My mother, born Phyllis Maud Brown in 1911 at Eaton on the outskirts of Norwich, is seen here with fellow-teachers at Rackheath School. She is on the left. She used to cycle there from Eaton every day.  I guess the picture would have been taken in about 1933 or 1934.

My father used to drive to meet her on Thursdays, so I am told by Philip Basey, a former pupil who used to admire his car, an MG.

She died in 1994, having been a widow for nearly 40 years.

Today I have been teaching at university. A rather mixed autumn day with elements of sogginess and sun.

This is East Haddon Church, now with a smooth grass graveyard and with the tombstones at attention behind, out of sight but not out of mind.  William and Mary Archer are buried here.

Today I discovered that a Robert Lenton was born about 1635 in Fife, Scotland (Delvin or Kincaple). He married Anne.  Could there be a connection?!

I discovered last night by consulting the Archer family tree that this is my great-great-grandparents’ grave. I photographed it near the door of Harlestone Church in Northamptonshire a couple of weeks ago. The family tree confirms the names, the place of death and the rough dates. The non-family shrub just clouds the issue.

William and Elizabeth (nee Benson) were the parents of Jane Archer, the 13th of 15 children. She married my great-grandfather Henry Lenton.  The grave also contains the remains of  Jane’s brother Henry and his wife Sarah (nee Child).  They had five children, of whom the oldest, John Henry, married Mary Child. Clearly the two families were close.

I saw the grave of another brother, William (fifth of 15; Henry was number three), at East Haddon. He was buried with his wife Mary Anne (nee York). The graveyard is unusual in that the area in front of the church has been grassed over, apart from a couple of old and indecipherable tombs, and the tombstones have been placed in rows behind the church. William and Mary had nine children.

William senior (my great-great grandfather) was the oldest of  eight children.  His father John Archer was born at Winwick in 1755. I visited one Winwick (near East Haddon), a tiny dead-end village which has picturesque houses and a stream running through the centre of it, alongside the lane. No trace of an Archer in the churchyard, but the graves were very weathered. I noticed after arriving home that there is another Winwick further to the east and still in Northamptonshire.

John died at East Haddon in 1837: I shall have another look for a grave next time I visit. His wife Martha (nee Davies) was born at Harlestone and probably died at East Haddon. The two villages are only a few miles apart.

These are my wife’s parents, Oliver and Dorothy Cousens. Not sure if they were married at the time. Their daughter, Dot, is 60 today and doesn’t look a day over 40. Remarkable.

Yesterday I went to see my Uncle Paul, now in his 80s, and he told me that his father, Charles Frederick, had been in the Army during the Boer War, which may explain how he met my grandmother. Another lead to follow up. Paul and his brothers and sisters apparently never met any of their grandparents, and Paul can’t remember any uncles or aunts, though it seems a couple of female cousins once came to stay in Norwich. At a time when travelling was infinitely more difficult, the miles that separated Charles and Rosa from their families were a huge barrier.

This is my wife Dot on the approach to the summit of Lochnagar. I am merged somewhere into the background with Barbara, the wife of Roger, who took the picture. They are old friends who were visiting Scotland with us for the first time from Canada in 2003. They hit a series of beautiful warm days, unlike today when, although it’s sunny (with an occasional shower), it’s bitterly cold. I have spent most of the day marking interview profiles written by my students at the University of East Anglia.

Dot and I have visited the Lochnagar area almost every year since about 1990 and climbed the mountain (1155 metres) four or five times. The whole area – Glen Muick, Ballater, Braemar, Corgarff etc – is stunning.

It’s winter. Icy showers as I walked to university this morning, and temperature has dropped suddenly. In the back garden now (6pm) it’s 5C. This is a picture of four generations of our family: I’m on the left (awful picture) and my wife Dot is front right. Her mother is in the centre (her 85th birthday and, sadly, her last). The others are my son David and his wife Victoria, with children Oliver and Amy. Taken at Cromer last January.

Today I made an appointment with my uncle Paul to talk to him about our family history. 

First ice of the winter on windscreens this morning, but a beautiful sunny day. The picture is of a large part of the Lenton family taken in the late 1950s. I am at the right in the front line, complete with cap. Matriarch Rosa Dorothy (nee Booth) is in the centre standing.  Next to me is my lovely cousin Barbara. Her brother Adrian is on the left, and between them are Stephen and Patricia. Their mother Thelma, standing on the left, is holding her third child, Mark. Her husband Paul is behind her.  The  always delightful woman sitting next to them is Dorothy, Paul’s sister. Others in the picture are Ken and Eve (Barbara and Adrian’s parents) and Frank and Mary. On my grandmother’s right is Ruth, eldest daughter of Reg, who is not in the picture. He may have been holding the camera, because I believe the picture was taken at Brenda’s wedding. Brenda is Reg’s second daughter; he and his wife Dorothy (also not in picture) had a son, Jonathan, as well.

Last week I took some time off to look round a few graveyards in exciting places such as Northamptonshire. I was a little disappointed initially to find that this and a few villages near Peterborough is where most of my ancestors seem to have come from. I was hoping for something a little more exotic – Scotland at the very least, possibly Ireland.  The picture is of my son and grandson, off down the line. I was looking in the other direction.

Most of my direct ancestors to the middle of the 19th century (much more checking to be done) seem to come from Yaxley, just outside Peterborough. A number of assorted Lentons feature in the cemetery, but none of them very easy to pin down.  I suspect most of them are cousins, or descendants of cousins, of my grandfather, Charles Frederick Lenton, and his father, Henry Lenton.

Both of them were actually born at Norman Cross, a mile or two down the road from Yaxley. Not much of it remains – it seems to have been obliterated by the A1(M) , which is admittedly a nice bit of road. No church that I could find.  At the time of the 1901 census Charles, the youngest son of Henry and born in 1879, was living at 24 Russell Street, Yaxley,  and working as a railway lampman. His older brother Albert Henry (b 1873), a railway worker, was head of the household. His mother also lived with them, and she was a widow – Henry having died at some time since 1881. Her name was Jane (nee Archer). More of the Archer family later.

Also living at 24 Russell Street was Charles’ sister Caroline Elizabeth (b 1878) who is described as a harness butcher. Not sure what that is. No longer (if ever) at Russell street were an eldest brother, Archer William (b 1871),  and Leonard Thomas (b 1875). Everyone living at 24 Russell Street in 1901 was single. Albert, Leonard and Caroline were born at Folksworth, another mile or two beyond Norman Cross, and Archer at Stilton, a couple of miles off to one side. They moved about a bit, but not very far. A circle five miles in diameter would cover the lot.

I have not yet traced exactly how my grandfather got from Yaxley to Norwich, but it was by way of Mansfield, following his marriage to Rosa Dorothy Booth. How they met is a bit of a mystery, because she was born in Sheffield – at 91 Washington Road in Ecclesall Bierlow, to be precise.  Her father was Charles Booth, a dyer’s traveller, and her mother was Ann (nee Duckenfield). Her date of birth was October 2, 1880, and she always claimed to be a relation of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. I haven’t been able to trace any connection yet.

Before her marriage Rosa had moved to London and was working as a wardmaid at The Grove Hospital in Tooting. As this was a hospital for infectious diseases, it is possible that Charles was ill and was sent there, but this is pure conjecture. At all events they ended up in Mansfield – for how long I don’t know – and eventually decided to move to Norwich, where they settled permanently.

My own father was David William, their fourth son, born in Norwich in 1913.  He died in Coventry in 1956.  My mother was Phyllis Maud Brown, whose parents Frederick and Rose were living in Eaton, a village on the outskirts of Norwich when she was born in 1911, but who I believe came from Horsford, a much larger village further out, on the Holt road. My father started out as a committee clerk and ended as assistant education officer in Coventry, where he was in charge of special schools. My mother was a teacher.

There are many more recent details which I hope to fill in later, such as my two brothers, my wife  Dorothy Frances Cousens (from North Walsham but born in Glasgow) and son David, and his children.

But back to Yaxley.  In 1881 my great-grandfather Henry was still alive and head of the household at New Inn, York Road, Yaxley. He was a bootmaker.  He had been born in 1839 and had married Jane Archer, who was born in 1835 at Northampton, according to the census return. Her family in fact came from Harlestone and East Haddon, north-west of Northampton. I visited both these delightful villages, which were a very pleasant surprise – Harlestone especially in rolling hilly country, unspoiled in the autumn sun.