Books Monthly
September 2024







TALES FROM OUR FAMILY TREE


I never knew three of my grandparents. My maternal Granddad died when I was just a few months old; my paternal Grandma died long before I was born; and my paternal granddad, after who my Dad was named, died in the Great War. Nowadays there are so many ways to find out more about our ancestors, the most popular and straightforward being Ancentry.co.uk and FindMyPast.

A few years ago Wendy and I spent three or four months delving into our family trees in an attempt to find out who was who and when they were around. Our research took us back several centuries, although the most recent three centuries were far and away the most interesting and satisfying. The result was a document of around 40 pages and revelations that both of us came from comparatively wealthy families. However, it’s one thing being able to look at the actual family tree, quite another to find out about these people, so we also trawled the various resources at our disposal for family photographs and Google maps etc., to identify properties in which our ancestors once lived. The most interesting documents we came across were the various censuses which gave us names, ages, occupations etc. I don’t recall there being any “lunatics” in either family tree but there were instances of stays in workhouses and mental hospitals on both sides of the family. We were really pleased with the family tree document we eventually produced and handed down to our children, but it’s one thing being able to trace your ancestors back through the ages and to discover that there were umbrella makers and Huguenot wine merchants among them; it’s quite another thing to know the stories of some of the people in the family, stories that a throwaway remark at a family reunion might prompt the need to know more. For many years, when I was a pre-teenager, my Uncle Eddie was a frequent visitor to our house in Boverton Drive in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, and it was clear to me that he had an unusually strong bond with my Dad. But he was Eddie Matthews, he was not a Norman. I recently set out to discover why that was, calling on official documents and conversations with my Mum and Dad.

My dad, Arthur Robert Norman, was born 1st September 1915, the fourth child of Arthur Robert Norman, born 1882 and Emily née Kemp born 1886. It’s not clear how many siblings my grandfather, the first Arthur Robert Norman had, but one of his brothers was someone I visited regularly in the 1950s, one Leopold Septimus Norman, or Uncle Leo as we knew him, and who visited us in Brockworth along with his wife, Maggie. His middle name suggests that he was one of seven children, presumably the seventh, but the census didn’t reveal that many siblings. Maybe there were infant deaths. We do know that my granddad and grandmother Emily had three daughters before my Dad was born: Doris, Ivy and Florrie. I saw all of these aunties regularly from birth till my mid-teens. My uncle Eddie, that frequent visitor to our Brockworth home, was born after my Grandma married someone called Matthews in 1924. I often wondered why Uncle Eddie was not a Norman, and a number of remembered conversations and visits with Great Uncle Leopold Septimus Norman eventually led me to some of the truth. It is patently obvious to me now that Emily Norman, after the war, was a widow who could not cope with her four young children, and in desperation handed them over to Uncle Leo and Aunt Maggie. Quite astonishing, like some Edwardian melodrama!

My Granddad, Arthur Robert Norman, a bricklayer by trade, joined the Duke of Cambridge’s Own Regiment in September 1915, the month and year my Dad, the second Arthur Robert Norman was born. He spent some months training in England before embarking for France early in 1916. He died 18th August 1916 during a skirmish that was a small part of the Battle of the Somme. His remains were never found, but he has an entry on the wall of the Thiepval War Grave Memorial. In 2018 I decided I wanted to know more about my Granddad, my Grandma Emily and my Uncle Eddie. It’s at this point I should say how important it is to quiz your parents and grandparents about your family history while they are still alive and still have all their faculties. They are also invaluable in assisting with the identification of people from family photo collections. We have hundreds of such photos and struggle to identify these people now that our parents and grandparents are no longer with us. I was particularly unfortunate in only having one grandparent. My grandfather Arthur Robert Norman died in the Great War in 1916, his wife Emily died in the 1930s. My maternal grandfather died in 1952 when I was just three years old, and my beloved Gran, Mum’s mum, died in 1958, aged 77 years, well before I was old enough to realise that there were things she could have told me about my ancestry.

Here’s what I managed to cobble together about my paternal Granddad, Grandma and Uncle Eddie.

From the diary of the Duke of Cambridge’s Own Regiment in the month of July 1916, I gathered the following information:

August 2nd: Moved off at 4:30pm by road, reaching Sailly Le Sec 7:30am. Rested by river for day, moved off at 6:30pm to Happy Valley, reaching there at 10:30pm. Camped there. Training each day 5:30 – 9am, then bathing.

August 8th: 2pm marched across ridge to camp in valley other side in bivouacs. Practised attacking GUILLEMONT trenches till July 17th . (? Dates don’t make sense, I believe that should read “until August 17th.)

August 17th (Trenches B.A.I & Arrow Head Copse): Battalion moved up into trenches B.A.I. etc. and ARROW HEAD COPSE. Queens were to have gone over this night but did not do so. Enemy counter barrage very heavy during night. Lt. Molesworth wounded.

August 18th: Lieut. Burt first wounded by our own shells then killed while going down to dressing station. 2nd Lieut. De Pass wounded in shoulder by our shells. Captains Middleton and Reeves and Lieut. Parkes buried in TEALE TRENCH and were dug out. Captains Middleton and Reeves went to hospital.

2.45pm Battalion attacked GUILLEMONT trenches but was held up just outside them by MGs from strong point on right and then shelled heavily while lying in the open. Captains Reeve, James and Vaughan killed. 2nd Lieuts. Adam, Burch and Black killed. Lieuts. Allen, King, Trower, Nicholson and Smith wounded. About 340 O.R. casualties. Battalion moved to Briquetterie for night.

My Granddad, Arthur Robert Norman, was one of the 90 O.R. (Other ranks) who died on August 18th 1916.

From my Mum, I learned that my Dad’s mum, born Emily Kemp, could not cope with her four children, one of whom was my Dad, newly born in 1915. My Great Uncle Leopold Septimus Norman, and his wife Maggie, took the four children and raised them as their own. My Grandma, Emily, married someone called Matthews in 1924, and they had one son, Eddie Matthews, my Uncle Eddie.

Also from my Mum, I learned that Uncle Eddie adored my father, his brother, because he was abused by his father, Emily's second husband, and Dad was instrumental in removing him from the Matthews’s home. In other words, he rescued him.

This from my Great Uncle Leo (Leopold Septimus Norman): I heard him tell my Dad that he had heard from Emily at a séance – this was in the 1950s, and Emily died in 1936. Uncle Leo and Aunt Maggie were Spiritualists. My Dad didn’t want to know about his mother. He never ever spoke about her, and, worse still, he never got to know his own Dad, the original Arthur Robert Norman, because he died in the Great War before my Dad was even one year old.

Family history sites can reveal so much, but the stories behind such information is lost forever unless we quiz our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents about those old photos and the stories behind them. That photo at the top of this page is my granddad, Arthur Robert Norman. He would have been so proud of my Dad for rescuing Uncle Eddie, even though Eddie wasn't his son. I hope he would have been proud of me, too.

The small print: Books Monthly is published by Paul Norman. 2024 is the 26th year of publication. You can contact me at paulenorman1@gmail.com