A guide to hospice staff for a project that I’m working on. Agency staff have their own uniforms, so I’ll probably add a few of those too.
A Field Guide to Hospice Staff
Category: People
The Ages of Man
Barbara’s brother John had a starring role in an ‘ages of man’ illustration I drew for Dorling Kindersley, which, as far as I remember, never made it into print. Also appearing, John’s oldest son Peter and his younger brothers Simon and Richard.
For the older versions of John I photographed his dad Bill.
It’s so easy to take a reference photograph on you phone these days but back in 1994 I had a print film from a trip to Scotland to finish off and I took it in to one of several processing shops in town and went for extra large prints.
It would have been so much easier with digital photography and you might think, what a shame that John’s performance on the guitar wasn’t recorded as a video clip along with the song but in reality he couldn’t play a note.
John and Margaret
We’re looking through old albums, putting together a short book of memories of Barbara’s brother John. Going back to the pre-digital 1960s, 70s and 80s are plenty of groups at parties, children standing on lawns and a couple of formal wedding groups, but for me the stand out images are by the street photographers in seaside towns.
The close up of John and Margaret reminds me of films from the Swinging Sixties such as Michael Winner’s The System, where Oliver Reed plays a seaside street photographer, but we need John on his own on the cover, so we’re going for another seaside town photograph.
The original of this photograph is small and in black and white but I couldn’t resist using Photoshop’s colourisation neural filter on it. I think that it’s worked well here.
Although Barbara has just pointed out that Margaret’s pink cardigan has one yellow sleeve. I better correct that.
Remembering John
Remembering John Morrisey, the lovely, larger-than-life neighbour of Barbara’s brother John, who died suddenly yesterday morning. Barbara’s brother John died early on Saturday morning, after 3 months in Pontefract Hospice that was expected, but the death of his neighbour John a few days later came as a shock.
Apeman
Thanks to Allan, James and Tom for their acoustic version of Apeman by The Kinks, accompanied by Rick on bongos. Special guest appearance from Ian.
More Trees at the Hospice
We accompanied Barbara’s brother John in a wheelchair on a circuit of the Hospice grounds this morning.
Oova Matique
On our walk via the canal and river to the Coffee Stop this morning: one drake goldeneye, 42 grazing wigeon, a pair of oystercatchers and, by the Navigation Inn, Rachel Modest – The Voice semi-finalist and leader of the Wakefield Community Gospel Choir – making a music video, assisted by vocalist and former roadie (to, amongst many others, The Smiths, David Bowie and Russell Watson) Oova Matique.
Links
Rachel Modest on Facebook
Anonymous Groove Live Sessions on YouTube
Street Kitchen
The fast food at the Falafel Street Kitchen was a tad too fast for me and this was as far as I was able to get in sketching the customers.
Luckily the pace at the Nats’ AGM was a little more sedate. Even so, these days we get through the business side of the evening in a little over fifteen minutes.
Family Tree
I’m currently catching up with a free FutureLearn course Genealogy: Researching Your Family Tree from the University of Strathclyde and thought that this oak in the Capability Brown parkland (drastically remodelled by the National Coal Board Opencast Executive in 1975!) at Temple Newsam this morning was perfect for a basic family tree.
On the course we’ve been warned about the dangers of getting sidetracked – in my case that would be my Truelove great uncles – especially one particular Great Uncle Joe who had a rather colourful life. Coming back to this basic tree with aunties and uncles excluded makes me realise where I need to put in a bit more research into the basic structure. I’ve probably got most of those missing great grandparents covered in my folders of research but this is all that I remember without riffling through the various census forms and birth, baptism, marriage and death certificates that I’ve accumulated.
But I do look forward to getting back to my ‘bad’ Great Uncle Joe and the wife, Mary Tinker who attempted to murder him . . .
In Search of Uncle Joe
On the front page of the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, Monday 26 November 1860, between a notice about a Full Dress Assembly at the Bath Saloon and an invitation from the new landlord of the Newcastle Arms comes this notice from my great, great, great uncle Joseph Truelove that from that date forward he’s not going to be responsible for his wife Mary’s debts.
Joseph had a colourful life. He had married Mary Tinker twelve years earlier on Christmas Eve 1848 at Sheffield Parish Church. By 1860 they were both in their early thirties and evidently the marriage wasn’t going smoothly. Unfortunately things were going to get worse.
I don’t have a photograph of Joseph and Mary but here’s his elder brother, William, born 1825, my great, great grandfather.
A ‘Curious Charge of Assault’
By 1868 Joseph was away in America and Mary was, according to the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, living with George Baxter, a beerhouse keeper in Attercliffe. Bringing a charge of assault against him, Mary claimed that Baxter had assaulted her and had threatened to shoot her. A servant girl from the beerhouse and a woman who Mary called as a witness denied that George had ever used violence towards Mary.
As Mary had called the unnamed woman as a witness, presumably to back up her claims, I can’t help wondering if someone had persuaded the woman to change her story.
Attempted Murder
By Wednesday 26 October 1870 we know that Mary was back with Joseph in Allen Street near the centre of Sheffield. They were both ‘the worse for liquor’ and after a quarrel she attempted to murder him, stabbing him in the neck with a pair of decorator’s scissors. Pleading guilty, she was sentenced to penal servitude for life.
A condition of her release on 19 January 1881 was that she should remain in Lincolnshire but she immediately started to make her way back to Sheffield.
George had remarried, again to a woman called Mary. I’d love to know what happened next.
Joseph died in 1883, the same year that his new wife Mary gave birth to a daughter.
I’m hoping that some day I might come across a photograph of Joseph’s first wife, Mary Tinker, amongst her prison records.