Family History Research

My family name is Catherall, and some years ago I was told by someone who purports to have known about these things (earned his living writing ancestral family trees for people), that the origins of the name were Scandanavian.  To be more precise, Viking.  Now that immediately accounted for one thing which has always been on my mind since about the age of fourteen.  Why I seemed to have a more than unhealthy appetite for rape and pillage.  Now I know.

So this bloke tells me that the name originated from Norway and in it’s basic form was Cat-ter-hail.  Which means The Tail of a Cat.  Now, before you ladies start to think unwarranted things about my undergarments and what is contained therein, let me explain a little more.  This bloke said that the name was used to indicate a thin strip of uncultivated land at the edge of a field and before the large drop off a cliff into a large cold wet Ffiord.  A ‘Cats Tail’, see?  Easy when you it’s explained to you isn’t it?  Particularly the uncultivated part.

So, to cut a long story short, my cousin Judith, not to be confused with my sister of the same name, has done massive amounts of research into the Catheralls and discovered that we originated in north Wales from about the 1560’s.  At which time they came to the notice of the local chieftain (or whatever the head man of the village was called at that time).  The reason the family came to the notice of said chieftain was because of a complaint of sheep worrying going on in the hills of north Wales at that time.  Some things don’t change do they? - nothing new there.

And the family carried on for hundreds and hundred of years and became very very boring.  Some of them ran the village shop, the pub, built a brick works, became very rich during the Industrial Revolution in the (when was it? – oh yes, the 1800’s) and generally made a bit of a name for themselves selling bricks to the builders throwing up back to back hovels in the new industrial towns of the north west of England where Cotton was King.  One of the designers of the hovels even had his name and an article written about him in ‘Hovel and Gardens’ (March Edition of 1893) where the writer waxed lyrical about the possibilities of cramming over fifteen people into the four roomed houses he was designing.  To quote from the article, “This is surely a sign of the things to come.  I predict by 1984 these hovels will be declared Bijou Residences by the hoi poloi of the times”.  How right he was! 

I digress somewhat.  One of the Catherall clan even decided to open a pottery in Stoke on Trent.  He decided after a few years that this was not the right place to build a pottery, so closed it down and opened it up in West Yorkshire in a place called Halifax.  He closed the first place down in Stoke on Trent about two weeks before a chappie called Josiah Wedgewood decided he would give it a whirl.  Name rings any bells? As if!

You getting the picture now?  All in all, the Catheralls have made various names for themselves over the years, some good, some – well, not so good, and others downright bad.  I’m one of the good ones.  Honest!!

So, having spent years and years researching the Catherall family tree only to find that my dear cousin Judith (husband of David – getting confused? So was I when she first telephoned me and said who she was and who her husband was.  My name is David as well), had done the job for me.  And what a job she had done.  Pretty fantastic in truth.  She had a real advantage though, she lives spitting distance from the UK headquarters of the Mormon family history research centre in Yorkshire, so she had all the names on her doorstep, so to speak.

End of my family research then?  No, not at all.  Being ever so resourceful I decided that I would research my mothers’ side of the family.  Now this was interesting, as she was born in Australia, and it is something I will probably write about later in a few days time.

 

A Day in the Lake District

Had a good day out today and went to a part of the Lake district I've never been to before.  Wastwater and Wasdale Head.  Very remote, very bleak and also very beautiful.  It's in the next valley to Hard Knot Pass, and just as great to drive along.  These are a few of the photographs I took during the day.  Hope you enjoy them.

It’s not all serious you know

Today I telephoned my older sister who lives close to the English Lake District.  The last time we spoke she was suffering a little from a new ailment which had caused her to be hospitalised for a couple of days some weeks ago.  I don’t want to give the impression that she is a poorly sort of person, quite the reverse, she has always been fit and active and walked every week for many years in and around the Lake District.

She was telling me about a book she was currently reading about the life of Alfred Wainwright, a man who made the Lakes even more popular than they already are, and according to some people a man who singlehandedly has made the whole area as overcrowded with tourists as it is now, all the year round.

She was wistfully mentioning a few of the places which she said, “I don’t suppose I will ever see them again”, and I could see where her head was when she said those words.   She is even older than me (well, she would be if she is my older sister), and knew why she felt the way she did.  I have been through the same feelings and thoughts myself in recent months.

“Just think of it in this way, “ I said.  “You have been to those places, and at least you have the memories of having seen them.  Just think how miserable you would be if there was a whole long list of things you hadn’t done, or places you hadn’t visited.  You have been to these places, and you do have the memories.”

She agreed with me and saw what I was pointing out to her.  I hope it made her feel a little better.  It may simply have been the fact that she had spent the afternoon in the garden today and had a good dose of fresh air, but she sounded much happier than the lat time I spoke to her.

It is true though, far better to have seen the places and been there than to wish you had and have no chance to go there.

I was looking last week at a few photographs taken of Dubrovnik and Rome a few years ago.  The weather was beautiful, the sea was blue and I recall walking around the city on the ramparts which surround the city.  It was a wonderful memory.  I was sad for a few moments, then the thought above hit me, and I felt somewhat better.

How often do we remember things and think that we are not going to do that again, or not going to see that place again, or maybe not see that person again?  Often, I suspect.  But, there is no point in living in the past memories of our lives.  It’s too short, it isn’t a rehearsal, THIS IS IT!!

Now that my life has been turned upside down in the past two months, I have had the opportunity to take stock a little of what I had, and more importantly, what I now have, and what the future holds for me.

Well, now I live closer to the sea, always been an ambition of mine, and now I live a lot closer to the sea, I can take my new love, Lucy, for a run along the sea shore far more easily than I could have done in the past.  

Lucy, having just hunted and killed a stuffed Teddy Bear

Someone, not too long ago told me that the reason why there are a lot of people with mental health problems living by the sea is that, given the opportunity, they go back to a place they enjoyed and felt safe as a child.  When they are given the chance, it is this sort of happy memory place they head for.  Maybe.

Not too sure how right that is, but there certainly are a lot more people in need of services by the seaside than where I used to live in the hills of Lancashire, maybe they were not as noticeable where I used to live, or maybe it was simply that I lived with two of them.

So now, I walk along the seashore after a short drive, I see the sea birds often, and I can get out of their way when I need to!!

Life is too short, far too short to wish it was going backwards, or that we could live in a time warp when we felt at our most physically fit and active, when life was a sexual escapade from which we could walk in and out of as we wished.  Life goes on.  We get older, we put on weight or wrinkles on our face.  We develop illnesses which could be fatal one day, people around us become ill and die.  There is no turning back the clock.

This is it, get on with it, put up with it, and make the best of it.  Stop living in the past.

Never Mind The Quality - Feel The Width

The phrase above was the title of a sitcom on British television during the 1960’s and the only reason I am using it as a title is that the words came to my mind this morning for no reason at all.  It did, however, make me consider one or two things which have happened to me during the past 18 months of my life.

During these months I have been diagnosed with poly myalgia rheumatic, prostate cancer and have also had to undergo a major operation for aneurysms in my aorta and renal arteries, not the nicest of things to have to put up with, but the operation was a success and I am still here to tell the tale.  The cancer is another thing all together.

The first part of my treatment, which is still ongoing, was to have a hormone implant which would drip feed the hormone into my body for a period of three months.  This should have been then repeated every three months for a fairly indefinite period.  Almost as soon as the implant was stuck into me I started to develop what can only be described politely as ‘mood changes’.  This severely impinged upon the lives of the people I was then living with to such an extent that I was made an outcast in my own home.  In retrospect, I think I can understand and accept what happened to me, but not the underlying reason behind it, but that is another story of infidelity and lying which I do not intend to discuss in this article.

During the course of the first of the three month periods of treatment I complained about the side effects to my oncologist and asked that she find a suitable alternative when the period came to an end and was due for renewal.  She agreed, and at the start of December last year I started on a course of tablets which would perform the same role as the implant, and all went well from that point of view.

The difficulty lay with the effect this was having on my partner and my relationship.  In a nutshell it fell apart and she asked me to leave the house in March declaring that she could not cope with the mood swings any longer.  The truth is a bit more prosaic.

Which brings me round nicely to discuss ‘Never Mind The Quality, Feel The Width’.   

Which is more important to us, the length of life or the quality of that life?

From a purely philosophical point of view I suppose it is an argument which has been discussed many time, certainly I have had this discussion many times with many different people.  It has always provoked interesting thoughts.

So, which is more important, to enjoy a long life, or to have a good enjoyable life?

When I was faced with the prospect of having to stick with the hormone treatment for several years and possibly having the mood swings go with it, one of my first thoughts was that it was not even worth considering.  My life had taken a massive unpredictable turn for the worse and I was no longer in control of what was going on around me.  Not only that, the people I loved were turning against me because of the terrible way in which I was behaving.  For many nights I lay in my bed thinking of what to do, the same questions churning over and over in my mind. 

If I continued with the hormone treatment then would I continue to suffer the problems of the moods? 

Would my body get accustomed to the hormones and settle back into whatever was normal? 

If I stopped taking the hormones would I become my normal self again? 

If I did stop taking the hormones would I then be able to go on and have the radio therapy treatment which the oncologist was suggesting? 

Did I really want to put myself through the radio therapy treatment, knowing that it would probably leave me feeling weak and miserable towards the end?  

Who was I doing this for, in view of my partners’ intention to completely finish our relationship? 

What was the point in it at all?

During an appointment with the oncologist I asked her what the life span prognosis was if I took the treatment to the end of its 37 doses of radio therapy.  She told me that there was a good chance I would live for a further ten years after the end of treatment.  “And if I 

stop the treatment here and now?” I asked.  “Five years at the most” she replied.

So, yet another problem.  Do I take the hormones and then the radio therapy and more hormones at the end of it for a further ‘guaranteed’ ten years of life, or do I stop the whole merry go round now and take my chances?

I took the cowards way out.  My partner threw me out for someone else, and I am taking the pills and will start the radio therapy in a few weeks time, hopefully to live until 2021, by which time I will be 74 years of age, and what will life have for me then?

Something to look forward to?

There is a slightly humorous side to all this, as there usually, if you look for it.

Last week I had to go to the cancer treatment clinic at my local hospital.  The purpose was to give me an MRI scan and discuss the start date for the treatment.  This is something I had been looking forward to for some weeks and read all the literature I had been sent by the clinic prior to arrival at the front door.  One of the things it was fairly insistent upon was that my bladder should be full, and went on in some detail to explain why and how long before my visit I should drink liquid to fill up my bladder.

On my arrival at the clinic I was asked if I had emptied my bowels that day, I replied that I had and felt at first it was just a rather personal question the staff used in order to get to know the patient a bit better and put them on a friendly footing.  I asked the nurse if she had emptied hers that day.  For some reason she did not reply.

She then asked me if my bladder was empty.  “Ah, “ I thought, “I know why this is important”.  “No, “I said, “I have filled it with water in preparation for my visit”.  I smiled at her, thinking “What a clever boy I am”.

“It needs to be empty then” she said. I looked at her slightly nonplussed and asked why that should be as the literature I had been sent made it clear that my bladder had to be full before the MRI scan could be taken, as this would then be used as a ‘norm’ guide for future visits for the radio therapy.  It is rather like painting a bullseye on a balloon filled with one litre of water.  If you put one litre in the balloon and then paint a bullseye on the side of the balloon the bullseye will still be there the next time you fill the balloon with one litre of water.  Simple really.

The nurse told me I had to go to the toilet, empty my bladder and then drink two 300 mls of water, and then in twenty minutes she would come and get me. 

I went to the toilet, emptied my bladder, then drank the two cups of water.  Everyone in the waiting area was watching and I felt a complete fool.  But, hey ho. So what? Nobody who was in there was in there waiting for a bus, they had all come in for cancer treatment of some kind or other.

So, after a wait of twenty minutes the nurse came back and took me into the MRI scanning room and asked me to lie down on the scanning bed.  She and her technician then went into an adjacent glass fronted room and pushed a few buttons, and lo and behold, that was me scanned.  All done and dusted, so to speak.  Not so.

The two of them came from the goldfish  bowl  and approached me.  “We have a problem” said the nurse.  “In order to get a good clear scan of your lower abdomen we need to have your bowel empty and your bladder containing only a small amount of water.  

There is too much matter in your bowel, and so we need to do the scan again in two weeks time after you have taken some medication to ensure your bowel is empty”.

I told friends later of the outcome and the universal opinion of the whole incident was that they were not at all surprised as they had always thought that I was full of shit.

Nice friends eh?

The New Woman in my LIfe

 

Since the rather unexpected removal of my body and most of my worldly possessions from the Padiham area I have, for the past two months, lived a life of a rather well dressed tramp.

However, there are some things which are never likely to change, my love of animals for one.  So, here are a couple of photographs of the most recent woman to gladden my heart in recent times.  Her name is Lucy.

 This is the normal view I have of Lucy - grinning and laughing all the day long.  She is a very happy dog and nothing seems to upset her, other than leaves blowing in the garden, odd bits of paper blowing in the wind, and stuff like that.  Apart from that she is a lovely girl, and I am already madly in love with her.

This is Lucy being a serious girl for once.  As a dog (sorry Lucy) she is constantly grinning and only now and again is she serious, but this is one photo I managed to take of her whilst she was contemplating her next move.  Maybe the next move is to try and find something to scrounge - some tit bit from the kitchen?  Fat chance!  

The one thing Lucy is not is fat.  A very svelt beautiful female with a wonderful nature and so loyal.  My heart went out to her the moment I met her, and the feeling apparently was mutual.  I feel that here at last I have found a woman who will love me without any strings, and irrespective of whether I have poly myalgia, aortic aneursyms or prostrate cancer, who will be loyal and not become bored and want to find new pastures to keep her happy.  In short, she is a mature girl who loves me as much as I love her.  

And all for simply being loyal and affectionate.  What more could I ever ask for?