The Squirrel Man of York and Other Relatives By Kate Gostick Who would have known when my son, Edward, had to draw out his family tree for cub scouts I was to begin a journey of discovery, not only of our past, but of my present and my future.
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t was a discovery of who I was, why I was, of where I had come from and where I was going. My cousin had already traced my dad’s side back to the 1700’s and given Edward the most impressive family tree for the scout project, but I wanted to see if I could go further. My mum had a lovely old Victorian photo album full of nameless photos each surrounded by painted flowers. She knew they were the family of her grandmother, who had died when her father was only a child, but nobody knew their stories. I longed to know who all these people were. I was an only child, the daughter of an only child, who was the daughter of an only child. A lady in the album, I was told, was named Sarah. Sarah was calling out from the faded sepia photo for me, as her only great grandchild, to prevent her being forgotten. If these people were not to be lost to time it was down to me!. One night, my husband was away and there was not much on the TV so, after I put the kids in bed at 8 pm, I signed up for a genealogy website and started to fill in the blanks. Vivid green leaves flickered on the screen, signalling documents that may be linked to the person on that branch. I started to click on them and the dark abyss came alive with a cascade of emerald flickers as my tree began to grow. When I looked up at the clock it was 2 am! This wasn’t the first time that six hours would fade into one as
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an obsession was born. I longed to know more. My mum had remembered visiting her Aunt Maria just after the war and staying in a house next to a church in Stockton on the Forest. We looked at all the houses near the Stockton’s church, but non rekindled the memories of the time with Aunt Maria. Her memories of her time there were fond ones, although when she told me that Aunt Maria wouldn’t let her have pink juicy ham that hung from the hook in the larder because it wasn’t good for her digestion, which did not seem like fun to me. We found other houses in other villages, but non of them seemed right. While she was there my mother told us she would also visit an uncle who was a blacksmith and had a trained squirrel that ran up the curtains. My mum’s memory was strong for all the details, but not for the location of the house itself and the whole trained squirrel thing seemed a little far fetched, suggesting her memory may not be what it once was. A part of me just wondered if she had forgotten, but also deep down I knew she was like an elephant and never forgot! When I did a DNA test whole new adventures were to begin. New connections were formed and each person I came into contact with splashed a little more colour into the story and contributed something to my knowledge, but non as much as Debbie who came up as a match on the maternal grandfather’s side. I emailed her and told her that my mother remembered visiting family near York around the time of the war. I told her of Aunt Maria and Uncle Tom and the squirrel training blacksmith, adding that my mum may have got a
LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE
little confused since it was now over seventy years since she last visited. I asked if any of her family remembered this uncle and his squirrel and if they knew his name. I wondered if that was the last I would ever hear from her, assuming she would regard us as the mad distant cousins who thought people trained squirrels for a living so I emailed and told her we had a photo album in the hope of keeping her interest. Much to my surprise she emailed back a newspaper cutting of her mother’s cousin Geoff holding an orphaned squirrel named Wilfred which he had trained and looked after as a pet. He remembered my mum and still lived near York and when Debbie’s mother, Molly, had seen the photos she told us she had a similar album which contained many of the same photos and also had names attached. Best of all we could all take a big sign of relief knowing my mum was just as sharp as ever and squirrels were cleverer than we had ever imagined! On our next trip home we headed up to my mum’s and then over the Pennines to take her to York. Molly was just like my mum. A woman with a strong moral code who was very practical and gave the impression of not standing for any messing. Molly was kind enough to share a wealth of information with us and it was lovely to put names to the photographs as well as stories and memories. A man with a moustache seemed to listen intently from the pages of the album as he came alive on the sepia page before us. No longer anonymous, he became George, a man who struggled with the inner conflicts that resulted from shell shock, and eventually become over whelmed by them. A lady on a bike made up of reddish browns on www.lancmag.com
