Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

One of the stranger aspects of us living here is the different way that James & John refer to things.

As we’re in France, they aren’t picking up english from kids at school as they’d normally do but rather picking it up from home and the TV. This means that it’s possible for us to pick out where they’ve learnt a word. So, by and large, they “speak cooking” with an Australian accent and they “speak computer” with a Belfast accent.

It’s also interesting that whilst both James & John refer to “Granda” and “Nanny here”, James who used to be looked after by my parents has “Granda’s Nanny”, John who was born here has “Nanny at the airport” as that’s usually the last place that he sees her.

We think that it was because Wendy was looking after James a lot more when he was younger than I was that he has developed a largely Australian accent but with us both being around much more equally since John was born he has a much more pronounced Belfast accent. You’d have thought that since James has been here over 60% of his life now that his accent would have become more balanced but it hasn’t done, or at least not yet so I guess that it’s the first couple of years that are the most important in terms of accent

It was bound to happen sooner or later of course. French drivers driving tractors on a road where 100km/hour is sometimes far too slow for the people behind.

Anyway, we were tootling along this morning at quite a low speed as we’d just left the village, slowed down even more as there was oncoming traffic, moved out to overtake the tractor in front and, of course, he decided that was the time to turn (naturally without indicating that he was planning on doing it).

So we are sans voiture at the moment and likely to be so for a while I suspect if insurance claims move along at the usual pace of French administration.

Fortunately the insurance covers us for a replacement car so we’re picking up a rental car tomorrow afternoon.

Given the level of damage (both sides nicely smashed in, roof caved in, windscreen and side window broken, some wheels punctured and broken, plus it looks like the axle ain’t straight either), I think we’re talking write-off but we’ll know better after the assessor sees the car (possibly later today).

Family history is something of a now and again activity for me.

When I found the big family bible some years ago, I had a major flurry of activity going through it and integrating all the information into what I already had and then it was a few years before anything else happened.

Then there was the arrival of the Mormon family history site which seemingly filled in numerous details that were missing from the family bible. Mainly places of birth and death but also a number of relatives who weren’t mentioned in the family bible. I also ventured into the various family history forums on the Internet but with a name like Stewart they’re not nearly so useful as you might expect as there are just too many Stewarts around in the world these days.

It’s worth looking at that site now and again and indeed the forums as people add information to the various sites over time. By doing that, I picked up a whole branch of the family that we were sure had died out in the 1930s although I’ve not, yet, firmed up contact with them as yet.

Anyway, that’s all to introduce our new blog at Stewart Family History. As with my other activities in the family history arena, the entries on that’ll likely be now and again affairs but we’ll see. It’s separate from Foreign Perspectives as it doesn’t really fit here and should, in due course, interest a whole different bunch of people.

Initially, it’ll be principally the Stewart line as you’ll gather from the domain name but I’ll be starting into the Douglas history too fairly shortly and will no doubt add other names as I go along.

I find the cemeteries in France really fascinating.

Naturally there are loads of military ones around the sites of past battles in the two world wars. The second world war ones up around the Normandy beaches are perhaps the most impressive in terms of the sheer scale of carnage that they represent. However, in addition to those there are many much smaller WW1 cemetries dotted around the landscape. The area of the Somme has untold numbers of these from the large Thiepval and numerous smaller versions in that area from the Ulster Tower to relatively small Australian ones.

One thing that they all have in common is that every single grave in them is still well tended for, no matter how long ago the death occured. As we were going through the Somme cemeteries last year, every one looked as though it was only filled a few weeks ago. Don’t forget that these graves are getting on for 100 years old by now too. The reason for this is simple of course: the Commonwealth War Graves Commission  really live up to the phrase “they shall not be forgotten” and are constantly caring for the graveyards and refurbishing the headstones.

Of course, they don’t just look after the major graveyards and the photo here is that of the brother of my grandfather sitting in a cemetery in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, one of a couple of dozen or so scattered around that particular graveyard.

Whilst I was over in Belfast last month James and John separately discovered the treasure trove of toys in the roofspace and, boy is it a treasure trove, as they’ve been living in that house since I was three.