ROB & VAL HAYWOOD
of Leicester & Hull

Update to this short table;
HAYWOOD side:
The most recent information we currently have on each of our lines:
Arthur HAYWOOD'S grandfather was Josiah, b. Griffydam 1852,
and his father Thomas, also from Griffydam, was b. 1821.

Harry HOLT'S father was b. Thurlaston, as was his before him, in 1867,
but there is almost no trace of HOLT in Thurlaston .. so where were they really from?
Did they hail from Hugglescote in the first place, moving back there from Thurlaston ?

We'd be particularly interested to hear from any HOLT cousins in Aston, Birmingham,
whose origins were north-west Leicestershire, Coalville, etc, and
with whom my side of the family have lost all contact since the 1960's.
(We now have contact with Brian Fisher, Harry's great-nephew, living now in Kent)

Violetta MANDERFIELD'S family are connected, back in the 1700-1800's,
to the well-known ORRINGE and CORBETT lines of Shepshed.

Arthur HAYWOOD'S maternal grandmother was Edith ISON,
daughter of HENRY HASTINGS ISON, b.1810, and himself a
descendant through his mother of the HASTINGS of Humberstone,
who were of the same HASTINGS family that go back
to Ashby and Kirby Muxloe Castles, and way beyond to the Plantagenet era.

STEVENS side:
John STEVENS' father and grandfather came from Hinckley and Barwell,
but we now know that prior to that, in the early 1800s, from Enderby and Croft,
with links before that back to Oxfordshire.

We now have a little more info on the BENNETTS of Sharnford,
our branch originally came from North Kilworth, though there is a mystery as to
why so many were called CAVE BENNETT back in the mid-1700's onwards,
around several dozen males of other surnames in the county had the christian name, Cave.
Could this be a similar story to the HASTINGS name above? Are they distantly related, or just grateful tenants.

The SWANWICK family, as far as we know, were always from Blaby, as we have no trace prior to 1793.
And the FRETTERS originally came from Spratton in Northamptonshire,
with connections to many of the villages thereabouts; Brixworth, Cold Ashby, Naseby, etc.

Recent information from a LRFHS member suggests that the SMITH family of Aylestone may well
have also hailed from Northamptonshire, in the village of Ruston.
There is a strong possibility that my SMITH Aylestone family knew Val's FRETTER Aylestone family ..
the 1881 Census shows their back gardens were adjacent. I wonder if they got on okay ... ?

SOME LEICESTERSHIRE AND EAST YORKSHIRE LINKS

Here is a potentially very useful link straight to the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
They have records on graves and memorials for all our Armed Forces . .
including Royal Navy and Merchant Service personnel, and RAF aircrew,
who have no grave but the sea. I found my Uncle Jack on there . .
as well as being on the Coalville Memorial,
he is also commemorated on the Naval Memorial at Southsea.

See also two 'Sonnets from the Edge of War', below

LINKS

The link on the left is to our on-line business, "Valerie's UK Videos"
where we have a catalogue of some several hundred DVD's of English heritage and history,
with many on the local history of towns and counties around England,
and even couple on the Leicester section of the Grand Union Canal,
but oddly enough, Leicestershire is not over-endowed with videos as yet.

TWO SONNETS

My father, the late Norman Haywood, listed above, had two brothers.
One, my Uncle Don, is an unpublished poet.

I have placed a few of his lines below; 'Sonnets from the Edge of War',
as a memorial to all those of his and my father's generation,
who spent much of their childhood 'down the shelters',
or otherwise deprived and disadvantaged by war.

Born in 1930, Don's memories are of the events in and
around Gough Road, in Leicester, during those years of the blitz.
It is a sobering fact that today's youth would not, could not, put up with as much.
Is this how it was for you? These lines quite moved me when I first read them.
What did my Mum and her sisters think, as a 10-year old, as she stood at the
bottom of her father's Coalville garden and watched the glow in the sky
as Coventry burnt, some 25 miles away?
Fear, I should think . . pure, undiluted fear.
They must have thought that their world was coming to an end ....