family history – I Walk Alone

RIP Uncle Bill

On Friday 13 October 1944, Daisy Keates, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, gave birth to her fourth and final son, William George, in the Borough Hospital, Southampton. Bill, as he came to be known, was the first of Daisy’s children born in hospital. After five years of war, being bombed out and moved countless times, she was not in the best of health. Daisy’s husband, Albert, had been working all over the country at whichever dock needed men, so she had to cope with bombs, rationing and three young boys alone. For most of the war, the Keates family had been living in the thick of it, right in the centre of Southampton, either in Northam Street, Lime Street, Queens Walk or Utility Flats, Canute Road. By 1944, they were back in Northam Street, in a two-up, two-down terraced house with no indoor plumbing and a toilet at the bottom of the garden. It was not the most auspicious start for young Bill Keates.

Bluebells, witches and a family grave

The Common looked glorious as we walked towards the last parkrun of April. Everything was fresh, green and bursting with life. The air was crisp and rich with the smell of spring, freshly cut grass and damp earth. It was one of those mornings that make you glad to be alive. Of course, my main aim for the morning was visiting the dead, like I do most Saturday mornings. I was especially interested in the bluebells I’d heard were bursting out everywhere in the Old Cemetery.

Daedalus, a myth, a memorial and some history

On 3 July 2022, Commando decided to go for a nice flat run along the shore at Lee-on-Solent. Obviously, I took the opportunity to tag along and pay my respects to Leonard Thomas Haley, my first cousin once removed. I discovered him when I was researching my family tree on Ancestry.co.uk. As parts of his story inspired my current work in progress, it seemed fitting to pay a visit. I was also keen to explore the area around the Fleet Air Arm Memorial and enjoy a walk by the sea.

St Denys roots

When I set out for a walk on 11 April 2022, St Denys was my aim. It was warmer than it had been and the sky was pleasantly blue, but the colour really capturing my attention was pink. In part, this was down to blossom bursting out on many of the trees I passed, but there was also an intriguing pink shop I wanted a closer look at. We’d passed it in the car on our way to the supermarket a few times and the bright pink made it stand out. The sign said, The Whimsical Kitchen, but, from the car, it was hard to see what it actually sold.

Holy Trinity Church Witney and a missing house

The first thing we noticed about the Holy Trinity Church at the top of Narrow Hill, was the shut door. It had been a short but steep walk from the house where my great great grandfather Thomas Haley lived with his family. The land for the church was gifted by the Bishop of Winchester and the Duke of Marlborough in the 1840’s and the church was built between 1848 and 1849 by architect Benjamin Ferrey of Christchurch. After our earlier good fortune at St Mary’s, the shut door was a slight disappointment.

In search of Narrow Hill

We left The Angel Inn refreshed and eager to see as much of Witney as we could in the short time we had. We’d seen the houses of Corn Street where Alice was born and we’d seen the church where several of my ancestors were baptised, married and buried, even if we hadn’t found any graves. I knew that my great great grandfather, Thomas Haley junior had moved from Corn Street to Woodgreen by 1861, but the only address on the census was Private House. Ten years on, he’d moved to West End but there was no address I could trace. By 1881 though, he was living on Narrow Hill and, due to a stroke of luck, I knew exactly which house he’d lived in. After a quick stop to take a closer look at the Town Hall, we set off to find it.

St Mary’s church Witney, an angel and a cursed stool

They say there has been a church in Witney since the tenth century but St Mary’s, standing at the far end of a long, wide expanse of grass called Church Green, is not the original church. In fact it was built in the twelfth century on the site of previous Norman and Saxon churches. It has also undergone many changes over the years. The tall spire, rising one hundred and fifty six feet into the blue sky, was added in the fifteenth century. It dominates the Witney skyline, so it was hard to miss, even for strangers like us. Such a large and imposing church shows that Witney was a wealthy and important town in medieval times. This was where many of my Oxfordshire ancestors were baptised, married and buried. As we walked towards the church I was hopeful that I might be able to find some Haley graves.

Before the beginning

My Grandfather, Thomas John Haley, the man who inspired my novel, Plagued, was born in Witney, Oxfordshire on 27 October 1887. It was the year of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. His father, Elijah, was born in 1862, in Hailey, just outside Witney, and was a woollen blanket weaver. His mother, Esther Brodrick, was born in Filkins, about 9 miles away, in 1865. Thomas was their first child. I knew all this from research into my family tree, and I’d heard Pappy talk about Witney, but I’d never been there. So, on 26 September 2021, with the book in the process of being published, Commando and I went on a little trip into the past. It felt like a trip I should have made long ago.

Family Research for dummies

When I first started to research the book that would eventually become Plagued, one of the biggest stumbling blocks was a lack of information. It was always going to be a book heavily influenced by my grandfather’s story but the facts were thin on the ground. I knew he’d been shot, I knew how it happened and I knew a little about his journey across France to safety. The problem was, the first hand story was told to me when I was a child. I didn’t ask the right questions because I didn’t know what I’d need to know. So how exactly did I go about finding out more and how can my experience help other would be family historians?

Portswood, trams, tin churches, a laundry and some research

Walter Dowling was a tram driver. He was also Commando’s grandfather. In our attic, there was a wooden box with some of his prized possessions, including his war medals, photographs, postcards, and a tiny diary. During the spring of 2021, I’d been working on a story that involved trams, and Commando thought some things in the box might give me inspiration. The diary was especially poignant. Walter wrote little, but it covered the period when he had malaria and was about to be leaving the army after seven years. It was also when he first met Violet, Commando’s grandmother. He may have been a man of few words, but the words he wrote about her showed how deeply he had loved her. They brought me to tears.

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