Bill White - Maybole Memories - Introduction
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Cover    |   Introduction   |   1920's   |  1930's  |   Memories   |   More Memories   |   Destiny

Time to look back, everyone is taken up with memories of the old century and looking forward to the future. I have decided to concentrate on the past and use my memory and my diaries to record family stories, and try to tell them in such a way as to transport the family back in time, a time before mobile phones and all “mod cons” which are so readily available today.

What I am about to commit to paper will be events and stories as I remember them, don’t look for perfect grammar, spelling or phrasing, I am no expert writer and don’t even intend to edit any of the following notes, you take them or leave them as I set them out, the sequence is of no importance to me, one story may refer to the year 1930, the next may be 1940, then back to the 1930s, I will record my memories just as my mind recalls the incidents.

If any young members of the family ever reads “My Diaries” (I can’t think how to describe what will follow) I hope they will gain a better understanding of the way of life between the wars, the way their elders tried to uphold standards in a changing world, how a Christmas Stocking really was what it said, in the 1920s and 1930s one stocking could only hold an apple, an orange, a few nuts and if you were lucky maybe a small toy, not as now when even babies receive more than necessary and in my opinion may grow up with a false set of values. I don’t know how to tackle the differences time has brought about to our way of life, I don’t intend anything I write about to become a sermon, or how one should lead ones life, or the “good old days” were really the only way. My intention is to make the family stories entertaining, how we made the best of what we had to try to portray individuals as real people, and whatever era we may find ourselves in. Times can be good or bad, none of us have a God given right to happiness, so make the most of it.

We begin life whole, the sum of many people, fathers, mothers, grandparents, brothers, sisters and cousins. As they pass on “one by one” each loss lessens the whole, until all that is left is our self, and it is to ourselves we must be true. One of my grandfathers died when he fell off the horse and cart he was driving, he was dead drunk at the time, so probably didn’t know a lot about what happened, I don’t know what happened to the other grandfather, and I only knew one granny, she was lovely and I have happy memories of her. Likewise my mother provided for us and was mother and father to me and my sister and brother, so I had a good start, whatever my wife Peggy and I have passed on seems to me to be on the plus side, I am more than satisfied with my family and their chosen partners, and they have given me lovely grandchildren, and now I have three great grandchildren (Update as on 21st May 2007: Total is now eight, Charlotte, Bethany, Esme, Lauren, Rebecca, Marnie, Lily and Violet), so we must have done something right.

Carry on with the good work, keep the family bonds strong, my time must be getting short now, when my time is up, rest assured I will go happy and proud of our little family, and I want you to be happy for me, I chose the right partner and have no regrets, no grieving, only good thoughts and good memories. I love you.

Cover    |   Introduction   |   1920's   |  1930's  |   Memories   |   More Memories   |   Destiny