Great Grandad A Whitechapel Detective

I want to share with you a little about my Great Grandfather.  He was a detective in the Metropolitan Police Force in London, from 1887 - 1912, all his career being on H Division In Whitechapel.  He was made a Detective Constable on 8th October, 1894 with Whitechapel CID.

He lived as a resident at Commercial Street Station, they would have housing for single policeman, then in 1896 he resided at 74 Leman Street, a police residence.

As a married man Harry lived with Ada on 20 Walden Street, Mile End Old Town, Stepney from 1898 until he retired in July 1912, which back then was just inside the City.

I love the fact he served all his career in Whitechapel, and would have been at Commercial Street during the Jack the Ripper Murders.  He would have seen a lot of action on this as many suspects were taken to the Commercial Street station for questioning.   I only wish I had been older and understood all this when he was alive, what questions I would ask him.

Also in 1911 he was highly commended  at the Old Bailey whilst working as a Detective alongside Detective Inspector Wensley and Detective Sgt. Leeson, so I have a feeling he would have possibly been stood alongside them at the Sidney Street Siege, here, when Wensley knocked on the door and Leeson was shot.

Here is a video of the London Sidney Street Siege, 1911

No sound but very interesting from British Pathe

My great grandfather retired after twenty five years of service and lived a very long retirement in the country.  Unfortunatley great grandma died very young in her early fifties.

The photo above sent to my grandmother, Kit, Kitty.

I do have some wonderful photos of him as a young man in his dress uniform clothes, will have to find them and post them.

Christy

Truly My Last Cheese

Last time I shared my cheese delivery I said that I thought it was the last one, and I did, but when I got back from being away those couple of days, this was waiting in the fridge at work, where I have it delivered.  I was most surprised, however I truly know this is my last as I received an email stating so.

The German cheese above, which was not my favourite, but nice melted on an open faced toasted sandwich with vege.

The Italian cheese with whole peppercorns, very nice.

A soft English cheese from Lancashire.

Just some quick pictures of my last cheese delivery, a sad day.  I have thoroughly enjoyed this gift.  I always buy a fresh variety box of crackers to eat the cheese with, and several times a bottle of wine. 

Christy

Morning Madness

Most mornings I am up early, go down to the kitchen, feed the cats and brew up a cup of tea.  With the lovely summer mornings I take advantage of the coolness and amble around my garden, pull a weed here, sweep a path there, sit down with my tea and Tinkerbell who is showing her age at seventeen.  I enjoy the peace and listen to the mourning doves and all this; while still in my night attire and I wonder why it always looks so scruff.  It’s hard to find the right night attire, don’t you think?  With me quite often the PJs are too long, I will have to start seriously making my own.  I do have a couple of old fashioned night dress patterns, one is a Prairie dress pattern, but could easily be a nightdress pattern; I do have a PJ pattern too.

Holiday weekend rushed by, Friday was mostly overcast but the sun did come out late in the day.  I spent the morning measuring and cutting out strips for the Bible covers, tough on ones knees.  I got to meet in the evening with two friends we are working on a Bible cover project, forty covers total, which will be hand made between the three of us.  So grey felt, blanket stitched with appliques applied.  Each of us has license to use our creative powers, no two ever turn out the same, and this project has to be ready by mid-August.

Saturday was a beautiful day and as a last minute arrangement a friend came over to lunch which we ate in the garden, and drank my Stash Paris Breakfast Tea, which is so good.  Lavender, bergamot and black tea, I found it on sale while visiting my friend Kim and bought several boxes, originally $3.60 reduced to $1.60.  I also bought a box of liquorice, but have not tried that yet.

I don’t think I mentioned the Woolrich Company, when we were visiting friends we passed the Woolrich outlet store, and we were not too far away from the town of Woolrich where the company was founded in 1830 by an English immigrant.  One iconic piece is the Railway Vest made by them for the Railroad workers when they first built the railroad across Pennsylvania.  I will keep a visit in mind for my next trip up there, although I did hear that a lot of pieces are not USA made now, all rather sad.  The Woolrich Blog is quite interesting.

I personally have worn a pinafore dress, made by Woolrich, still have it and wear it and dare I say it is BR, before Rob, so over twenty years old; it’s in heavy cotton.

Found a whole bag of mohair at the Thrift, sixteen balls of mohair and Orlon in a heather spice, which is a blue grey and nutmeg brown combination, it must be quite old, as it originally came from Sears, and I do not remember them selling yarn, but they obviously did, $3.60 the bag, a happy find.

Have a great day,

Christy

P.S.  After reading the Woolrich Blog is seems that they are committed to producing more wool items at their Pennsylvania Mill.

P.P.S.  Have requested two sample swatch packets, one is called Reanactment Fabrics and the other is Fiber Art Fabrics, so should be fun.  Also they have tours of the mill in August, September and October, I think that I would like to try and visit them, combine a trip to visit our friends with that.

A Pennsylvania Town

Danville, Pennsylvania.  I don't know about you but I love to see where people live, what type of house do they live in and what is typical to the area.  Well Danville would give you a glimpse into a typical Pennsylvania town of the late 1800's and on.

Three very typical features of an older home in Pennsylvania are wood siding, a deep wrap around porch and always a basement.  Coming from the UK basements were a new feature to me.  In the UK you have old bigger houses with a cellar, but over here, even newly built houses have a basement.

Look at this old house above, notice the sloping back roof, almost on the style of a New England saltbox roof, see here.

The Aubergine House, Rob and I decided that we did like this colour on the house.

Looking down Main Street.

A different view of the Aubergine House.

Wires, many older towns seem to have wires running everywhere.  If you ever look at photos of San Francisco pre-earthquake wires run everywhere above the streets.

Someone loves this little house.

The railway tracks run through town.  Tracks run through the town I live in, there is nothing so haunting as the sound of an American train, at night, tooting as it goes through town.  If there was any sound that is quintessentially American my choice would be that night time sound of a train.

The train tracks again crossing the Main Street. In the UK this street is always called the High Street, but in the USA it is the Main Street.

Here we are down by the Susquehanna River, a little park.  Just the right place to sit and view the river.

A row of row homes.

What colour in this brick.  It was early on a Sunday morning when I drove around town, it could be a film set, it seems just right to make a movie here.

Wandering around turn on a Sunday morning  was so peaceful before the town woke up.

Christy

Summer Loving

Have you ever carried on merrily with a project, just rolling along when voila! it hits you that it isn't right, that's me with these Japanese crochet flowers.  The pattern that I was following said twelve spokes on each round, OK got that right, but where I went wrong was it did not say twelve petals, it just said chain five and slip stitch it every third stitch, and consequently my counting of third stitches must have been incorrect, so I landed up with too many petals.  It wasn't until I went to block them that it struck me that these were never going to lay flat, as pretty as they might look, see photo above, it could not be left like this. So now I had at least thirty which I had to undo and re crochet, see photo below.

I took the easier route and bought the multi coloured yarn for this project.  There are several more colours in this range of yarn, but I would have to buy them online, as my local store does not carry them, I am thinking of doing that.  It is going to be a rainbow of colours, I'm not going to be conservative.

My vision is an oblong shawl, connected with a plain green trellis with leaves and dangles of some sort, possibly leaves at each end.  I have what I think is the perfect colour plain green for this project.  I wanted a bright green, but not garish and I found a lovely Moss Green Bamboo and Silk yarn, so I hope this works.  As with all things it's just in my mind and reality may be quite different.

What do I love about summer, well especially the mornings, when it is warm enough to sit outside very early, the light is wonderful then and you have this feeling that the day stretches ahead of you with endless possibilities.

Tea and toast in my Italian set, it reminds me of my day at Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera, a UNESCO heritage site. of towns climbing the cliffs, such names as Manarola and Riomaggiori, just roll off the tongue.  A little zucchini and ginger jam on my toast.  All accompanied by a little crochet.

I love to use the words that I like best, for instance I like the American word for marrow which is zucchini, but I like the English word for eggplant which is aubergine, using the best of both cultures. 

Now to my garden, a new perennial has been introduced, David, a hardy garden phlox.

What about these planters already made up.  This is not the way I usually buy plants and flowers because they are just over priced.  So my tale is this, I went to Lowe's looking for more hosta, but the selection was limited. I thought I had seen the mouse ear hosta there, which is a tiny little curled leaf variety of hosta, but I must have seen that at a different nursery and will if I want it, which I do, have to pay the price.  Just love that name Mouse Ears.  But in the mean time I couldn't make the trip and come back empty handed so I bought a little container of  Leptinella, more on that later, just as I was checking out I asked if they had a clearance section, sure enough, hidden in a corner they did, and look what I came across.  There were probably five of them, but I resisted and left some for other people, originally $25.00 I would never have paid that price, reduced to, wait for it $3.00.  With a little trimming they look quite respectful.  The trailing petunias were mostly gone, so I may buy a few individual ones and plant those in there.  In any case I love to resurrect plants.

My second perennial buy this year, Indian Feather, Whirling Butterflies, one would buy it just for the name.

My herb garden area, coming along quite nicely.

Cleome, need I say more.  Cleome would take over the world, it is on a quest to do so, at least in my garden.  Once introduced, you never need seed or plant another one, but just need to be vigilant in digging them up and relocating to where you would like to see them.  I just let this area go wild, including some other plants which I know will grow up to have dark berries on and the birds love them, so have left them.

My blackberry bush with thorns which seems to produce far more fruit than my thorn less blackberry.

In Joanne's on clearance a little cup and saucer flower pot.  I had the choice of three colours, white a teal green and this colour, but there was no decision here because this colour seems so iconic to fifties and sixties pottery planters.

A few cats and kittens taken off my boot planters, plus a trailing succulent that just grows in my garden.  Now this is what I bought the Leptinella for or Black Brass Buttons, just to fill in.

Here is the Leptinella squalida, originally from NZ.  When I first saw it, it reminded me of fern, and something that you would see at the Philly Flower Show, on those miniature garden displays.  Isn't it exquisite?  I think so.  You use it as a ground cover and it must be a moist area.

So these are some of my summer loving things.

Christy