Where to begin?
I created this blog more than a year ago and then wrote nothing. I was paralyzed by the thought of grasping threads that recede into the past and fade into the unknown. But yesterday, suddenly, I knew where to start.
It's not true what Larkin says, that all that will survive of us is love. What survives are things, artefacts, relics. That's what we pass on. What we make of them, how we understand them, what meaning we give to them, well, that's our own business.
I created this blog more than a year ago and then wrote nothing. I was paralyzed by the thought of grasping threads that recede into the past and fade into the unknown. But yesterday, suddenly, I knew where to start.
It's not true what Larkin says, that all that will survive of us is love. What survives are things, artefacts, relics. That's what we pass on. What we make of them, how we understand them, what meaning we give to them, well, that's our own business.
I look down at my right hand and remove the ring on my ring finger. I've worn that ring for more than 30 years and my father wore it before me until, in his final illness, his finger was too thin to stop it slipping off. My mother took it home from the hospital, anything that wasn't nailed down in that place would disappear. When he died she gave it to me.
The gold is soft, the engraving indistinct; three faint runic lines, one standing slightly apart from the other. JH is what you should be able to read. You can't tell now, but maybe, once, it was like the cursive JH engraved on the silver-plated forks we used every day when I was growing up.
So who was JH? The answer, I thought, was simple: John Hood, my father's maternal grandfather. John Hood, the man that nobody knew anything about. John Hood who moved my grandmother to give his name to one of my uncles and my parents in turn to give me Hood as a middle name.
So who was JH? The answer, I thought, was simple: John Hood, my father's maternal grandfather. John Hood, the man that nobody knew anything about. John Hood who moved my grandmother to give his name to one of my uncles and my parents in turn to give me Hood as a middle name.
He died on the 1st of September 1914, drowned in the Forth and Clyde Canal at Samuel Street Kirkintilloch at 12.30 pm. The death certificate is precise about the time. It's not quite true that nobody knew anything of him. My great aunt Kitty was 11 when he died, she must have had some memories. My grandmother was only 5 and her brother Willie just 3; they can't have remembered much. I certainly never heard any of them mention him.
In 1891 he was a house painter and that is how he is described in all the records that relate to his life and death, sometimes with the qualification: journeyman. Journeyman, a skilled man, someone who knew his craft. Perhaps a ragged trousered philanthropist.
Why did he fall into the canal? At midday drink seems unlikely. Despair? Trying to save a child? Rescuing a drowning puppy? Nobody knows. A senseless death.
In 1891 he was a house painter and that is how he is described in all the records that relate to his life and death, sometimes with the qualification: journeyman. Journeyman, a skilled man, someone who knew his craft. Perhaps a ragged trousered philanthropist.
Why did he fall into the canal? At midday drink seems unlikely. Despair? Trying to save a child? Rescuing a drowning puppy? Nobody knows. A senseless death.
I took my ring off and did something I'd never done before, examined the hallmark. Nine carat gold, hallmarked in Birmingham in 1848, the year of revolution. I'm totally wrong. This is not John Hood's ring after all. Like me he inherited it. Its first owner was another John Hood, the John Hood that was my 3rd great-grandfather.
This John Hood was born in 1809 in Kinnoull on the banks of the Tay. In 1837, at the age of 28 he married Julia Mitchell of Glenisla who was 25 and by the early 1840s they had settled nearby in Coupar Angus. Julia Mitchell, another thread of continuity. In 1939 my aunt was given these names.
John is described in the 1841 census return as a watchmaker. What I'm wearing must have been his signet ring. I always assumed watchmakers would need slim and nimble fingers to assemble intricate mechanisms. If John wore this ring on his left pinkie his fingers were not slim. I couldn't wear it there, it would slip off immediately and so, like my father, I wear it on my ring finger.
This John Hood was born in 1809 in Kinnoull on the banks of the Tay. In 1837, at the age of 28 he married Julia Mitchell of Glenisla who was 25 and by the early 1840s they had settled nearby in Coupar Angus. Julia Mitchell, another thread of continuity. In 1939 my aunt was given these names.
John is described in the 1841 census return as a watchmaker. What I'm wearing must have been his signet ring. I always assumed watchmakers would need slim and nimble fingers to assemble intricate mechanisms. If John wore this ring on his left pinkie his fingers were not slim. I couldn't wear it there, it would slip off immediately and so, like my father, I wear it on my ring finger.
In my end is my beginning. Let's see where it takes us.
