New Year 2009

A week or so ago, my daughter was tidying up her bedroom and came across a diary from 2009.  I thought this page was worth photographing before we threw it out.  I never knew she had such an exciting life.

Ahadish Brelstaff

The online version of the 1901 UK Census contains this entry:

Name: Ahadish Brelstaff

Age: 49

Where born: Haughton Le Spring, Durham

Administrative County: North Riding

Civil Parish: Guisborough

Occupation: Milk Seller

The name 'Ahadish' is an error; the man was called 'Obadiah Brelstaff'.  I presume the person (or algorithm) that transcribed the handwritten original misread the 'O' for a curly capital 'A', the 'b' for an 'h', and the small 'a' for an 's'.  (I notice that they have also misspelt the name of 'Houghton le Spring' too.)

Obadiah was the head of the family that adopted my grandfather Walter in 1903. That is how we came to hijack the name 'Brelstaff'.  On a visit to Great Ayton, probably in the early 1970s, Walter took me to see Obadiah's grave in a churchyard there.  The name 'Obadiah' seems to have been handed down for at least 3 generations, see these 3 entries in the 1851 Census records:

Name: Obadiah Brelstaff, Age: 0, Administrative Area: Houghton Le Spring, Hetton Le Hole

Name: Obadiah Brelstaff, Age: 39, Administrative Area: Houghton Le Spring, Hetton Le Hole

Name: Obadiah Brelstaff, Age: 88, Administrative Area: Guisborough

From My Mother's Sketch Book

A sketch by my mother, Clare Brelstaff, dated 1959-06-11.  The baby is me.  I was then about 10 months old.  We were living in Barrow-in-Furness at the time and my father thinks that the drawing was probably made in the grounds of Furness Abbey. 

Me, my Mother, and Muscovy Ducks

 

Another photo from the family archives.  Me and my mother (Clare Brelstaff) in a park in Barrow-in-Furness in December 1959. We lived in Barrow from 1959 to 1962, before we moved to my father's home town of Guisborough.

I had assumed that my first recorded sighting of a muscovy duck (Cairina moschata) was this one from 2004.  However, if you look in the background of the above photo you will see that my first sighting must have been 45 years earlier.

Walter Dack Brelstaff

From the family archives: a photo of my paternal grandfather, Walter Dack Brelstaff (1903 - 2000).  This was probably taken at his wedding to Emily Elizabeth Mercer in 1929. For more on Walter see here and here.