I have very few photos from my father's side, only one of him prior to middle age (the only one with hair
) as an 18 year old in the Royal Navy at the very end of WW1; but nothing beyond that other than than a poor quality newspaper photo of my great uncle following his death in Flanders in 1915, apart from photos of granpa and grandma Webster in later life. Incidentally, I only have the one photo of my maternal granpa without a hat, - and there is this obvious deep ridge across his forehead
Some years ago when I was in the full flush of cousin hunting, I found a distant cousin from my father's side in Western Australia, and we corresponded for a while. The family had emigrated to Oz post WWII, and my cousin came out with the comment that "they had lots of family photos going way back into the 1800s, but these were destroyed in Oz by damp". Damp
, - in Oz
Argghhhh............
Going back to that photo of my father in the RN in 1918, I have very vague memories of having seen it as a kid, but it didn't re-surface, so to speak, until some years ago when my brother and I were clearing out our mother's house after she had gone into a nursing home. I ended up with the suitcase full of family papers......
I still recall later that evening when I was going though all these genealogical "goodies" coming across this photo, - obviously of a training class of 40 to 50 seamen, - and, when scanning it, reacting on the basis of what the h**l was my brother doing second from the right in the second row, - as it turned out that my brother was the spitting image of my father at that age.
I also held a personal wake later that night for my mother's wee brother, my Uncle Billie, who was killed in WWII serving as a navigator/radio operator with RAF Transport Command, as the same suitcase contained his wings, his logbook, the letter from the palace, plus a load of material from his training courses in the UK and South Africa.
On the subject of such military memorabilia, I also have the Cameron Highlanders' sporran of one military great uncle, and the Royal Field Artillery cap badge (plus a photo taken in Poona in India) of another military great uncle.
That photo should really result in a contribution to the "Balck Sheep" thread. I was told by a sister of my mother's that their mother's side were the black sheep of the family (she never quite understood my reaction of delight when told this
), so I went looking but found nothing.
Only several years later did I engage the services of an expert researcher to look at the military records at TNA at Kew as regards these two great-uncles.
The RFA man turned out to be the cause of the "black sheep" comment, as he was in and out of military clink during his service in India, including a 12 month sentence for "striking a superior officer"
That photo of him was passed to the Army Museum's uniforms etc. department along with a donation of a tenner, resulting in the reply that the gentleman in question is shown in the uniform of a senior NCO of the Royal Field Artillery.
Ehhhh
, as his service record quite clearly shows that he never rose above the rank of "Gunner". Make your own deductions
David
