How different the world would be if.....

I’ve been spending so much time at the Cemetery lately that I’ve started to think about the ‘what ifs’ of life. What if those who died young had lived and had the chance to make a valuable contribution to society? How different would our world now be?

My total involvement in all things cemetery is to do with the Heritage Lottery funded project that I’m coordinating. We're cataloguing Leicester’s Jewish Cemetery. I explained about it here and here. We now have a database which contains a record for each grave. Most of them have yet to be filled in but when we have completed this mammoth task, the information will form the basis of our genealogical website.

I have been researching the first burial at the Cemetery; a young girl, Nina Rosina Berger, who died in 1902 at the age of 13. From my research it would seem that she did not live long enough to make significant contributions to her society but her father did. I have a picture of him, Mr Frank Louis Berger, found at the Leicestershire and Rutland Records Office.

The photograph illustrates an article about Mr Berger's struggle to escape from relative poverty and create a successful Leicester-based business manufacturing boys’ suits. The article explains as follows [I’ve retained the original grammar/print style] 

“From small beginnings the firm has risen and it is a fact that to-day they have over one thousand different styles of Boys’ Sailor Suits in Velvets, Plushes, Serge, Tweeds, Worsted, &c…..”

There are plenty more snapshots of life to be rediscovered as we progress with our project, but this got me to thinking about other lives lost. This year there will be a lot of rediscovering events from 100 years ago as it is the Centenary of the outbreak of The Great War. Leicester’s Jewish Community sent 49 men to fight in the 1^st World War, a major contribution as there were only 37 Jewish families in Leicester at that time. Fortunately only three of those men died in action. 46 returned to continue their lives but, as history reminds us, millions and millions of young men never did return. The total number of deaths has been estimated at over 16 million. 

If you speed read that then please slow down and think how many parents mourned and how many lives were lost... a million lives 16 times over.

How many of those young people would, had they lived, have made major contributions to life, cures for diseases, innovative developments in the arts, exciting new technological advancements? How different would life have been if these people had not been pointlessly slaughtered? We’ll never know. I’d like to think that at least we’ve learned lessons about the futility of war but I know that we haven't. 

Do you think we'll ever be able to put an end to war?

Digging for a King - Richard III Part II

The Leicester University Archaeology Department are digging under a Leicester City Council Car Park to search for the bones of Richard III. I blogged in more detail about it last week.

They were pretty certain that this was the site of The Grey Friars, a Franciscan Friary and Church which had been destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16^th Century. Sure enough they unearthed evidence and this weekend we, the public, were invited to see it for ourselves.

We had to queue...

But the sun was shining, people were chatty and excited and before we knew it we were in. This was our very own Archaeologist for the visit.

He showed us the trenches and explained what they were able to deduce from their findings...

They had, as yet, found no bones but they had found some floor tiles... 

...and the imprint of where those tiles would have been...

They've unearthed the foundations of narrow passages which would have been the cloister and of a wall with a buttress which was the Church. We had to use lots of imagination. No doubt when the report is shown on the TV there’ll be stunning projections of what the Friary would have looked like, but for me that won’t be anywhere near as exciting as being on the site, seeing the process and speaking with one of the archaeologists. It made it feel even more real than any TV projection possibly could.

It will be great if they do find Richard III’s bones but the dig isn’t quite over yet so... watch this space!

Digging for a King

The history beneath our feet never fails to fascinate me. Archaeologists from Leicester University are, as I type these words, digging up Leicester’s Grey Friars Car Park. A few days ago they found what they believe to be a section of wall from Grey Friars, a Franciscan Friary where it is thought that Richard III's body may have been buried. They are continuing the dig in the hope of finding his remains.

Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field which is only a few miles from Leicester. Over the centuries there has been much speculation as to what happened to his body. Some say he was buried in Grey Friars. Others say his body was thrown into the River Soar. Now we may be about to find out the truth.

In my book, The Children’s History of Leicester, I talked about the Witch of Daneshill. They say that she was among the crowd who watched the King ride into battle on 21^st August, 1485. Richard had stayed overnight in the White Boar Inn near Leicester’s River Soar. As he rode off over the river his foot knocked against the cornerstone of Bow Bridge. The Witch of Daneshill called out,

    “When next he comes over that bridge it will be his head that knocks the cornerstone!”

They say that her prediction came true. His body was carried back, thrown across a horse, and his head knocked against that very same stone. 

Bow Bridge is still there. It’s now part of a busy thoroughfare and only a few streets away from the archaeological dig. This area of ground has never before been excavated as it had been private gardens for many centuries and then a car park. I can’t wait to see what secrets it’s about to reveal.

Are there any historical mysteries beneath the ground in your area?

If you want to keep up with the news of the dig as it breaks then you can find the latest on The Leicester Mercury site.

You'll never guess what happened on 30 May...

So it’s the May Bank Holiday and I’m sitting up in bed sipping a mug of tea (made for me by my lovely Rod.)

I’ve got Charlie on my lap 

(sitting on a silk scarf because I don’t like cat fur on the quilt) 

and Mabel sitting under the dressing table 

(because she doesn’t do laps). 

BBC Radio 2 with Miranda Hart and Jon Holmes is making me laugh and then they run a feature on this day in history and...

“Yessss!” I say. Charlie opens one eye in a moderately disinterested way. “That’s what I’ll blog about today!”

And this is it... except that I’ve done a bit of research and discovered some different events so that the BBC can’t complain about me ‘stealing’ their script (assuming that the BBC even know I exist.)

Did you know that on 30^th May...

• In 542 King Arthur died following a battle with Modred (assuming that either men actually existed!)

• In 1431 Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake in the market place at Rouen, France. (She was only a young girl of 19. Humans can be so cruel.)

• In 1536 Henry VIII married Jane Seymour. She had been the lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn who had been beheaded just 11 days earlier. (Like I say, humans are cruel.)

• In 1821 James Boyd patented the rubber fire hose. (Not amazingly interesting but the only item from the Radio 2 programme that was verifiable!)

• In 1842 John Francis tried to assassinate Queen Victoria. (How different the history of our monarchy would have been if he’d succeeded.)

• In 1939 the Labour Party had their first General Election win. (In those days many people despised working class men and thought they wouldn’t be able to rule the country. Haven’t we moved on.... erm... have we moved on?)

• In 1989 Cliff Richard released his 100^th single record called ‘The Best of Me’. (No, I’ve never heard of it either but you can see an ever-youthful Cliff singing it on the You Tube link below.)

• And in 2011 in Leicester UK it poured with rain (which means that Rod’s vegetables are coming on a treat. The broad bean flowers are almost ready to turn into yummy pods. I may even blog about our first home-grown meal of the year.)