doug Posted January 22, 2008 Report Share Posted January 22, 2008 When my father-in-law died, a few years back, we discovered in his possessions a portable tape recorder together with some recordings. Now we had been on at him for years about recording his memories of his life and so he had done. He recorded his early life in Wolverton, how it grew up as a town, why it became a major rail center etc. For example HM Queen Victoria used to take the train to Manchester and insisted on a comfort stop at the 4 hour mark - didn't have loes on trains in those days. Hence Wolverton became a major stop then railway works. So many stories, another example the local electricity supply was provided by a gas engine so all the housewives had to do their cooking before 6 pm because the cinema started running their films at that time causing the mains pressure to drop too far. I went through these tapes and put them onto a couple of CD's for the family and friends. His memories do live on. I also sent them to the library at Wolverton but never heard from them. It would be nice to know that those memories were still alive.Today you would say that he was a racist and caused many rows in the family about his views and statements. His general of Muslims was very limited but had many Muslim friends. It was all so heartbreaking as I was transposing some of these when the news of the 9/11 plane crashes were just breaking. I had been editing out a couple of these comments from the tapes but then decided to leave them in as those were his views and should be left on the record.Stories on how teaching was practiced. How people got to work, the hours they had to put in just to get to work. Some had clubbed together and bought a horse and cart which was stabled in a pub during the day and so on. If anyone is interested let me know.Edit Sorry Catgate I've been and done a hijack will move this out.This post has been edited by doug: Today, 09:28 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanHo Posted January 22, 2008 Report Share Posted January 22, 2008 Interesting tale - a man truly before his time...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted January 22, 2008 Report Share Posted January 22, 2008 Wonderful. I feel that sort of stuff needs to be kept. It is REAL history. The only history that we were taught at school was a string of dates of Kings and Queens. Those will now be superseded by a Prime Ministers, Presidents and Dictators. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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