Saturday 15 January 2022

The King of Prussia


My daughter is doing some family research right now, which explains all these old photos turning up here. Can you spot me? I'll give you a clue - I was the youngest of four.

During her researches, H found a lost cousin of mine who I did not know even existed. She now lives in America and is the same age as me. As mentioned previously, my father and his brother fell out badly with each other, so a large chunk of Harry's history is lost to us. The sister on the top right (now deceased) went to visit Harry and his wife at the pub in Kingsbridge, Devon, and brokered a meeting between the two men which I - as already mentioned - attended. That was the first and last time I met that aunt and uncle.

Sharon in America filled in a bit of forgotten information by telling my daughter the name of the pub. It was called, 'The King of Prussia' - not easily forgotten, you would think. The two brothers had a sister called Olive, who must have fell in the middle of the dispute. I remember Olive, as I met her a few times at Christmas. There was another sister called Iris who I knew well. Iris and husband Alf came to stay every Christmas and I would spend a lonely two weeks every Summer in Brighton, where they lived. I remember the Mods versus Rockers battles on the seafront.


This is The King of Prussia as it is now. It has recently been in the news for only serving locals. That's me excluded then.

26 comments:

  1. Your sisters had rather odd hairstyles even for the 1950s.

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    1. I think my mother played a big part in the hairstyles. She certainly a big part in mine, up to the age of 14.

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  2. Every family has skeletons in their cupboards - That's what makes tham interesting.

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    1. Ours had more of a rotting corpse than a skeleton.

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    2. Didn't they cut girl's hair round a pudding basin? Maybe not. It is all long gone, family quarrels, cold houses and being sent away in the summer holidays.

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    3. No. One of my sisters became a hairdresser.

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  3. So that brings the banishment count up to what?

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  4. It is a very fascinating journey in search of family history. I've been busy with this for a long time.

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    1. I cannot be bothered with it but my daughter is keen.

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  5. The more you do. The more you want to find out...to put reality to the bare names

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  6. Of course, you are the sweet blonde baby in the foreground.

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  7. That's another very nice family photo. Doesn't every family have a few odd characters, black sheep and skeletons? I call that normal...

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  8. I salute Ms. C, now deceased, and you must know she looks far less dorky than I did in the fifties, though both our mothers messed with our hair.

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    1. I also was forced to go to a Welsh sadist barber.

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  9. When I look at you on that photo above I have the distinct feeling that even as a child one could have a lot of fun with you - your eyes twinkle interested and laughing.
    "You are not a family-interested girl!" my aunt in Berlin scolded me when I was 14. True - but my sister is. I even forgot (really! forgot!) that I have 4 cousins - they didn't interest me when I was a small child, so I was utterly astonished when - while I was a shortly on Facebook, the two females contacted me.

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    1. Families are strange things. You don't choose them as you do friends.

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  10. My sister is the archivist in our family and has researched the family tree. My husbands side has been traced back to Simon de Montford …. much more interesting than ours ! Old photographs are interesting ……. They look one thing but all sorts of other things are going on behind the scenes ….. very much like social media today ! XXXX

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    1. I have a friend who is a direct Plantagenet. Sadly I seem to come from a bunch of seal-skinners.

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  11. That was easy even without the hint! ;-)

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