Cyber Seance 7

[Moonwatcher]

Cyber Seance. 27 Feb 2005

Keeka-boo!

Did anybiddy miss meh last week? Disnae look like it. No a cheep oan eh forum! No even a wee 'Wunner wher Moonwatcher is this week?' or 'Hivnae seen im aboot, hope eez awright.' Well, that's fame furr ye. Tap eh the pyramid wan minute, furgoatin eh next! Guess aht's mah 15 minutes ah fame ower an done wae. Nae Oscars furr me then. Ah feel a wee bit like Clarence Willcock. Who? Exactly! Ah rest mah case. Let's get oan wae the seance...

"Things, have longer memories than people."
Alexander Solzenitsyn.

In Solzenitsyn's 'The Gulag Archipeligo', I remember he refers to a small battered suitcase, retained by him since his days as a prisoner in the Gulag camps of Siberia[?] On coming across the case again after many years and focusing on one particular dent, he wrote of the memory flooding back of a guard kicking it as he and hundreds of others were being herded onto a cattle train bound for the Gulags. Years later, the discovery of the suitcase, and the dent, reminded him of the long forgotten incident and he wrote...

"Things, have longer memories than people."

For over two years I've been immersed in this family history business and I've come to really appreciate the meaning behind those words. No time more so than week before last when looking through a box full of my late father's stuff. Things, which in their time held little meaning or interest, suddenly assaulted me with intense memories – his and mine. Things long forgotten. Things I never knew or realised. I was overwhelmed!
I realised that, taken seriously (as many of us do), this business of family research is not to be taken lightly. It's okay if it's dealt with on a superficial level I suppose ie. dates, places, names... bits of paper to be folded, filed and stored, databases etc. But if you listen to what these 'Things' are telling you, you enter a world that can be as disturbing as it can be rewarding. How many of us have not felt emotion on discovering and reading the death certificate of someone we never knew... or in handling an item of a long deceased loved one?

Things, have longer memories than people.

Well, did ah no jist hit eh jackpoat the ither week wae the Australian research. Thanks tae Stew’s links an a wee bit common sense – ah fun eh wife’s cousin an urr faimly in New South Wales. But, it’s left meh wae a wee bit eh a dilemma…

An unexpected bonus was the confirmation that the wife’s aussie cousin’s husband was descended from a 'convict' [I’d picked up on this earlier, but lacked evidence] He was sent out to the colonies in NSW around 1800, married, and spent his life in the stations around Parramatta, Rouse Hill and Castle Hill. And ther’s merr! An ancestoral file on the IGI traces this individual’s ancestory all the way back to 1658 in a wee village in deepest Essex. Noo here’s mah dilemma. Assuming I can take this Ancestral File as being an accurate record [?], do I include this line in my (wifes) family tree? There is absolutely no blood line between the pair, only the marriage of her cousin to the descendant of the ‘convict’ line. So, although I can trace an unbroken link all the way back to 1685 would I be considered a fraud by the family history/genealogy police if I bowed to temptation and included the line in our tree? It’s such an interesting story that I’m sorely tempted. What do others think? What would you do?

Movin oan, when I wiz lookin through mah faither’s stuff ; things like his discharge papers from the army, ration book, stuff like that, I came across his ID card. Now, there’s a tendancy to think of these as a recent concept but - not so. These wee cards were introduced during the WW2 on the grounds of national security (sound familiar?) They were met with considerable opposition at first but, given the extraordinary circumstances of that period, people reluctantly accepted them and got on with it, believing that the end of war would also end the need for the cards. Trouble was, once the war was over, the ID cards remained in force. In the post war years 1946 – 1952 opposition to the cards grew until, on 21 February 1952, they were finally withdrawn. What brings this home on a personal level was not only the discovery of my father's card and that of my mother's but... my I.D card! It was issued to me at birth. I assume I had to have it in my pram with me at all times, thus proving I wasn’t a german spy. Maybe it hung down from the canopy along with all the other stuff that festooned a 1950’s kiddie’s pram ie. fluffy bunny, plastic rattle, boingy twiddly thingy, cuddly toy, I.D card – just your normal post war pram set up! Issued less than six months before their withdrawal, I must have been one of the last people in the UK required to 'carry' one.

For those who've never seen one of these cards I have to say they're not your hi-tech, bio-metric, plastic, scannable, digitilised wonders of snooping science. In fact, understandably, given the period in which they were produced, they are decidedly –low tech. The small folded cards are made of green, cheap cardboard (mine's actually a buff colour, presumably to differentiate between adult and baby spies!), with no provision for a photograph. My father's (and mine) contains the following information;

ID Number ( I was S644:5 1951:1460)
Full Name
Class Code
Address
Signature

Rubber stamps date it and give it the official approval of the National Registration Office. I can just hear the thumping of the stamp on the card as some officious little nobody exerts his/her power of authority at time of issue or ammendment. A warning along the side states that any attempt to alter the contents is punishable by fines or imprisonment. On the back it has another printed number and the following instructions and warnings;

'Always carry your identity card with you.' It goes on to tell you must produce it on demand by a policeman or member of the armed forces.

'You are responsible for the card and must not part with it to any other person.' It instructs that any loss, damage etc. must be reported at once to the National Registration Office.

'You must hand in any lost ID card you find.'

'Any breach of these requirements is punishable by fines, imprisonment, or both.'

More rubber stamping decorates the back of the card on a section titled; For official endorsements only. Our stamping guy seems to have gone over the top here and tried to annihilate the card with the stamper! (this one has a crown and the initials NRMR). I guess he knew 'eez coat wiz oan a shaky nail' and he was making the best of it. Another handwritten number appears at the bottom.
There is also provision for changes of address which had to be reported and officially endorsed on the card.

It's interesting to note that my card is not signed by my parents – a punishable offence! Perhaps my father, like so many others, was by 1951 rebelling against the system.

It seems that the whole thing was brought to it's knees by one man. A little guy, a 'nobody' in the grand scheme of things. One night in 1950 dry cleaning manager Clarence Henry Willcox was stopped in his car for no apparent reason by a police officer who demanded to see his ID card. Clarence refused. He was prosecuted but remained defiant. Soon the case became a national issue and Clarence found himself at the centre of a national legal argument and campaign. After lengthy legal process the law was repealed in 1951.

Looking at this little card, it's hard to imagine all the fuss it caused over 50 years ago. But I ponder the present push towards it's modern equivalent and think...

'Things have longer memories than people.'

Till next week

S644:5 1951:1460

[AndrewP]

(message to make the Cyber Seance posts appear in sequence)