See you soon Caroline!

Chapter One:

Caroline’s Homework

England, 2013

 

Martin Shaw glanced at the clock on the classroom wall. He had just about enough time to introduce the last item of homework to be done during the summer holidays.

“Choice number three” he read. “Those of you who don’t fancy tackling number one or two may find this one more to your tastes. You’re challenged to find out about your own family history! History isn’t just about dates and Kings, Prime Ministers – that sort of thing. It’s about you – and people like you”.

He was on his feet now, walking around the classroom, moving between the desks. “This challenge – homework if you like – is to find out about your ancestors, who they were and what they did. Where they lived, where they came from. How many children they had. What sort of life they had. When you’ve done this, you’ll be able to place yourself in the context of history. You’ll be able to see how you fit into the history of this little corner of the planet!”

He stopped by one desk near the front of the room. “You haven’t chosen a topic yet Caroline, have you? Does this appeal to you?”

“I’ve never really thought about it” she admitted. Caroline Weaver, like the other youngsters in the class, was just sixteen, and more interested in the here and now than the past. But she did enjoy the history lessons that Mr Shaw taught.  He was younger than most of the teachers in the school, not that much older than she was herself she thought. Perhaps that was why she never found his lessons boring or tedious. He had a way of making every lesson seem fresh and lively. It was never just a list of facts to be remembered, but always something that made her think, and challenged her opinions.

“How many of you have watched the ‘Who do you think you are’ programmes?” He was addressing the whole class now. A few hands went up. “Did you enjoy them – did they interest you?” “Yes, John?”

John Bond, a tall youth sitting at the back of the room answered. “Yes – but they are all celebrities. They’re not ordinary people like us. I don’t find that I can really relate to their stories”. This was greeted with a groan from the rest of the class. John was known as a bit of a bore!

“Well, here’s your chance” said the history teacher. “Find out what lies at the root of your family tree!”

A few minutes later, the lesson ended, Caroline was standing at the teacher’s desk. “How do I get started?” she asked.

“You need first of all to talk to someone in your family. Your grandfather for example. You need to be able to go back to 1911. Your grandfather’s parents would have been alive then. He will be able to tell you their names, where they lived, and when they were born.  I suppose your Grandad is still alive, is he?”

“Yes, he’s fine! And he only lives a few miles away, so that’s no problem! But what do I do when I’ve got this information?”

“That’s where 1911 comes in! Every ten years, when the year ends in a “one”, there is a national census. They are kept secret for one hundred years, so the latest one that we can read is the census of 1911. If you can spare another five minutes, I’ll show you what to do!”

Walking home on her own for once, Caroline considered the challenge. It sounded interesting, even fun. And it was useful too. She would end up knowing more about her own family. What sort of people they were. What kind of problems they had to face. Perhaps she would find out where her artistic skills came from? She was good at art, whereas her Mum and Dad couldn’t draw anything that could be recognised! It caused a lot of stress when they played Pictionary! Nobody wanted to be on Dad’s team!

She tried to imagine what life would have been like in 1911. Where did they live? Were they well-off, or poor workers in factories or perhaps farm-hands working all hours and living in cottages without water or electricity? Suddenly, Caroline found herself filled with a burning curiosity: she couldn’t wait to get started. And that meant going to see Grandad! Tomorrow was Saturday. She would go and see him then.

Caroline’s family ate their main meal of the day at six-o-clock, when her father got home from his office work in the centre of town. Her mother worked in the Nursery School just round the corner, so she had plenty of time to get home and prepare the meal. However, at week-ends, her father insisted on doing the cooking, and often Caroline and her older brother Simon mucked in as well.

Today her mind was not on food, she was already planning how she was going to tackle Grandad about his family. She was partly in favour of discussing the whole enterprise with her parents during the meal, but something held her back. She thought she would keep the whole thing to herself until she had made some progress. It would just be her and Grandad.  As long as she could remember, her Grandad had been an important part of her life. As a young child, she had enjoyed the times she had stayed with her grandparents in their house with its enormous garden out in the country. But that had been when Granny was alive, now poor old Grandad was all alone, and had moved to be nearer them in a small flat just twenty minutes away.

“You’re quiet tonight Caroline!” said Dad. He was looking at her dreamily pushing her shepherd’s pie around the plate. “Something on your mind?” She smiled, “Yes” she said, “A secret – well sort of, at the moment anyway. Something I need to talk to Grandad about. I think I’ll cycle over tomorrow to see him.”

“We ought to have him over for a meal this weekend” said Mum looking up. “It’s been some time. Why don’t you ask him here for Sunday. Give him a ring and ask him. Then you don’t need to go there tomorrow. You can talk to him here.”

Caroline shook her head. “No, I’ll ask him of course, but I want to talk to him alone first. I need his help on something I’m doing at school. I’ll tell you all about it once I’ve had a chat with him.”

“OK” said Dad. “But don’t bother him with anything too complicated will you? Remember, he’s not as young as he used to be, and he’s not the same since your granny died”

Caroline arrived at her grandfather’s flat about eleven-o-clock on Saturday morning.  Alan Weaver was looking out for her through his window on the second floor. He always enjoyed her visits, although they were not as frequent as they used to be. He reckoned that she had enough to do with school and homework, and all the various activities that youngsters were involved in these days. He was glad that she was busy, not hanging around the gardens of the flats like some of her age, smoking and getting up to all kinds of mischief. He was over seventy now, and finding life rather difficult without Doreen, his wife who had died after a battle with cancer some five years before. But his son’s family were always there when he needed them, and sometimes even when he didn’t. Like now for example! He had earmarked this morning for an hour or so in the little garden patch allocated to his flat, but that would have to wait if Miss Caroline needed him!

He opened the door and gave her a hug. “Lovely to see you Caroline! Come on in!” The kettle was on, and there were soon two cups of tea on the little table in the corner. Caroline would have preferred diet coke, but she knew she wouldn’t be getting that here!

After the customary small talk (“How’s your Mum? How’s it going at school?”) Caroline brought the conversation round to the matter in hand.

“I’m glad you mentioned school, because that’s what I wanted to see you about. I need some help with the history project I’m thinking of doing”.

The old man raised his eyebrows. “That was never my strong point! I doubt if I can help you much there!”

“Well, as a matter of fact, you’re the only one who can! If you can’t, then the project is off! You see, it’s family history I’m doing – I need to trace our family –your family – back as far as I can.”

Alan looked at his granddaughter with narrowed eyes. This was obviously not what he was expecting. After a moment’s silence he said “If you want my advice, I’d concentrate on your mother’s family”.

“No, it’s got to be the Weavers” replied Caroline. My teacher says that it’s much easier to follow the male line, because you don’t have the problem of name changes every time someone gets married”.

Her Grandad got up and walked to the window. With his back to her, he looked out at the fields across the narrow lane. Then he turned and faced her. “Darling” he said, “You know I’m always glad to do anything for you that’s in my power to do. But this time you’ve asked me for something that I just can’t help you with. As I say, try your mother’s family, I’m sure your Granny Alice would be delighted to get all her albums out and tell you all about her posh ancestors!”

“It doesn’t matter whether your folk were posh or poor Grandad! My history teacher says that by the time you get back to the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign, we are bound to have found people to be proud of as well as those who let the family down! That’s the point of this project. To see what a mixture we all are!  Did you know that that would be about seven generations, and that would mean about sixty-four different ancestors? And that’s just on your side of the family!”

Alan Weaver came and sat down opposite her. “Darling – I can’t help you! You see, I don’t know who my parents were. I never knew them. I was adopted when I was very young. It’s not something I talk about, because it’s not really important to me. To me, mum and dad were the people who brought me up. If there was somebody before them, I never knew. And I don’t want to know now. So please accept that there’s nothing I can tell you.”

Caroline felt a stab of guilt as she remembered how her mother had warned her not to bother him. Yet she was so bowled over by her grandfather’s admission that he didn’t know who his parents were, that she couldn’t help asking “Does Dad know that you were adopted?”

“Yes, of course. And your Uncle Ben too. I told them when they were about your age, it didn’t bother them. In those days nobody knew much before their parents’ time, and certainly not before their grandparents’. There was no interwhatsit to look up these things like you can do now. And I might never have known to this day if it wasn’t for that football tournament!”

Caroline was puzzled. “What football tournament?”

Her Grandad smiled ruefully. “I was twenty two. I had been playing for the village side for a year or two. We had invited a team from France to come over, it was one of these twinning things. Then we were invited back – somewhere near Dieppe it was. And I needed a passport. Few people had passports in those days. I’d never been abroad. Well, to get a passport, I needed a birth certificate. So I asked my Mum if she knew where it was. She burst into tears! She said that she had been dreading the day when she had to tell me that she wasn’t my real mother!”

“So what happened?”

“Well, there wasn’t a birth certificate – at least not anything you would recognise as one. I had to use the adoption papers, and it all took so long to organise that I missed the trip to France after all! My poor old parents had had to tell me they weren’t really my parents at all, and all for nothing as it turned out!”

Caroline tried to get her head round this unexpected development. “So you’ve no idea who your real parents were? Didn’t the adoption papers tell you anything?”

The old man shook his head. “They showed that I was about three at the time of adoption, and that I had been in some kind of institution before that. And that was all!”

“Didn’t you want to know?”

“As I’ve said – it was a long time ago, and things were different then. It was at the end of the war. I suppose I was what they called a ‘war baby’, probably the child of some poor girl not much older than you, and the father a soldier from America or Canada or even further afield. Even if I could have found my mother, there would be no hope of finding who the father was. And you say that it’s my father (the real one) that you need to know about?”

“If I’m going to trace the Weaver family, yes! Because it’s the ….”

She went silent for a moment, and then, looking up at her grandfather, her eyes wide with concern, she said “But I’m not a Weaver am I? You’re not a Weaver either? Nor’s Dad! I can’t believe it! Who am I? What’s our real name?”

Her grandfather got up and put his arm round her shoulders. “You go into the kitchen and make us both another nice cup of tea, I’m going upstairs for a minute. As for who you are – you’re Caroline my lovely granddaughter, and what your real surname is or might have been doesn’t matter one jot!”

With that he walked out of the room and up the stairs.

A few minutes later, just as the kettle was coming to the boil, Caroline heard him coming downstairs. He came into the kitchen carrying a shoebox tied up with string. Setting it down on the kitchen table, he undid the string and took out a yellow envelope.

“These are some snaps that my father took when he first had me. That’s me, that little chap, and that’s my mum holding me in her arms.”

Caroline took the picture and examined it. “Your mum, well not your real mum, but the one who brought you up – she looks quite old to have a small child.”

“She would have been in her forties I think. But Dad – he was much older. Probably in his mid-fifties. Here he is look!”

He passed Caroline another picture. It showed an elderly looking man sitting in a garden chair. A knotted handkerchief was covering his head.

“He wasn’t a fit man. He was in the trenches during the first world war and survived. In Hitler’s war he was too old to be called up, but he had a tough time in London during the blitz. But I’m afraid this is not my real father!”

Caroline picked up a piece of card which had fallen out of the envelope. She turned it over and examined it. On one side there was a faded picture of a cottage with three people standing by the front door, but part of the picture was missing, it looked as if it had been torn off. On the other side there was some indistinct writing which she couldn’t make out.

“What’s this Grandad? What’s this a picture of?”

He took it from her, adjusted his spectacles and peered at it closely.

“I remember this” he said. “I remember putting it in with those snaps years ago. It was something I found when I cleared the house out after my mother died – quite a while before you were born. I’ve no idea what the picture is. I don’t recognise the place or the people.  It had some foreign looking words on the back of it as I remember, but I can’t make them out now!”

His granddaughter rose and looked over his shoulder. “There is writing there” she said, but it’s too faint to make it out. Can I take it home and show Dad?”

“Well, let’s have a better look at it first” With that, Alan opened a drawer and took out a large magnifying glass. After a minute of squinting through the glass, he passed it to his granddaughter. “It’s no use” he said. “It’s impossible to make any sense of this. I don’t know why I bothered to keep it. I’ve never been able to fathom it out!”

But Caroline had other ideas. “Let me take it home” she pleaded. “Perhaps Simon will think of something”. The old man sighed. “All right then! Now let’s go and sit down, and you can tell me how things are going at school!”