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I'm looking forward to seeing the occupations for my Mum and Dad .............. both had to leave school at age 12, Mum in 1915 and Dad in 1916, because their mothers needed to have them working.
Mum regretted that for the rest of her life, to a certain extent, because she had passed exams to continue on at school and would have loved to have got more education. But her father was in the MGC, exactly where being a deep secret. I found his war record had a 16 month blank between being transferred to the MGC and boarding a ship in Bombay for what is now Iraq. Grandmother had been left with 3 children, Mum the eldest and the youngest 2 months old, and was seemingly not a good manager of money. I know Mum eventually became a Velvet Weaver, which was a highly skilled occupation, so skilled that the mill owners didn't her to leave when she and Dad married in 1928.
Mum also at some point was a dance instructor which is how she met Dad ............ she was teaching him how to dance the Black Bottom :-D and when the music ended they discovered that her long necklace was entangled in his coat or waistcoat buttons :-D :-D
Meanwhile, Dad's father had died in 1914, a merciful relief for his wife so I have been told by my older cousins, leaving 6 living children born between 1893 and 1909 ( the last child was born in 1911 and died in 1912).
The eldest was 18 and joined up in 1914. Dad was then the eldest boy with 2 older sisters. All had to leave school at 12 and go out to work.
He used to talk about having had various jobs, including working down a small coal mine and setting hot lead type for the printing presses at the local newspaper, finally finding his "home" working in a brass foundry.
I don't think there will be any surprises in where they were living, or where their parents and siblings were.
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I'm not expecting any surprises either, as far as my parents and grandparents are concerned, but it will be the last census as far as one of my grandmothers is concerned as she died when Dad was only five.
Dad spoke fondly about his sister who was actually his half-sister who was born in 1930, several years after his Mum's death, to the person who became the family's housekeeper - it was never a secret. I am hoping to find, living nearby, the name of the person who became the housekeeper - someone who Dad liked.
This child, whom Dad seemed to love and whom he spoke quite a bit about, died while a schoolgirl, something I know upset him. I am still wondering whether to send for her birth certificate - she was given the family's adopted surname along with that which I presume was her mother's.
While my older cousin inherited a lot of photos and documents, Jenny's birth certificate was not among them so I may yet send for her BC if only for family records.
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