History

[elingregory]

History, by which I mean the bits of it that people have heard about, is never as far away as one might think.

I was listening to my mother reminisce recently and she was talking about her father having visited an uncle who was a warder at Dartmoor Prison, around 1900 or so. Cue lots of Grimpen Mire imaginings from me. This impression was multiplied ten fold when I made some comments about transport - ie that he must have travelled by train - and she agreed that he had for the first part of the journey but when he reached Exeter he transferred to the regularly scheduled stage coach.

A stage coach! My grandpa travelled by stage coach when he was a little boy! He must have seen ostlers and team changing and maybe on the wilder bits they were on the look out for highwaymen? [Okay, that's probably silly but having an over-active imagination is what I DO.]

Comments

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

When my mother was a little girl, she shared a bedroom with her grandmother. the grandmother, (my great-grandmother,) remembered seeing Lincoln's funeral train come through New York.

My mother was born in 1919. My grandmother was born in 1888. her mother was born in 1855!

[elin-gregory.livejournal.com]

Lincoln's funeral! That six degrees of separation thing can get quite exciting when you look at it from an historical perspective. The generations chalk up the years quite quickly.