Photo from here
The Feedjit Stats records sometimes tell me how people find this blog and if they've done a google search for something random then I can see what they typed in to end up here.
I noticed recently that someone had read a post I wrote a couple of years ago about
my Granny Fielder's own cigarette vending machine that she kept in the corner of her living room.
The search words were "Fielder" and "Ashton under Lyne" where my granny and granddad lived. In the list of Google suggestions was this blog and a link to the War Graves Commission. The Fielder name jumped out at me, I know we have family buried where this William Fielder rests in the Dukinfield cemetery and so intrigued, I clicked on the link.
I didn't know much about my English family except my granddad William fought in WW1 with the Royal Scots. Family legend has it that he was Scottish, his foot was blown off and he was disabled. I doubted this was true when an uncle I traced some years ago told me granddad definitely had two feet last time he saw him.
All I know about my granny Flo is that she was English, small and she smoked. I remember we used to visit her up to when I was about five. When my mum and dad split, we never heard of the English side again. Some of them I've since traced and they live in Perth. I hoped one day to meet them but the thought of ever going to Australia is quite daunting - especially in the current State anti-smoker climate.
My dad, who fought in WW2, traced other members of his family after he read in a British newspaper about 1980 that his brother who emigrated from Manchester as a £1 Pom had been murdered at work there leaving his wife pregnant and with young kids.
My dad, William Geddes, found out my granny Flo had died in the 1970s. Long before he heard this news, he swore she was dead because she told him when she tucked him up in bed one night. We used to laugh at that. Divorce was a dirty word back in 1965 and granny disowned her son and us - or so we were told. I do know he hadn't seen her or had word from them in years and neither did we.
I have no idea who was looking for the Fielders of Ashton Under Lyne but I'm glad they did. It's great just having this little piece of family history from a family I should know better but don't.