From Laundry Boy To Professor Emeritus

27th January 2021

Yesterday evening Sequoia celebrated her 8th Birthday and excitedly opened a splendid array of presents. Bubbled-up because of the Covid pandemic, Plu and I watched the festivities on FaceTime from Pennyfarthing. In this extraordinary year there could be no party with her friends, just a virtual gathering for the two of us with the three of them, Sequoia, Zosia and Jeff, in their own home.

PHOTO last night

The last parcel to be unwrapped was a 95-page book that Plu had created to introduce Sequoia to her extended family and ancestors through pictures and short texts. The idea for the format came from having observed Sequoia’s delight over the years in “reading” the photo albums that Plu has produced since she was a baby. In the early days Sequoia often took one of the books off the shelf when she was visiting us in Pennyfarthing, sometimes just to look at the pictures, other times to ask one of us to tell her the stories. She would go back to the books time and again and frequently asked for more information about what was going on in the photos. Over time the events and people depicted in the pictures became more and more familiar to her and she could recount the stories from memory.

PHOTO younger and reading with Plu if possible

Out of this experience came the idea of creating a volume for her 8th birthday that would introduce her to people in her extended family and their ancestors. Using photos we included people whom she would know from having met them or seen pictures of them over the years, as well as others she had never seen pictures of before now. The short text was used to briefly say whom they were, when and where they were born and what is their relationship to her. A special effort was made to use words and short sentences that she would be able to read for herself.

PHOTO with LINK to book

As soon as the wrapping was torn off and she opened up the book, she recognized that it was like the photo albums she loves. As she leafed through the opening pages It didn’t take long for her to twig the idea and to begin to see people she recognized along with herself in familiar situations, including previous birthday parties with her family and friends. To the delight of Zosia, Jeff and ourselves, she started reading the text out loud and except for a few new words, Plu’s composition had clearly been targeted to be just right for an eight-year old who loves reading and welcomes new challenges designed to improve her comprehension. It was a great delight and joy for us all to behold. Definitely, a birthday to remember.

PHOTO Sequoia “reading” it

When I woke a few hours later during the night, my mind drifted back to the inspiring memory of seeing Sequoia happily learning about her family and ancestors from reading the book we had put together. It was not long before my thoughts segued to the challenge we face in writing up all that we have learned about the hundreds of ancestors we have uncovered since we began researching them eight years ago. At the outset of this research project a major impetus for us was to learn more about them so that we could pass on histories and stories to Zosia and Jeff who had recently married and were expecting a baby – who upon arrival was named Sequoia Eva Dorcey. As so often happens with thoughts arising in the middle of a sleep-broken night, one idea flitted to another and soon I found myself far down the road from children’s books as a vehicle for telling histories and stories to other possibilities.

The place I eventually found myself was way back when I started the ancestry research in 2013 and I wrote a Prospectus that laid out initial ideas on how to go about it and what might be produced. The title I gave that Prospectus was “From Laundry Boy to Emeritus Professor”. As the title implies, my initial focus came from wanting to start by reflecting on how the only son of a couple of Londoners, who became the Manager and Manageress of The Cambridge Steam Laundry, in 1939  England, eventually ended up as Emeritus Professor in the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning, in Vancouver, Canada, in 2012. Having just retired after 41 years at UBC I was interested in reflecting on how I had got there in the first instance and what I had done that had enabled me to thrive there for so many years.

As I thought about how I got into a career for which I had never planned, I realized that I needed to know more about why my parents, Hugh and Florence, had brought me up the way they did. Since both were dead I could unfortunately not talk with them about this. Reasoning that their own upbringing would likely have had a significant influence on their ideas and ambitions for me, I fell back on reviewing what I knew about their upbringing in London, where they were born, in 1911 and 1912 respectively, and lived until coming to Cambridge for their jobs in the laundry, four years before I was born. It was with considerable surprise and dismay, that I realized I knew very little indeed about either of their histories and stories. Further, it soon became evident that I had virtually no records or written accounts that would tell me what I wanted to know.

When I talked with Plu about these rude discoveries, we soon found out that she was just as ignorant about her own parents’ history and stories. After a while we agreed we were not getting anywhere trying to explain why we were so ignorant and, more importantly, we should see what we can do to remedy it. There were two main reasons: firstly, for our own sakes, we wanted to understand the history and stories of our ancestors; and secondly, we felt we owed it to our daughter, Zosia, and our first grandchild, Sequoia, to be able to pass on to them what we knew. Given that we were both retired with all kinds of time available, there was no reason not to get research underway.

That was in 2013, eight years ago, and  we now know a remarkable amount about our ancestors and their histories both for Plu’s side of the family in Poland and England and my own in Ireland and England going back to the mid 1800s for all branches, the late 1700s for half of Tony’s side of them, and the late 1500s of one branch of his mother’s parents. The experience of doing the research and all that we have learned about the times and places in which our ancestors lived has been extraordinary. Our attitudes to the past and our worldviews have been extensively revised. All of the findings are  presently written up in various formats and degrees of detail. Even though there is much we still do not know and understand, we feel we now have a basis for writing at least a preliminary reflection on our own lives so far. While the initial focus was Tony’s interest, when he retired eight years ago, was on his life and career, we now want to do it for us both and to do it as a joint venture. In what follows we outline how we propose to get started on our reflections about our own lives so far.

 PERSPECTIVES AND AMBITIONS

Today, Plu and I look back on the first 76 years of our lives with immense gratitude for two lives well-lived. We have been exceedingly fortunate in all we have received and been able to do and achieve. This is not to say we have not experienced disappointment, sadness, tragedy and regrets along the way. It is to say we are deeply appreciative for all the happiness and love we have experienced.

It is from this present mindset that our ambitions are to not only record the journey but also analyze and assess our lives more thoughtfully. If it takes us to a different mindset, as it most likely will and probably should in at least some regards, then it will have been a worthwhile project. Until we think of something better, it might be temporarily entitled: “From Then to Now: A Reflection on Two Lives Well-Lived.”

Beyond being enthusiastic about undertaking this project for ourselves we have three potential readers foremost in our minds: Sequoia, Zosia and Jeff. Each of these individuals starts with differing levels of knowledge about our lives and brings varying interests and perspectives to them. These three loved ones are the most likely to be interested in what we have to say and are indicative of what others in our extended family of today and tomorrow might possibly be curious about. However, as we both know very well one of the clear lessons from doing ancestry research and talking about it over the last eight years, most people have limited knowledge of their own ancestors and little interest in knowing more. Given we ourselves showed little interest during the first 65 years of our lives, when we were heavily committed to other responsibilities, we should not be surprised if others do the same. The challenge for us is therefore not merely to make information available but also to make it as engaging as possible, so that whenever anyone is inclined to ask questions, they are more likely to look more closely and find something in it of value for themselves.

The work upon which we are now embarking is very different in kind from what we have been doing over the last eight years in two very significant regards. First, the previous effort was heavily dependent on searching in government, church and other records for information about who our ancestors were, where they were born and lived, in what time periods, what were their jobs, did they get sick and when and where did they die. Once such basic information was found the challenge was to amplify it and weave it into an engaging story by drawing on the available literature relating to the lives of relevant others and the histories of associated times and places. In contrast the main source of the basic information on our lives for the present endeavour is in the heads of Plu and I, the memories we have about what happened, when, how, where and with whom, which we can supplement with information from all kinds of other sources including individuals alive today. The second major difference in what we are aspiring to now is, of course, that the objective is much more explicitly evaluative and self-judgemental, which poses entirely new challenges, not least of which is in working on this together with the intent of producing an agreed product, as we discuss below.

In practice the two of us will need to proceed in ways that coordinate our efforts and capitalize on our different perspectives on everything. Plu and I did not meet until 1963, when we were students at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, and by then we had separately experienced two substantially different lives. We therefore will need to agree on the general approaches we will each take initially in reflecting on the first 19 years of our seperate lives. Once we have first drafts we can begin reading and commenting on each other’s experiences. Since joining Plu at Aberdeen University in 1966, we have seldom been apart and never longer than 6 weeks when I was travelling for work reasons. By the time we come to write about our lives when we were together almost continuously we will have hopefully learned a lot about how best to individually produce initial drafts that we can then revise together. Just as our marriage has gotten ever better over the 50 years of practice, with luck, so will our drafting as we proceed! Likewise this will also help us in dealing with the inevitable differences that will emerge not only on the facts but also the opinions! If necessary we can always agree to differ and record the differences, which can be most interesting readings in their own right.

There is great potential to improve the eventual texts by devising ways to benefit from the differing perspectives we can each bring to the product but also our complementary talents and styles of approach to creative endeavours. (Illustrate with examples e.g. PLU: Polish refugee, born in Tel Aviv, who was 3 before she came to England and 8 before she spoke English etc whereas TONY: English…)

In writing up all of our ancestry research so far it has become clear that the most productive approach is to create a web page upon which to do the initial drafting. This provides easy options for including pictures, maps, footnotes and hyperlinks. Passwords can be used to control access. Along the way the web site can be divided into separate sites if preferred. At any time a PDF or paper print out can be produced for ease of distribution and storage. With extra work a book can also be produced if desired.

CHRONOLOGIES

PHOTOS & OTHER IMAGES

STORIES

STARTING STRATEGY