhile, the sign which was quite clean before had been written all over, and had other stickers everywhere. We wondered whether it was still here, and there it was! It’s been something like 2 years… Kind of amazing to think it’s still there, and imagine all the people that may have seen it since!
                  ~~~~

                  The Flights

                  I wasn’t all that keen on flying and procrastinated for ages about the trip. I
                  flew with EASYjet, so it was nice to see the word EASY everywhere. I got on the
                  plane to find that they don’t allocate seats, and chose a seat right at the
                  front on the left. The head flight attendant was extremely playful for the
                  whole flight, constantly cracking up laughing and teasing the other flight
                  attendants, who would poke him and make him laugh during announcements so that
                  he kept having to put the phone down while he laughed. I spent the whole flight
                  laughing and catching his mischeivously twinking eye.
                  I asked Arkandin about him and he said his energy was superimposed. I got on
                  the flight to come home and was met on the plane by the same guy! I said
                  HELLO! It’s YOU again! Can I sit in the same seat and are you going to make me
                  laugh again” and he actually moved the person that was in my seat and said I
                  could sit there. Then he asked me about my book (about magic and Napolean). He
                  also said that all his flights all week had been delayed except the two that I
                  was on. He wanted to give me a card for frequent flyers but I told him I
                  usually flew without planes ~ that cracked him up ;))
                  ~~~

                  The Dream Bean

                  Eric cracked open a special big African bean that is supposed to enhance
                  dreams/lucidity so we all had a bit of it. The second night I remembered a
                  dream and it was a wonderful one.
                  (Coincidentally, on the flight home I read a few pages of my book and it just
                  happened to be about the council of five dragons and misuse of magical beans)
                  In the dream I had a companion with magical powers, who I presumed was Jib but
                  it was myself actually. It was a long adventure dream of being chased and
                  various adventures across the countryside, but there was no stress, it was all
                  great fun. Everytime things got a bit too close in the dream, I’d hold onto my
                  friend with magical powers, and we would elevate above the “adventure” and drop
                  down in another location out of immediate danger ~ although we were never
                  outside of the adventure, so to speak. At one point I wondered why my magical
                  freind didn’t just elevate us right up high and out of it completely, and
                  realized that we were in the adventure game on purpose for the fun of it, so why
                  would we remove ourselves completely from the adventure game.
                  In the dream I remember we were heading for Holland at one point, and then the
                  last part we were safely heading for Turkey…..
                  The other dream snapshot was “we are all working together on roof tiles” and
                  Arkandin had some interesting stuff to say about that one.
                  ~~~

                  There were alot of vampire imagery incidents starting with me asking Eric if he
                  slept in his garden tool box at night, and then the guy who shot out of a door
                  right next to Jib and Eric’s, in a bright orange T shirt, carrying a cardboard
                  coffin. He stopped for me to take a photo (and Arkandin said it was a Patel pop
                  in); then while walking through the outdoor food market someone was chopping a
                  crate up and a perfect wooden stake flew across the floor and landed at my feet.
                  The next vampire sync was a shop opposite Dawn and Mark’s hotel with 3 coffins
                  in the window (I went back to take a pic of the cello actually, didn’t even
                  notice the coffins). Inside the shop was an EAU DE NIL MOTOR SCOOTER Share, can
                  you beleive it, and a mummy, a stuffed raven, and a row of (Tardis) Red phone
                  boxes.
                  I had a nightmare last night that I couldn’t find any of my (nine) dogs; the
                  only ones I could find were the dead ones.
                  ~~~~

                  Balzac’s House

                  The trip to Balzac’s house was interesting, although in somewhat unexpected
                  ways. (Arkandin was Balzac and I was the cook/housekeeper) The house didn’t
                  seem “right” somehow to Mark and I and we decided that was probably because
                  other than the desk there was no furniture in it. Mark saw a black cat that
                  nobody else saw that was an Arkandin pop in (panther essence animal), and Dawn
                  felt that he was sitting on a chair, and Mark sat on him. (Arkandin said yes he
                  did sit on him ;) The kitchen was being used as an office. Jib felt the house
                  was too small, and picked up on a focus of his that rented the other part of the
                  house. (The house was one storey high on the side we entered, and two storeys
                  high from the road below). There were two pop ins there apparently, one with
                  long hair which is a connection to my friend Joy who was part of that group
                  focus, and I can’t recall anything about the other one. Dawn was picking up
                  that Balzac wasn’t too happy, and I was remembering the part in Cousin Bette
                  that infuriated me when I read it, where he goes on and on about how disgusting
                  it is for servants to expect their wages when their “betters” are in dire
                  straits. Arkandin confirmed that I didn’t get my wages.
                  The garden was enchanting and had a couple of sphinx statues and a dead pigeon ~
                  as well as the magazine with the suitcase and Spain imagery. Mark signed the
                  guest book “brought the cook back” and I replied “no cooking smells this time”.

                  #3894

                  In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                  Frowning, Dispersee pondered the latest impulse and hesitated before including it in her report. The imagery had shifted from pools, to bubbles, to vapourous mist rising in shafts of sunlight, which sounded dangerously akin to ascending into the light, and that would never do. There was already far too much mumbo jumbo circulating about ascension and light, and altogether too many people sitting around on gluten free arses, ignoring everything, waiting for the shifted salt free shaft of the rapture to beam them up to the higher realms.

                  No, it was no good, she couldn’t possibly share the new imagery, it would be misconstrued and counterproductive. Dispersee waited for the next strange impulse, and further clues.

                  She didn’t have to wait long: the next morning, seized by another compulsion, she slipped out of the house into the dense swirling fog. Normally a big fan of bright contrast and intense colours, the diffused monochrome scenes were somehow restful to her senses. Water droplets danced in the air like common eye floaters, gathering on her skin and hair, wetting her as effectively as a dunk in a pool, but without the sudden shock of a plunge. It was insidious, almost sneaky, the way the mist pretended to be air but was mostly water. The fog connected everything in its path with its swarms of moisture droplets, drenching everything. Dispersee wondered if her wellington boot had sprung a leak as her left sock became coldly saturated, but it was the rivulets of clinging fog dribbling down her trouser leg.

                  The bucolic scenery in shades of grey reminded her of the common phrase “it’s not black and white” which had been much bandied about of late. No, it’s not, she mused, it’s shades of reflected dispersed fluid, masquerading as spaces and solid matters. Poised to take a snapshot of a particularly large dewdrop which was reflecting an interesting twisted sapling, Dispersee blundered into the stalk of the plant, causing a furious shivering along the stems and seed pods. She watched with a feeling akin to fascinated horror as the glorious individual droplets merged into a channel of least resistance, spilling down in streams to gather in the mud.

                  #3705
                  prUneprUne
                  Participant

                    Aunt Idle has again tried to do us some fancy French dessert but ended up again burning it all.
                    Didn’t help that she used old Bert’s welding tools to caramelize the top.
                    Now the whole inn, including the fish is smelling of smoked charcoal.
                    It even brought Mater out of her room, where she’s been in a sort of retreat the past days.

                    When one is so desperately bad at something, is it a proof of character to do it over and over until some miracle happens?

                    #3643
                    EricEric
                    Keymaster

                      Just as Elizabeth was explaining Finnley her thoughts about the Political Correction Police, and that her casting of overly stereotypical minorities wasn’t a cultural insensitivity on her part (including the fact that skinnies were more the minorities versus fatties here), the bell at the door interrupted her once more.

                      “Madam Liz, Madam Liz, there’s someone at the door, says he’s your husband… Not judging, but looks like a mess too.”
                      “Husband? He didn’t tell you his sequence number by any chance?”

                      #3501
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        Adele Delilah Dalgleish, more familiarly known as Aunt Idle, Clove and Corrie’s paternal aunt, and care giver and guardian of the twins, the son and the younger daughter. Aunt Idle has a colourful history of improbable temporary jobs and pursuits, and eccentric liasons with the shifterati of the day, including hypnotizing chickens in a travelling circus, and selling magic spells on Flukebook. From time to time a bizarre character from the past turns up on their smalltown outback doorstep, and for many diverse reasons. Aunt Idle loves to travel, but travel has been limited due to her responsibilities to her brothers children and their location, so she has been practicing projecting and out of body travelling religiously for some years, and is becoming more confident, although it’s all still fairly sketchy.
                        When asked about her brother and his wife, her lips are sealed. As long as somebody’s looking after them, so what? she’d say. If the children asked, she’d say How would I know? I haven’t seen them lately. As if they were asking about a dress she had 10 years ago, mildly puzzled at their interest. Or that was the impression that she gave. It was a small town, people wondered. Especially as they had disappeared right around when those “weird tales from the unexplained outback” had started appearing in the popular press.

                        #3355

                        “That bloke is sure talkin’ some bloody nonsense if you tell me, hope you know what you’re doin’” Jack knew that it was no point arguing with Lisa, and had always been anything but supportive of her fads, including her new and strange attraction to the young girl.
                        “I s’pose I’ll be takin’ care of them dogs, then. When you comin’ back?”

                        #3283

                        When Huhu arrived at his destination, Irina was sunbathing to the last rays of a big red gorgeous sunset that painted the waves in iridescent shades of purple.
                        At the same time, the sun’s course had already started a new day on the shores of New Zealand, where her sister was living, and she surely would be thrilled. Long had she waited for the 2222-2-22 marker.
                        Here, in Hawaii, they would still be in 2222-2-21, for a few more hours.
                        Irina started to shiver. 22°C her watch read. As if she needed to be any more quirky about this date…

                        “Good boy!” she said to the parrot, taking the key it was carrying. Huhu tittered in contentment, cracking some of the pistachios she fed him distractedly.

                        She’d just received additional information from the Management. Elusive as usual, and leaving a great deal to interpretation, including the interdiction.

                        They’d promised to get her her dream island as a retirement plan. Some said it was the original land of the mermaids (who used to have as much feathers as Rio Carnival’s samba dancers), right off Italy’s Amalfi’s coast. Among its perks, it boasted to incorporate 8 staff, and a private grotto — that, if anything else than her fine waist line, would surely entice Sanso into other steamy booty calls.
                        She’d seen the pictures of the properties, her first thought though was that she needed to shoot the interior decorator. In short, it was almost her moral duty to get it, and change the decor. On the whole, she was convinced the island would do her good.

                        So, when she looked back at the previous instructions to see how good she’d done on her mission’s objectives, she shrugged a little. She’d understood instinctively right when it was delivered that it was a clever cipher, especially given the late date shift. So she had reinterpreted the actual commands, and leisurely waited for the travellers to appear, and get comfy. By now, she was certain they trusted her telepathic commands well enough, so that solved the trust conundrum.
                        Basically, she was a major proponent of her own interpretation of old Ho’oponopono rituals. Instead of the usual mantra “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.” hers was a bit more straightforward and was around the lines of “Green sickness to you. Peace be with you, and bugger off.
                        Said a few times with proper intonation and inner work, and it was know to her to alter dramatically any block or resistance into a great flow of pure unfettered energy. So she had adamant faith that all she needed to do to complete her mission was to focus on herself and solve the resistance within by letting go.

                        The last message was short.

                        22 the code * whale that * BO

                        It could only mean one thing. 22 was a clever cipher meaning conundrum as in a catch 22, but also an obvious reference to the temperature. So it could only mean one thing: tamper with the code on the 22nd, and send it on the way to the whales, with a bug on it.

                        “Mr R, please, fetch!”

                        The discrete, yet always present robot caught the key with grace, and on her careful instructions, proceeded to alter the code of the key.

                        Irina was enjoying herself immensely, and found it a pity nobody could witness her true genius. “The ones who’ll read that key later, well… they are in for such a wild goose chase!”
                        The second part of St Germain’s encoded hologram was now ripe with wonderful and bewildering information about blubbits and the magic kingdom of Peasland with obscure and arcane references of magic numbers like 57, that would have anybody sane turn mad as a hatter in no time. Hopefully the whales would be immune to the nonsense, but probably not humans.

                        Now was the final part of the plan.

                        “Mr R?”
                        “Madam?”
                        “I hope you are ready for this delicate reinsertion mission. Do you still have that octopus suit of yours ready?”
                        “Of course, Madam. Right away Madam.”

                        #2897
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          The ten dogs circled the round kitchen table, all the eyes were focused on the left over roast potatoes including Mari Fe’s. Suddenly there was a little bang just in front her and she froze and glanced up. A mouse had appeared on top of the microwave, and he froze too, and stared at Mari Fe. Time stood still for a long moment as they looked at each other. Mari Fe wondered if he would like a Marie biscuit, remembering the last time he was here, and how he would only nothing else.
                          It wasn’t until later that she began to wonder if anything had gone wrong with the teleport arrangements with Baltazar. It was a remarkable coincidence, the time travel mouse popping in like that unexpectedly, after such a long absence.

                          #2842

                          In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            The enormous freshwater lakes that had formed on the new continent of Canaria during the land changes were attracting alot of visitors, and indeed many travellers displaced by upheavals in other locations. The largest of these lakes, named Lago Restinga in remembrance of the tiny coastal village of El Hierro which had been the first to see the emergence of the new land, was like a magnet, and people from all over the world flocked to its shores. Small communities emerged, exhibiting all manner of innovative building methods and materials and novel designs, including a number of floating dwellings upon the lake itself. The climate was perfect ~ very little rain and plenty of warm sunshine, but abundant fresh water. A previously unknown type of freshwater seaweed flourished in the lakes, which could be dried and ground into flour, or eaten fresh as a vegetable, and when boiled with bananas and left to set, made a deliciously sweet pudding. Miraculously, coffee shrubs had seeded themselves on the rolling slopes, and cannabis and tobacco plants, too. Never before had such an abundance and ease been experienced with regard to food, which was one of the major attractions of the freshwater lakes of the Canaria.

                            #2739

                            In reply to: Strings of Nines

                            EricEric
                            Keymaster

                              Arona was starting to get cold in the pinkini. She wondered how the lady with the green hair managed to keep warm with so little (not to say as much as nothing) on her skin.
                              She probably had some fuel more lasting than just Nhum.
                              Upon seeing that (not the nakie lady, Flove forbid, but the freezing Arona and the night falling down), chivalrous Vinny and Bucky went to gather some bones and fire to spend the night around a nice bonefire. Just what she needed for a keetle of hot tea.

                              Note from the observing Sue Maffey, who started quickly to get high and delirious on Nhum tea in chippendale cups and mumbled to herself and patient Minky-in-crutches in between a few hiccups: “you knew that a bonfire is actually a fire made of bones, originally said of fires in which the bones of slaughtered animals were burned, allegedly a Gaengelic tradition of the slaughter season in autumn (Samhain, which was soon to come).”
                              She almost gasped wondering where their camelephants had suddenly gone and why that purple reckless dragon suddenly looked satiated.

                              By now, almost everyone else who was there, including (but not only) Mandrake, Yickesy, Winky-nakie-greenie-Messmeerah-with-her-carved-jamón and Mrs Janet had thought the same at least once. That and wondering whether they’d ever get to see that famed Jiborium.
                              So much for cheap package tours.

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