General Chat

Thank you Barbra for your lovely reply :-). I'm so pleased that your father-in-law decided to write about his experiences - must have been so difficult for him to do so - but as you rightly say, in doing so it gives us such an insight into those times. What a lovely legacy for your family and I bet you're really proud of him :-)

Maggie, many thanks for your reply too :-). I absolutely agree with you - my father is extremely brave to share his innermost and most personal feelings with us. Maggie, in so doing, I now see him through completely different eyes.Crikey, am I glad he did :-).
How wonderful that you have those letters and so interesting too - so pleased that you have :-)

Piers,
What an amazing gift - and what a brave and wonderful father you have!!
To expose your innermost and most personal feelings to your children is such a brave move to make <3

I have letters written between my grandparents when they were courting, acquired after gran died.
I never knew my granddad - he died 6 weeks before I was born, but I have a totally different view of my grandmother :-D
They are also a wonderful slice of social history - A woman in 'service' and a dock worker - of the time (1924), and give an insight to petty snobbery amongst the working classes!!

Piers .something for you to treasure & show your Daughter ,lovely thoughtfull thing for your Dad to do . :-D my Late FiL was in the second world war .he wrote .two books about the time`s & places .Also about his pals some were lost .others got home so much info in them .we have found them to be excellent reading .& an insight to a lot of what they did to save us all <3 Barbra

Good Morning Sol :-) - nice to see you posting again :-)

Thank you for your kind words and what a lovely thought for your mum. I'm sure she will cherish that day forever :-).

Good Morning Piers,

A wonderful gift to you and your brother and indeed, to all his descendants. His words of wisdom, experiences, and of learning can be passed down the generations.

Well done your Dad! and Many Happy Returns to him ! :-)

The closest experience of my own was when my children presented my Mum, on her birthday, with a leather binder containing a newspaper from the day on which she was born - and she was 'tickled pink' with that! :-D :-D

Thank you Fly :-)

Liz, thank you for your reply. I hope you do manage to write your story down in due course as I'm sure it will help your son - as I have found with my father's journal :-).

Scozz, thank you also :-). What a frustrating situation for you. I agree with Liz and feel you made the 'right' decision. Crikey, families eh :-S

You are so right, Scozz. I have one brother who doesn't make any effort to keep in touch with me or our younger brother. He has a son a month older than my lad and the boys aren't close due to his attitude. The younger brother keeps in touch in fits and starts, but we aren't close. When we were all single it was different but since my bros married, neither sister in law have encouraged closeness, especially since my parents died. As I was a single Mum it would have been nice had my son's uncles helped out a bit by encouraging visits especially as younger bro has no kids and has a huge property out in the country where my son could have helped in the 5 acre grounds etc.

Oh well, don't have to say thanks but it's sad as my Mum's family was large and close and got together often and helped each other out.

Lizx

Liz ~ two of my brothers showed their true colours when Mum died. I'm still disgusted by their behaviour, as is my DH. I have 4 brothers, the two nasty ones, one has mental problems (bipolar); the other one and I are close.

I haven't seen the other three since Mum died.

The bad & sad thing about it, I don't see the children of those brothers, they probably believe the stories their dads told them.

The old saying "you can choose your friends but not your relatives" is so true.

:-(

I think you made a wise and sensible decision, Scozz. If you had given your brother the diary without reading even a little part of it, you would never have forgiven yourself. He could have said whatever he liked to stir up trouble or hurt people and you would never have known the truth.

Lizx

My mother kept a diary.

I found it after she died.

One brother said he wanted it........ he's a nasty man, always angry ........ he said he wanted to read it to "prove" things his siblings did when he was young (he was a terrible child!).

I read a few pages, then closed it, it was a VERY personal diary.

I hid the diary, and brought it home. Mum died 10 years ago, and I still don't want to read her diary.

Brother wanted the diary, got very nasty with me...... so I told him it was too personal for us to read and that I had burned it.

Maybe one day I'll get around to reading it, and send a copy to him.

Perhaps I didn't have the right to make that decision...... but I had no idea what that brother would do with the "information" in it.

How resourceful of your father to have kept such a journal and for him to share it with you and your brother now in time to discuss parts of it if you wish is especially thoughtful. Congratulations to him on his 70th birthday, and congratulations for continuing the journal for so long.

I have very little info on my late parent's lives, mainly stories told by my Mum and a little knowledge gleaned from Dad about his service history. There are several photos of him during his time in service in Egypt and Burma but no notes with them which is a shame.

I suppose I should make an effort to get my life story down, ss my son will never remember things I have told him, and there won't be many others around to tell him the true situations in years to come when he will perhaps be more interested.

I know you will treasure your journal and hope you will have your Dad around for many more years to come, to add to the stories.

Lizx

Piers that is a lovely gift from your dad <3

Thank you Shirley. I'm so glad you have those letters and can understand why they are so precious to you.

Ann, your father's account sounds fascinating and what a wonderful heirloom to have. I'm sure that your own account of your life will be equally treasured by your family :-).

I do have a day by day account written by my Father when he was on HMS Durban based in South America in the 30s. I also have his photo albums one of which also charts that trip in South America. Not all the photos are named though.
And he was very good at keeping a scrap book which had things that charted his life in it, School reference for is first job, references for all his other jobs after leaving the RN. Photos and builders advert/prices for their first and only house etc.

I have written (although not had printed and bound) my own Life story and, as he was alive when I started I was able to obtain information from him that I would have been too young to remember.

Piers, that was a lovely surprise for you and your brother. And I am sure it gave your Dad much pleasure to see your pleasure and surprise at receiving it. Do ask him about things in it as he will I am sure enjoy telling you what you want to know.

What a lovely gift

I only have the two letters my hubby sent in with relatives when he wasn't able to visit me in hospital after the birth of our daughter in 1958

He is a quiet man who doesn't verbally express his feelings so those love letters are very precious to me

Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts :-)

Kath, I absolutely agree - we are extremely lucky to have this journal and are so grateful that so much information has been shared with us - we will learn from it :-)

Det, I'm glad you have those letters and hopefully future generations too :-). My brother has now decided to keep a journal for his children.

Jem, what difficult times for your grand-mother and for you too. I'm so pleased that you have reached a greater understanding of what has happened in the past :-)

Mersey, my heartfelt thanks for your kind words <3 :-) :-) :-)

What an amazing gift Piers, and what a lovely Father you have <3 <3 Wonderful....

You are in no doubt following in his footsteps as to being a lovely Father and husband and it certainly shows and shines......this is through his love that you shine and
to have your Father give you and your brother such a gift is heart warming and a memory you will always have, and then can be passed down to your daughter.......

<3

That's such a wonderful gift to you Piers, You will treasure it forever :-)

You have been given something, that few of us will experience. The chance of really getting to know a parent, as Kathleen said, while he was still alive :-)

I haven't had this experience, but I have come to understand my Grandmother more, through finding out things on GR that I didn't know about her.

This Grandmother brought me up, but it was a very difficult relationship. She was 69 years old when my father "landed" on her with my brother and myself, which must have been very hard for her.

I have since found out that she had a baby girl, her first child, that we never knew about. Margaret Ann died soon after birth. Her birthday would have been the day before mine. Each year, when my birthday was approaching, it must have been particularly difficult for her.

The art of writing a Journal has slipped out of favour - you're extremely fortunate to have been given one while you can still talk to your father about the contents.

If more people did so, they may find it theraputic when/if they are at a cross-road in their life.

The closest I have are a number of letters between my parents from when they were courting. One of these days, I'll have to put them into chronological order.

I haven't had anything like that but I wish I had.

It's also nice that your father gave you the journals whilst he is still alive and hopefully you will get the chance to ask about things written in it. If he'd have left it to you after he died then you wouldn't have had that opportunity.

Well done your dad!

Kath. x