Polishing the past

Before                    during                     after

I suppose we all do it - add a little shine to our histories. (Ha ha)
Mum's dad was a top worker after being gassed in the war and was killed in a pit accident when she was 7. Her stepdad, his brother, started down the pit at 14 (I think) and the lamp is the one he was given on retirement (again - I think because he retired early so might not have done 50 years but that's when the brass lamps were given - on retirement)
I always thought that Mum came from a family with a long tradition of mining.  She did - but it was a tradition that only lasted two generations.
If I go back to the 1841 census then her Greatgreatgrandad was a sickle maker and lived surrounded by 8 sicklemakers and a grocer.
1851 shows her Greatgrandad as a sickle smith with a butcher a farm labourer a coal miner's widow and a blacksmith as neighbours.
1861, when her Grandad was 4 her great grandad was still a sickle forger and his neighbours were a colliery engine man, 3 coal miners, a school mistress ( who was 60 and had 37 scholars!), 2 sickle forgers and a sickle manufacturer with 4 employees.
By 1871 her greatgrandfather was still a sickle forger, her grandfather at 14 was a coal miner 2 of their neighbours were sickle smiths and 2 were coal miners.
For 1881 I don't have the census page, just a transcript - I don't remember why.  Mum's Greatgrandfather was dead and her Grandad and his 13 year old brother were both coal miners.
I couldn't find her Grandad's 1891 census record.
By 1901 he was a coal hewer and his neighbours' jobs were much more varied: for the railway - a platelayer, 2 signalmen, a station agent, a porter;  2 labourers in the steel mills, a brickworks manager a farmer, a lamplighter, a dressmaker, a postmaster, 3 grocers, an engineer, a butcher's apprentice, a joiner's apprentice and 7 employed in a colliery - 1 clerk, 1 top worker and the other 5 as coal hewers.
On her Mum's side - her Greatgrandad was a colliery labourer in 1881 and her Grandad a coal miner
In 1891 her grandad and 6 neighbours were all coal miners, apart from a licenced hawker (!)
By 1901 he was a deputy.
In 1911 (just a transcript)  He was still a deputy and 2 of his sons were underground workers - a hewer and a road worker (I'm not sure what that means - maybe he drove a pit-pony.) 

Grandad wasn't built for mining - nor was his dad, both being 6 footers (photos when I can find them)- and by nature he was a gardener and fisherman.  Working underground was a man thing though and he was proud to be a miner, but more of that another time - I've got carried away and written too much!

There's a new journal quilt on the quilting page. It was based on a batik Tracey did that has always reminded me of the start of 'Elidor'. Here it is:

 and I finished the sashiko sampler - I think I'm still pulling the thread too tight cos I don't think either should gather but at least the stitches are smaller.

This is the start of the other side of Diz's noren.

And this is an example of my card making at Santa's sweat shop.  It is great fun - specially when the heat gun turns the dust to gold - but much too expensive for me - It seems to me that you need a bigger stock cupboard than for quilting just for the paper, and that isn't starting on equipment, inks, stamps, dyes and glittery stuff!