Jill Sparrow

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Posts posted by Jill Sparrow

  1. 26 minutes ago, Oztalgian said:

    The main stream media here in Oz have got their knickers in a knot over a photoshopped photograph taken and altered by Princess Kate.

    I noticed that no one withdrew the photo of Andrew with his (? Was it his?) arm around the teenage Guiffre girl. Looked like a very dodgy image to me and many have expressed doubt over its origins. No, there was no pulling of that image due to press standards relating to 'tampering'. Wonder why? Perhaps it was because salacious news attracts attention and sells papers, thus enabling the trial by media so many are so fond of?  Journalism becomes yellower by the day.

    • Like 1
  2. I had a look at the Whitemoor building and agree that part of it may be the original Whitemoor House. In my childhood, it looked very 1930s in appearance but is less so now. Shipstones obviously gave the facade a revamp to make it look a bit Art Deco.  I have never seen a photo of the original house but there may be some in the Shipstones archives...whoever holds those.

  3. 37 minutes ago, PeverilPeril said:

    I really like Carsington,

    So do I. My great uncle Thomas William Sparrow was born in a cottage facing Carsington Water. His mother's family were farmers there and the farm still exists.  Great uncle didn't survive The Great War, sadly, but he had a very picturesque start in life.

  4. I may have mentioned it before but I can remember when the old house next to The Whitemoor was still standing. As a child, I sometimes went to The Whitemoor on summer Sunday evenings with my parents. We would sit outside, often chatting to one of my best friends from Berridge and her parents who would, likewise, be sitting outside after a few hours on their allotment.  The old house was covered in ivy and I remember wondering what it was like inside. I have no idea whether it was inhabited at that time.

  5. Welcome, @Michace29

     

    I, too, grew up in the Bobbers Mill area. Are your Farrands related to the Farrands who ran a chain of grocery shops? If so, @benjamin1945will be very interested.

     

    The Whitemoor pub was, I believe, built as a public house and Whitemoor House was something separate. I think this topic has been mentioned elsewhere on the site but possibly under a different thread. Our whizz of a moderator @Cliff Ton will be able to help there.

     

    Pleased to hear you've caught the family history bug. Many of us on here are addicts.

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  6. I visited the library in Sutton in Ashfield last week. They have transcripts of parish records and I wanted to check the burials in the churchyard of St Wilfrid's at Kirkby as some of my ancestors were interred there around 200 years ago.

     

    I noticed that they also had microfiche records of parish registers. I haven't seen those for many, many years as most people now use the library's subscription to sites such as Ancestry and Find My Past but, sometimes, it's quicker to look at local resources as not all parish records are available on Ancestry by any means.  I settled down in front of the solitary microfiche reader and attempted to look at some very old baptism records but could obtain no image on the screen. Reason? No lens.  I sought the help of the assistant on the desk who cheerfully fetched the lens from a secure storage area and installed it in the reader. Would I let her know when I'd finished using it as the lens would need to be removed for safety, otherwise it was likely to be pinched.  :wacko:  Who on earth would pinch a microfiche lens...and why?

     

    It didn't take me long to realise that I already had the relevant information on the microfiche slides. I'd taken it from the primary source, the actual parish registers, decades ago (1970s) at The Judge's Lodgings on High Pavement in the days when the Archives were based there.

     

    On the ground floor of the library, a song and dance session was in full swing with children from a local school. A tad noisy but I can live with that. I'll never give up books, though. There's just something about the smell, the sight of rows and rows of books and the turning of pages. I'm with Bernard Levin on that one. Books for ever.

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  7. 2 hours ago, philmayfield said:

    Sir Starkers will soon be ensconced in No.10 to bring joy and prosperity into our lives. I just can’t wait! 

    Why does he always look as though he's about to burst into tears?

  8. I often used to go with a friend at lunchtime. We'd sit in his car and eat our fish and chips, piping hot. Didn't want my car ponging of fish and chips!  You can eat in but the place was so popular there was never a table free and they didn't take bookings.

  9. A few days ago, a friend of mine noticed two birds fighting in the gutter near to his house. As he got closer, he realised that one of them was a sparrowhawk, attacking a smaller bird. He watched as the victim managed to evade its attacker and flew up into the air, only for the sparrowhawk to pursue it and drag it down again. My friend approached the two birds and made a loud noise to scare off the sparrowhawk. When it had flown away, he crouched down to look at the 'prey'. At first glance, he thought it was a blackbird. It was lying with its wings outstretched, clearly terrified, a few feathers pulled out or ruffled but alive and kicking. He scooped it up and examined it closely. It wasn't a blackbird. Once he saw the beak, it was clear that the bird was a young corvid, possibly a jackdaw as there is a well-established colony nearby. The bird was placed in an area near to the colony, where it would be camouflaged and able to recover from its ordeal. What puzzles us is the presence of a young corvid in February. Jackdaws breed during March/April and only raise one brood per year. Climate change, perhaps?

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