University master class, the family tree grows, discoveries of more ancestors, the mystery of Owen Noel Lloyd, to Santa Pola for a break and other stories.

Sunday 24th February, 2019

During the masterclass on Monday

Hello again everyone. How has your week been?

We have had very fair weather here. I have been, as was to be expected very busy, what with preparations for the publishing of my book and work helping Andy  D. continue with the Lloyd Lieven family tree. It is wonderful to see it grow.

Last Sunday saw me digging out very old photos to contribute to the tree and from both sides of the family. I came across this one dated of my father's maternal grandparents, Charles Edward Scull and his wife Bessie (Elizabeth) Scull née Walters. Don't they look fine in their Victorian clothes? It was taken in Shrewsbury in about 1905.

My father's maternal grandparents in 1905

On my mother's side I came across her maternal grandmother, Olga Ribeaupierre - an ancient Russian noble family. She is sitting with her cousin, the mother of Felix Yusupov who was Princess Zinaida Yusupov née Trubetskoi. Gosh so we are related to the Trubetskoys. The Tubetskoys are in War and Peace, except that Tolstoy renamed them Drubtestkoy. Did I ever tell you that Tolstoy was a friend of my mother's family and that my maternal grandmother used to play tennis with him? That's something to put in my next book hahaha.

My mother's maternal grandmother Olga Ribeaupierre (dark hair)  with the mother of Felix Yusupov, Princess Zinaida Yusupov (blonde hair They were cousins. 

Meanwhile, my new found friend, Joanna, continued her stay in Anglesey visiting her sister who lives in the Old Rectory where my paternal grandfather, John Collins Lloyd, no doubt would often have gone. Joanna even found out he had lived at the White Lodge as a curate soon after taking Holy Orders. His parish was in Llanfairpwl,  the town with the second longest name in the world and which is too difficult for me to spell hahaha. This is the lodge, which, by the way, is on sale too, like his old house on Alderley Terrace. But being a Grade II listed building it is going for more, at the price of over 400.000 pounds. What a lovely building it is.

The White Lodge in Anglesey where my grandfather first lived when he became curate after taking Holy Orders. 

Seeing the photos Joanna has been sending, I am further convinced I must visit Anglesey soon.

That morning, after sending off all these photos to Andy, I had to completely change what was going on in my head and get on with another task very far away from old family photos, biographies, etc.

I don't know why but a couple of weeks ago, at the Adamo press conference, I agreed to give a talk to a class of University students that one of my journalist friends, Emilia, teaches. In the heat of the moment, I said "Oh yes, no problem·. The class to students of media studies is about New Technologies and the Information Society and I was to tell them about my experience of it. I was so busy I only got down to it on Sunday morning. It took me about 3 hours. Thankfully Zena was making the lunch so I was free to work. Thankfully again, I finished it just before lunch and in the afternoon was able to relax, although I kept thinking of things to change which would have me reprint the document at least 4 times hahah. When I get new ideas and I'm away from my desk, I either record myself or add notes on my mobile. That makes for interruptions on our walk hahaha.

Our walk was glorious, so sunny and even warm.  There were plenty of other people with their dogs, walking or on their bikes and it was because of the good weather. When it's cold, you never see them. We, however, like mad dogs and Englishman, are generally out in any sort of weather.

Once home, Oli had arrived. She would be having dinner with us and spending the night. I really hadn't seen her for about 3 weeks as she has been so busy with her job. We spent lovely mummy and daughter time, with her trying on the new clothes I had bought at QRabit. She loved them.

Later the 3 of us watched the weekly programme, Salvados, conducted by Jordi Evole which we hardly ever miss. This time he interviewed a man called Alfonso Guerra. He was Felipe Gonzalez' second in command during the early years of the socialist government in Spain. He is very outspoken but is a great debater and had me laughing and agreeing with him on many things. One thing he said, really struck me as so true. He spoke about how political correctness hardly let anyone speak clearly or say things how they really are. He said political correctness undermines democracy. How right he is and how silly we all are. We do anything not to hurt anyone's feelings, but end up being so bland, we begin to act like in the times of communism or fascism. He is so right. I hate political correctness. What about you?

Monday came and it was a big day for me. I was to add another experience to my bucket list of experiences in life. I was to give a master class, oh really just a lecture, but master class sounds grander, at the University Antonio de Nebrija.    Emilia wanted me to talk about my role and experience as Communications Director of two mobile phone manufacturers, Motorola and Nokia and the mobile operator, Yoigo and in a way to show how I had personally witnessed the development of the information society. I also had to talk about crisis communication, something I am very familiar with. I prepared well for the class, taking Oli's advice, to use my script just as a guide, highlighting the main topics and to speak spontaneously rather than read the talk. She was right, she is a journalist and knows. I know too but it would have been far easier to read it. I took her advice though. I had to be there by 11.25 so had plenty of time to get ready, prepare myself mentally and arrive well on time. Finally my grand moment came and I was ushered into a beautiful old room full of books with 4 or 5 rows of students. Their class was nothing like my lectures at Nottingham University in the late 70's. Each student had a huge Apple computer screen and Emilia's black board was of course electronic. How times have changed.

The Antonio de Nebrija University classroom where I gave my lecture on Monday. I was amazed to see how technology has finally entered the classroom in educational institutions today. Lucky students. 

I think I sort of overawed my very young audience. They were only 18 and were first year students. However, they asked lots of questions, laughed a bit and even applauded me at the end. 

The time passed rapidly and at about 13h it was over. Then Emilia introduced me to a young student, Raquel, from the final year. She is doing a thesis on crisis communication and social media and wants my help. She will be in touch soon to interview me. It is a nice  feeling to pass on my knowledge to the younger generation.

I had a long walk back to the metro as I  had on the way walking from Plaza de España Metro. Once at the metro station where I had left my car, I had another long walk. There were no spaces in the morning so I had to park 1.5k away. Thus I did over 4 km. that morning and would skip on our walk that afternoon.

I came home happy but tired. My work wasn't over. It was lunchtime but I had to do a video of myself to send to some professional friends, Tony and Theresa, for their goodbye party from Ketchum. I did the video with Pippa in my arms, of course.

Finally I could sit down with Eladio and my father and have lunch. After our meal I stayed at the table talking to my father about his upcoming 100th birthday. He is counting the days. I continued questioning him on certain relatives. He then told me that when he lies in bed he always thinks about the past. I told him I was thinking and living his past what with the book and family tree and that I hadn't listened to him when I was younger. Very sweetly he replied "well why would you?" I told him it was a great feat to reach 100 and added there is only a very small percentage of people who reach that age. He then said that he only wished he could help us a bit at home. That touched my heart and I told him I love him. That may sound normal to you but it isn't for me. My father does not express his feelings, although underneath he has them of course. I told him he had the right at his age to be looked after, respected and loved and not to worry. Bless him. It's amazing how I am getting to know him so well, so late in life.

In the afternoon, Andy D. continued his sleuth work of my grandfather's and other ancestors' past. He told me that my paternal grandfather's second church after ordination was in Llandegfan, also in Anglesey, at the church of St. Tegfans. I promptly told my newly found friend, Joanna who was still in Anglesey staying with her sister. And you know what? She drove there immediately and was visiting his church about 10 minutes later as Llandegfan is 3 miles from her sister's house. She even sent me photos of his lovely church.

St. Tegfan's church in Llandegefan, my grandfather's second posting as a curate after ordination.

I then went looking for my grandfather's ordination papers and my father still had them, together with documents about his appointment at many of his following parishes. They are beautifully kept old parchment documents. Here are his ordination certificates first as a deacon and then as a priest.

My grandfather ordained  as a deacon at St. Asaph Cathedral, Wales, 18.12.1910.

My grandfather ordained as a priest 21st December 1911

These are precious papers and I'm so glad my father kept them. He threw away nearly everything when he left Bradford in 2005, after 40 years living at 6 Heaton Grove. Thankfully he kept all these documents and photos.

All of this was immediately updated to the ever growing family tree. My grandfather's profile now looks like this:

The first page of 5 of my paternal grandfather, John Collins Lloyd's profile on the family tree

Andy even found the probate he left and the probates many of his ancestors left too. Amazing work.

So engrossed in conversation with Andy in France and Joanna in Wales,  time flew. Soon it was time for dinner and Oli would be joining us. Boy was I hungry.

Later that night, to take my mind off books, biographies, university lectures, etc, Eladio and I watched a very exciting film, Jack Ryan, Shadow Recruit on Amazon Prime. It's a story about the Russians wanting to create a second great depression in the US, including a terrorist attack at the heart of the financial world, Wall Street. I must say it had me biting my nails.

Tuesday came and I could finally relax a bit. Or so I thought. Working on the family tree with Andy has become rather addictive and I have felt what it must be like to be an enthusiastic researcher of family history. That day there were several mysteries to be resolved. First was the maiden name of my father's maternal grandmother, Bessy Scull. In an old album there is a photo of her with her husband. On the back of the photo, in my father's perfect handwriting of about 15 years ago it says "Elizabeth (Bessy) Williams?) Andy had come up with her surname being Walters, not Williams. In the end we decided he must be right as he found their marriage details in some old census. 

There was also the mystery of a possible fifth sibling of my grandfather, John Collins Lloyd. On Ancestry.com there is another Lloyd family tree with a lot of my father's relatives. It includes his father and has 5 siblings on it, not 4. The 5th sibling is Own Noel Lloyd born 1900 and who died in 1916 according to her records which later Andy checked. This is a mystery to me. I wondered if the censuses could be wrong or if Owen was maybe born out of wedlock.

I a sked my father if his father had ever told him he had a fifth sibling, Owen, who had died in 1916. He had no recall of the fact. It seems strange that the death of a 16 year old brother would never be mentioned in the family. Also reading through my grandparents’ letters which I still have and which are dated 1916-1917, around the time Owen would have died, there is no mention either. This is a mystery still to be resolved.  Possibly the only way to find out for sure is to order his birth certificate. I think I may do that. 

I spent most of the day on the screen of my phone exchanging messages with Andy which  tired me out. It is addictive as every day we find something new. We are now looking for  the descendants of my father's paternal uncles, whose children and grandchildren must be alive. The search continues. 

This is fascinating stuff for me. Maybe it isn't for you. My new found friend, Joanna, the teacher from Lancashire, has suggested that once we find everyone, I could do a tour of their graves. Well, I'm not into graves, but I would like to see where they lived. I think my husband thinks I'm a bit crazy. He doesn't see the interest and says all the people we are looking for are very distant relatives. However they do interest me and a lot. But I do understand him, as if he were doing the same for his family, no doubt I would not want to do a grand tour of his relatives' graves haha. I wonder what you readers think of this family history research.

I did stop for a break in the morning as the cupboards were bare and we had to do the shopping. That day I wore my new tartan coat which Eladio calls a dressing gown, hahaha, the one I bought for my birthday. I needed an occasion to wear it and that was going out shopping on Tuesday. Here I am in it. Lovely and fashionable isn't it? Well I do love tartan.

Wearing my new tartan coat on Tuesday

I was very tired with all the research and answering all the Whatsapp messages, exhausted in fact. Luckily I was able to sleep a short siesta and was then further revived by our walk with the dogs.

Just as were were arriving home, Oli was on TV reporting on a sort of ghost city, Talavera, in the province of Toledo. As we were still in the street when she was on, we watched her on my mobile phone. It's amazing today what we can do with our phones. She wouldn't be home until very late, well past our dinner time.

I relaxed again and took a mental break from the addictive family tree by starting to watch a new series on Netflix that night with Eladio. Called "Vivir sin permiso" (livng without permission) it's about a family clan in the drug business in Galicia. It is highly addicted too. It was great to find a new series we like and will enjoy together.

Wednesday came. The search continued for the discovery and details of ancestors on both sides of my family for the family tree, information I would also add to my father's biography. That morning we hit bingo on my mother's side. We found out that her father Andrei Prince Lieven's grandfather, Prince Andrei Alexandrovich Lieven (1839-1897 born Simferopol, died St. Petersburg) was Minister of State Properties under Tsar Nicholas II. That was one more gap filled and one more  photo for the tree.

Prince Andrei Alexandrovich Lieven my grandfather's grandfather.

Meanwhile on the Lloyd side of the tree, hunting through old letters I came upon one from an "Aunty Peggy" in Worthing. I prompted my father as to who she was - I had heard her name all my life - It turns out she fills another blank and was the wife of my father's brother Tom, an officer in the Merchant Navy. According to my father, they retired to Worthing so that he could see his beloved ships pass by. I loved that bit of information. I asked my father what rank Uncle Tom had. He replied, "well he wasn't Captain, I think he was First Officer", another little bit of information to complete my biography and the tree. As to Aunty Peggy, with that name only and no surname, she would be impossible to find although I knew from another letter she had died too in Worthing in 1984. 

In the afternoon Andrew D, my genealogist and maker of the family tree, came up trumps with valuable information on my father's side of the family. He found an article about my grandfather, John Collins Lloyd's grandfather, John Collins, (1827-1904) written in a publication called "Holyhead stories of a port" and written by Barry Hillier. He was my father's great grandfather, so we are going really back into history. This is the link.  Here there was a  mine of information on this ancestor.

 He was with the 82nd Regiment of Foot and fought in the Crimea and also took part in the Great Indian Mutiny. He returned to Holyhead with three medals, the Crimean Medal, the Turkish Medal and the Indian Mutiny Medal. Thus his daughter, Marian Margaret Collins, my grandfather's mother was born in Delhi.  Additionally he was an eye witness of the Charge of the Light Brigade. Wow, this is history and I just loved the story of John Collins.

His Crimean medal with clasp for the Siege at Sebastopol

His story took me right back to my History lessons with Miss Scorer at St. Joseph's College. I well remember our lessons on the Crimean War. History always was my favourite subject.

I wrote to the author who in the article also mentions the mysterious boy Noel or Owen Noel and told him of our connection to John Collins. He wrote back immediately and sent us all the sources of his article which he had researched exhaustively. There were files with certificates of marriage and death, newspaper articles of the time, photos of the medal and John Collins' gravestone. This boy Owen/Noel was in the photos from pages of various censuses and even mentioned in the obituary of John Collins' death which I am reproducing here.



John Collins' obituary

I hardly looked up from my desk all day until it was nearly too late to go for our walk. But we did and set off at 6.30. Once home, I immediately went to my desk, messaging with Andy on the update of the tree. It wasn't until 9 pm that Eladio and I had our dinner which is really late for me.

Entertainment after dinner was two more episodes of our "Sin permiso para vivir". We are loving it.

Thursday came. I took a break from completing the Lloyd part of the family tree and updating  my father's biography to go to the hairdresser. Going to the hairdresser, unlike many other women, is no pleasure for me but I had to have my roots done and hair cut. For me it's one of those things you have to do in life, like filling the car tank with petrol, a must do thing, but never enjoyable.

It was nice to get out and after the hairdresser, feeling very hungry, went to have a coffee at Alveran. On my way I bumped into an old neighbour and great friend of the girls, Carmen María who, for some reason, was always called "Curry". Gosh, I hadn't seen her for probably a decade. She is now 36, married with a daughter aged 4 and is a teacher of English. It was a lovely moment and we were both overjoyed. We immediately took a selfie to remember the occasion which I later sent to the girls. Here we are together in sunny Boadilla on Thursday morning.

With "Curry" on Wednesday morning, a chance meeting

It felt good to be out of the house. I returned on time to make lunch. Andy was on the point of finishing the Lloyd part of the family tree but we were missing photos of Aunty Nell, Uncle Tom, Aunty Peggy, Aunty Angela, Aunty Gwen, my father's paternal grandparents and a whole lot more. I was also looking for proof of where Raymond, my father's brother who died aged 16, was buried. That I found in an old clipping. At last we knew for sure he had died in Weston-super-Mare on 15th October 1938. We also read in another clipping that the funeral had taken place at his father's church, St. Mary's Henbury (Bristol). The final bit of the puzzle was found when we read he had been interred at St. Nicholas' church in Uphill, the church where my grandparents were married. In a letter from Gloria, my father's sister, upon their mother's death, I also read that my maternal Grandmother was also interred at Uphill. It is a little church near Weston and was the parish church of my grandmother's mother, Elizabeth (Bessie) Scull, née Walters. What a find. I even found the house that my father's grandmother owned in Weston. It's on 22 Charlton Road and, as many of my ancestors' properties, is also on sale.

My father's maternal grandmother's house in Weston-super-Mare

I showed the photo to my father and he immediately told me the address. He also told me the house was called "Sundorne" but he didn't know why. I asked him how he remembered, after more than 80 years. His reply "well we went there an awful lot". What a memory.

I also came up bingo on the photos after going through more of my father's papers and photos again.  I found them all in a small envelope tied with an elastic band. My father had painstakingly written who was who and the date on the back of each of the photos which was really handy. Thus on Thursday we were able to complete the Lloyd side of the tree. This is what it looks like on the screen of Ancestry.com

Pedigree view of the Lloyd side of the family tree

Thus, by the end of the afternoon the tree was completed. The tree was complete with some loose ends and of course the hard part now would be to edit it for printing into a book. So when I said, "completed", it's only the online part that is finished.  Now to complete the Lieven side of it. I think both Andy and I are thoroughly enjoying our work. I can't thank him enough.

After lunch I spent the time scanning the photos and sending them to Andy. I also filed them with the names of the people so that they are kept safely.

We went on our walk quite early and it was beautifully sunny. We decided finally that day, that we would go to our apartment near the beach the next day. Both of us were free to go with no engagements the coming week and we would look forward to lovely weather.

I came back to watch Oli on the TVE, live from Cartagena. She was reporting on the story of another little boy who fell down a pot hole. He was stuck for about an hour but his story ended happily as the firemen were able to get him out relatively easily. Here is Oli reporting that day. She would then stay the night in Murcia and return to Madrid on Friday morning but we wouldn't see her until our return from the coast.

Oli live on TV from Cartagena on Thursday evening

The evening was a repeat of most of the rest of the week and we watched another episode of "Vivir sin permiso". We heard Alba and Javi, my weekly University students, arrive late and I wouldn't even see them as we missed each other when we left on Friday for Santa Pola.

Friday came and it was a glorious day. The weather forecast for the weekend and coming week was great with temperatures more like May than February. It would be great to go to the coast with good weather. We left at about 10.30. We had plenty of stops on the way, taking the journey at our pace. We stopped for lunch at a road side cafe popular with lorry drivers. El Nuevo Cruce is in a town called Caudete, just as you cross from the province of Albacete to Alicante. Here we had a massive lunch for just 12 euros each. They offer a wonderful "menu del día" with plenty of choice.

We got to our flat at around 5 pm and carried up our suitcases, my PC and three great big shopping bags full of food for our stay. It was lovely to be back.

View from the entrance to our apartment

Soon we were settled in and then I set off on a walk to the lighthouse with Pippa. Eladio felt tired after all the driving and stayed at home to read. Pippa and I were practically the only creatures on the walk.  Once at the lighthouse, I stopped for a while to take photos and Pippa spent the time wandering on the cliffs. 

View from the lighthouse 

It's just over an hour's walk there and back and we returned at dusk. After a bath, Pippa promptly jumped up on to her favourite arm chair for a rest. Doesn't she look funny and sweet?

Pippa on her favourite arm chair in the apartment here

We watched the news which was mainly about politics (isn't it always?) but also about Venezuela and how Maduro is not letting humanitarian aid through. US troops are on hand by the border with Colombia which is rather a brooding thought. How will this end I wonder.

We weren't very hungry after our copious meal at El Nuevo Cruce, so opted just for fruit. In the end we had fruit, nuts and some chocolate. I only do a maintenance diet at home. The evening ended with another episode of our latest series on Netflix.

I had come to Santa Pola to wind down and relax and that is just what I have done so far.  The other day I read an article about the mental stress most women suffer due to a syndrome known as the exhausted woman. Exhausted, why I thought when I saw the headline, feeling pretty exhausted myself? Well, it comes from the weight of having to plan, coordinate, supervise, take decisions and be in charge of the logistics of all day to day minutia of running a home. This is not about your partner not taking his or her share of the tasks, it is simply the weight and responsibility of being in charge of everything needed for a home to be run smoothly. I totally identify with that. It's true, Eladio does more than his fair share, I have home help, but even so, the planning and thought going into how the house is run is what is behind the syndrome of the exhausted woman. Add all that to everything else I was doing; the Adamo press conference, the University lecture, the biography, the family tree, and there you have it; me, exhausted  and in much need of a rest from domestic minutia and time for myself.  Just one night into my break here I slept well.

Amazingly on  Saturday morning I woke up at 7 am in our very quiet apartment. That morning we went to the open market in Santa Pola to buy some fruit, mainly the giant juicy oranges which cost just 0.75 euros a kilo. There is a surplus in production and not so long ago protesters were giving out oranges for free in Madrid.

Eladio and Pippa at the market yesterday

From the market we took the car to drive to the new port where we parked and then walked along the beach. It was looking lovely.

The beach at Santa Pola on our walk on Saturday morning

As I took the photo it felt like I was looking at a beach on some exotic island or in the Caribbean. But no this was Santa Pola and just as good if not better. In all our travels abroad I have come to the conclusion that the best beaches really are on my home turf. Olivia who worked for a TV travel programme for a year and even visited The Maldives totally agrees. So none of us really ever yearn for beach holidays abroad. We don't need them, we have the beaches here.

Suzy rang just as we reached that point where the lovely palm trees are. We chatted via a whatsapp video call for a while to catch up on her life. She sounded good. It's wonderful how we can call her, see her and that the cost is included in a flat tariff. How times have changed and for the better, as far as technology is concerned.

Technology will be on show at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from tomorrow morning. I used to go every year until 2 years ago. I have mixed feelings about wanting to be there. My Samsung S9 plus will now be out of date as the Korean giant has just announced the curved S10. At 1.800 euros I shall not be buying it.

We had a coffee at a little bar on the beach before we turned on our heels and walked back to the port to get our car.

Pippa and I on the Levante beach at Santa Pola yesterday

 From the port we drove back to our apartment along the coastal road. Once home we unpacked the fruit and veg and then left again to go and have fish and chips for lunch. As part of my rest from the syndrome of the exhausted woman I decided not to cook that day. We were looking forward to lunch at Darby's Chippy where we have been going for the past 10 years nearly every time we come here. We were gutted to see it had closed down. What a pity. We had not option but to go somewhere else and right next door found an Indian restaurant called Azafran Indian. We had been there before but didn't really think it was a very good curry house. However, we were in for luck as it had changed hands and boy was the curry good. It was full too of English and Spanish diners a sign that the food would be high quality. This was our chicken tikka masala and our lamb korma  which we ate with chapatis, the way I learned to eat curry in Bradford as a young girl when the first curry house opened there, The Kashmir. Our Indian lunch, served by two good looking young boys from The Punjab was spectacular and we shall be going again.

Our spectacular curry yesterday 

We slept a good siesta on rather full stomachs and were in need of another walk in the afternoon. It was a very sunny day and we left at 5 pm, wanting to enjoy the last rays of sunshine. There were lots of people on the beach, some no doubt had swum, but even though it was sunny there was a chill in the air and we needed our jackets. We never tire of our walk on the beach below our apartment. Yesterday the light was perfect for photos and I took a few. Here below is Eladio with Pippa on the beach looking lovely with his yellow jumper around his shoulders.

Eladio and Pippa on our walk on the beach yesterday

At the end of the beach, "Arenales" or "Carabasi" as it is sometimes called, you get to some rocks where people go fishing. One of those rocks we call "our rock" where we usually sit and contemplate the sea and the view of the nearby island of Tabarca. I have many photos of us sitting on it and yesterday Eladio took yet another one of me on my favourite rock. When I am sitting on it I am at peace with the world. And If I have Pippa with me, then my happiness is complete.

Pippa and I on my favourite rock on our beach walk yesterday afternoon

We came back to read and rest, except that I worked on more loose ends of my father's family tree. So you see it is not really finished but we are getting there.

Neither of us was hungry for dinner so we just ate some of the lovely fruit we had bought at the market, plus a bit of chocolate - naught but nice. Later we watched more of our Netflix series and were in bed by 11 pm. It had been a great day.

Today, Sunday, promises to be another great day. The sun is already out and the day is ours for the taking. At the end of my tales of the week, I shall leave you now to enjoy it.

Cheers all until next Sunday
Masha