WDYTYA - 9 November - Pixie Lott

[phsvm]

Singer-songwriter Pixie Lott sets out to confirm the family story that she has Italian ancestry from Verona. However, her genealogy search takes her to a tale of poverty and hardship in London, and a harrowing and surprising experience in the First World War.

She’s also interested in finding out whether any of her ancestors was a musician, because nobody in her immediate family is. “Music is in my bones, although I don’t know where it comes from,” explains the 30-year-old.

[Thunder]

I've never heard of her before WDYTYA so it could be interesting.

[phsvm]

I expect that's what a number of people will say, Thunder.

For anyone who is a regular viewer of Strictly Come Dancing you may remember her doing well on that show a number of years ago.

[AdrianBruce]

And all across the land, there were cries of anguish as the expert said, "I think that because this was an Italian church, they've put the names in Italian" - or words to that effect.
No - because it's a Roman Catholic church, the documents are in Latin - or at least, Church Latin.

I'm afraid that I also got distracted during the sequence at Chatham Historic Dockyard when I saw a submarine and another warship in the background. The warship turns out to be HMS Cavalier, which I'd seen at Brighton years ago and had feared had been turned into razor blades. Not so. The sub is HMS Ocelot, which I haven't seen. I did see her sister, HMS Onyx, at Birkenhead but after the failure of the museum there, that was scrapped. Warships are way more difficult to preserve than steam engines.

[Mick Loney]

And all across the land, there were cries of anguish as the expert said, "I think that because this was an Italian church, they've put the names in Italian" - or words to that effect.
No - because it's a Roman Catholic church, the documents are in Latin - or at least, Church Latin.

Too true, too true!
Not a bad episode on the whole, and particularly moving about the extended period in/out of the workhouse. What a way for the kids to start life, and kids of today complain they don’t have the right sort of trainers. They don’t know how lucky they are to have shoes at all, my mum told me she often had to miss school because she had no shoes/boots to wear, being one of eleven children, growing up in the East End of London.

[AdrianBruce]

Yes, there were a couple of aspects that I don't remember seeing before - or at least, not as brutal. One was, as you say, that sheaf of Workhouse admissions - yes, we've seen them before but not as many, so far as I remember.

The other aspect was the Prisoner of War angle - I don't remember dealing with WW1 PoWs before.

[Mick Loney]

Seeing the Booths poverty map of London (the colour coded map shown),was interesting, shame they didn’t explain what is was and how it came about. Booth took copious notes on his travels, and they contain some useful snippets. Some of my ancestors were mentioned in one of his notebooks, and it gave clues to some other relatives living nearby, and how they were related.
I did find it amusing (if that’s the right word) when he desribed the son of my ancestor as a wastrel and a drunkard or words to that effect
Much more interesting than dry census returns!
I recommend anyone interested in social history to have a read of these notebooks

[Thunder]

I was somewhat unhappy about the way one of the original registers was (literally) handled, if you tried that in an archive office you might get a sharp warning!. Regarding First World of War prisoners of war not much has generally been said, my granduncle was one of 500 men of the 1st Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders who were captured two weeks into the war, minus their commanding officer, on the retreat from Mons, the official explanation was that it was too dark and they turned around around and walked straight into the German lines!.

[Guy]

I would suggest it was handled in a reasonably sensitive manner as if it was flattened on a desk, it would have strained the binding more than being partially opened. Though I do agree balancing on one’s knee could have allowed it to be dropped.
Cheers
Guy