ROB & VAL HAYWOOD
of Leicestershire & Hull

welcome you

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Here you will find an eclectic mix of pages showing our interests in many topics:

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SIDE MENU
if not already visible

See this important link, at the bottom of this page, to
"LEICESTERSHIRE OVERSEAS",
the late Tim Airey's site until his death in 2003.
It still exists, after a fashion.

Online Photo Repair and Restoration service

Genealogy and our own family history

Leicester City Transport

The Royal Air Force and Military Matters

Valerie's UK Heritage DVDs

Dig even deeper and you will find a host of other interests as shown on our Links Page.

We hope you enjoy your visit to our website.
If you have any queries, we would be pleased to hear from you.
email: click the button on the left

ARE YOU IN NEED
of photos being restored?

BRING YOUR OLD DAMAGED PHOTOS TO LIFE AGAIN!
Do you have any old photos which are crinkled, scratched or damaged in any way?

Perhaps after flood or other accidental damage.
Don't throw them away - they can be restored.

Maybe I can help ... see my full page on our
PHOTO REPAIR
&
RESTORATION SERVICE
Just click the link or menu button to go to a new page
displaying many before-and-after examples of my work.

military - naval - transport genre photos a speciality

Also slides, glass or film, card or plastic mounts, and negatives either loose or in strips.

OUR FAMILY

Private Henry Holt
Highfield St Coalville
Reg't No : 204379
The Leicestershire Regiment

Grandad 'Harry' Holt, enlisted aged 18, on the 8 Nov 1911, in 156 Protection Company of the Royal Defence Corps, the equivalent of today's TA, the HQ battalion of which was based at Loughborough. His records show he signed up for 4 years when living at home in a humble miners' cottage with his parents, Charles and Susannah, just down Highfield Street. My mother would be born there some 19 years later, and had my father not been in the RAF at the time, it's very likely I would have been born there some 20 years later too.

He was first fully mobilised, along with thousands of others in that momentous week, on the 5 Aug 1914, at the huge camp on Loughborough Rd, Whitwick, and signed up into the Leicesters. But he was a coal miner, for the Ellistown Colliery Co, and in a reserved occupation, and so was greatly disappointed to be immediately sent back to his workplace and only remain in the regiment's reserves. There were plenty of other volunteers, and he was a newly married man. Besides, it was all going to be over before Christmas, and he wouldn't be needed. As such, he didn't actually get called to the Colours until the spring of 1915, at which time he was also transferred to the 4th Bt Northamptonshire Rgt. Not his choice, but I suppose it was to fill vacant ranks created by war losses in that neighbouring county regiment. He then served in France as a machine gunner, and was demobilised in February of 1919. What had been intended in 1911 to be a sign-up of 4 years turned out to be 8. By the time he left the army, he and Violetta had two daughters, Gladys born in 1915, and Edna, born in 1918.

Fortunately for us, though his army records are amongst what are known as the 'burnt records', they are remarkably intact, albeit with very singed edges. And so we have a good deal more information about his army service than we otherwise would have had.

A lifelong Methodist and Salvationist of extremely strong faith, returning home to his work in the mines, and already with two older daughters, Henry and Violetta had two more girls, Mavis in 1923, and Sylvia, my late mother, in 1930. Grandad referred to his four daughters, from their initials, as his four GEMS.

He took part in the General Strike in 1926, suffered more than one nervous breakdown largely as a result of his war service but not helped by dire poverty, and eventually ended up working for Coalville Urban District on the local refuse tip. This First War veteran ended his working life on 'the Dust'. The Second World War wasn't without it's trials, though now too old to serve but losing his wife to cancer in 1941, and a son-in-law Jack, married to Mavis, torpedoed at sea in 1942. Also a skilled watch and clock mender of some local repute down Highfield Street in Coalville, he retired in 1958, and died in January of 1972, aged 79, ironically enough during the Miners Strike of that year, of pneumonia after a fall in the dark during one of the many power blackouts at that time.

The fine drawing above, in it's frame with emblematic symbols of King, Country and the Empire, had already been hanging above the sideboard in their tiny sitting room for some 30 years before I came along in the 1950s, and so I've known and revered it all my life. I'm proud to own it now. It was an image of an example of a man to live up to, but I fear I failed by quite a wide margin.

I pay tribute here, in 2011, exactly 100 years after his enlistment,
to the memory of a lovely man,
who I should have got to know better when I had the chance.

FAMILY HISTORY

Genealogy is one of the fastest-growing hobbies in the worldwide.
Rob and Val have researched most of their families
and you will find more details here.

For more general genealogy links which might prove
helpful if you're just starting out, click here.

The table below shows some of the main names in our
respective Leicestershire family trees.
We moved to Hull in 1978, but we have no family here.

OUR JOINT FAMILIES
a very stunted tree
showing where we come from

ARTHUR HAYWOOD of Griffydam & Leicester	HILDA SMITH of Aylestone Leicester	HARRY HOLT of Donnington le Heath Hugglescote & Coalville	VIOLETTA MANDERFIELD of Shepshed	JOHN STEVENS of Hinckley	EDITH BENNETT of Sharnford nr Hinckley	THOMAS SWANWICK of Blaby Leicester	ALICE TOWNSEND FRETTER of Aylestone
NORMAN HAYWOOD of Leicester & Coleorton		SYLVIA HOLT of Hugglescote and Coalville		JACK STEVENS of Hinckley		JOAN SWANWICK of Aylestone & Leicester
	ROBERT HAYWOOD of Leicester		married Aylestone 1971		VALERIE STEVENS of Leicester
			ANNETTE & DAVID m. 24 Dec 2005 All Saints Church Driffield, East Yorks
			ELEANOR MAY - b. 2001 ROWENA HOLLY - b. 2003 MADELEINE ROSE - b. 2007

We are members of the Leicester & Rutland Family History Society.

A firm belief: "Every Englishman should know and be aware of his own history."

Here's a quote by another Englishman:
"England has become a dwelling-place of foreigners and a playground for lords of alien blood. No Englishmen today is an earl, a bishop, or an abbot; new faces everywhere enjoy England’s riches and gnaw her vitals, nor is there any hope of ending this miserable state of affairs."

So said William of Malmesbury around 1130.
William's father was Norman, but he was English through his mother.
He lived in the early 1100s, just half a century after the Conquest,
and was a monk at Malmsbury Abbey.
He's famous now for being one of our very earliest historians.

It seems he told it how it was.

We forget our own history and heritage at our peril!

Leicester City Transport : cap badge for uniformed platform
staff

MEMORIES OF LEICESTER CITY TRANSPORT
1968-1973

I joined Leicester City Transport in 1968 as a bus conductor and later trained as a driver. The image above was my cap badge! Local public transport was important in those days as fewer families had cars. There were more buses around 40 years ago – and certainly many more than are seen today. Some people are actually interested in all old forms of transport and there is an abundance of photographs here to interest any present-day bus enthusiast, and especially those with a specific interest in LCT.

Go to a 5-page photo montage of
LCT vehicles
and journey back in time!

LEICESTERSHIRE BUS MEMORIES
Grantham to Leicester to Coalville to Coleorton .. c1955
a text article originally posted on LEICESTER OVERSEAS,
now modified and updated and posted here.
A child's-eye view of rides on the Midland Red and in Leicester,
training days on LCT, and now also a short article on ticket machines.

Leicester City Transport : Leyland Atlantean PDRA/1 : PBC 115G
Their first, and very flowery, overall advert bus, in 1971, on what was then
the relatively new service 62 to South Wigston.

LEICESTER TRANSPORT HERITAGE TRUST
was formed in 2007, and now has a new website.
They have an interest in, and preservation of, all manner of road
transport over the decades in and around Leicestershire,
with a special focus on the Midland Red and LCT.

TS TIGER - Leicester Sea Cadet and Royal Marines Cadet Unit

T.S. TIGER
Leicester Sea Cadets and Royal Marines Cadet Unit
in honour of my time there
1965-1972

This is a link to an organisation that gave me some of the best 7 years of my life.
Click the Tiger badge above to go to their site. But please read on first.

For any lad in his mid-teens, with nothing particular to do and seeking adventure and a wider interest in life, I can't recommend joining a cadet unit highly enough.

Sea Cadets or Marine Cadets, the adventure and fun and mates are the same. It's all part of our same Royal Navy, and it's all a question of preferences. I originally joined the Sea Cadets in 1965, but was quickly 'poached' by a Marine Colour Sergeant, and that was that. I stayed on as a sergeant-instructor till, aged 22, I and my wife left to go and live in Hull. I always intended to offer myself to the local Sea Cadet Unit in Hull, but shift patterns forbad, the chances passed, and to my regret, I never did.

The Royal Marines Cadet Unit, at TS Tiger in Ross Walk, Leicester, was the saving of me, and gave my life direction and focus at the time of a family break up in my mid-teens. I could have so easily 'gone in the other direction', and as people say, become a wrong'un. Instead, I went camping, rowing, caneoing, rock climbing in North Wales, and made a great load of mates. I learnt pride in myself, my uniform and the Corps, and got some badly needed discipline. I can't thank them enough. Except to put a link here and wish the CO and all the lads and lasses down there, who work so hard for each other and their proud unit traditions, great good fortune for the future.

To go directly to their website for more information, address, contacts, etc,
click the fearsome tiger above.
Or ring them direct on 0116 266 2865, Tues or Thurs evenings, 19:00 to 21:30.

For guys n' gals in Hull that have an interest in the sea and would like to take part,
T.S. IRON DUKE
is Hull's own unit, based in Argyle Street.
They can be contacted by clicking the link,
or email tsiron.duke@yahoo.co.uk

Military Forums and Support our Soldiers
are websites for those interested in supporting H.M. Armed Forces. There are many links on these sites where you can show your support and the obituary pages are exceedingly poignant indeed. The whole nation should pray that our forces will succeed in whatever task they undertake: they give the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf and we should never forget that.

THE ROYAL BRITISH LEGION
is of course original support organisation for all our Armed Forces,
giving help for heroes since the 1920s.
Did you know that you don't have to have been in the
Forces to join the Royal British Legion?

Members of both our immediate families were in all the forces;
fathers in the the RAF and Royal Marines,
other family members in the RN and the army.
We are proud to support all our Forces, and we hope you do too.
Please take time to look at these websites – thank you.

PROUD TO SUPPORT OUR TROOPS !

Past devotees of Tim Airey's
LEICESTERSHIRE OVERSEAS

might be forgiven for blinking on sight of this logo! Unfortunately Tim's site has not returned, but much of it is still available at the remarkable WAY BACK MACHINE. This website is unsurpassed when searching for old web information. More correctly known as the Internet Archive, it is a brilliant and largely unknown resource which also includes old media, music and image sites. Tim and his wife Carol created LEICESTERSHIRE OVERSEAS from their home in Calgary, Canada, and it was a work of genius, highly popular with many early users of the internet who were natives of Leicester & county. As far as I can see most of Tim's text is still here including the worldwide bulletin boards, all the hundreds of emails and contacts sent to him, as well as stories and histories. Some larger graphics will not load but many do. For those interested in "the Foresights", the pages appear to be largely intact. This page is for 6 Aug 2003, the best link I can see that seems to load the majority of Tim's stuff. It really does contain a veritable goldmine and was one of the best things to happen for Leiceter and the county in recent years.

Sadly, Tim died in 2006 and many Leicester folk and Tim's fans and correspondents around the world were saddened by the news. Tim was a great 'son of Leicester' and also a founding member of the 1960s Leicester pop group The Foursights.

I hope you enjoy trawling through his site and hopefully, one of these days, some enterprising person will revive and rewrite Tim's site so that, in his memory, the site could be restored to today's internet. I'm convinced he would have liked that. Is there no-one who can step up to the plate and host this site again? I'd do it myself, but my 25Mb allowance at Karoo is already bust, mainly with hosting the Sutton & Wawne pages.

Of course, permission would be required from Tim's family. I get the impression from some of the correspondance on the site that many of you knew Tim and Carol far better than I. For I was just a passing new aquaintance that had barely got to know him when he tragically was taken from us. I'd help in any way I can, salving graphics and photos and pages. But it does need a dedicated host with an innate love of Leicestershire and her history. And some webspace. Anyone ... ?

THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH
and what happened to King Richard III

Below is a quote from the 1813 account of William Hutton's tour around the Bosworth Battlefield, which includes some of the written and local knowledge of that time, some 350 years after the battle itself. William Hutton's book is now online, at Google eBooks, and can be read here on my Sutton & Wawne website where I help out at the local museum.

It's hard going, but here is an extract towards the end, page 220 I believe:

"Richard it is universally acknowledged performed prodigies of valour. Desperate, perhaps, at the last, he rushed furious into thickest of the fight, slew numbers and among them the standard-bearer of Richmond, with his own hand; and fell at last, ingloriously (if tradition may be credited), by a treacherous blow from one of his own followers. His body was thrown across a horse and carried for interment to the Grey Friars at Leicester.
,
After revenge and rage had satiated their barbarous cruelties upon his dead body, they gave his royal earth a bed of earth, honourably, appointed by the order of King Henry the Seventh, in the chief Church of Leicester called St Mary's, belonging to the order and society of the Grey Friars."

So there we have it. Folk going back even to before the Battle of Waterloo knew exactly where Richard's body lay. And all these years, every time I drove over West Bridge, I believed it was down there in the river. Shucks!

Finally, here's a link to a most excellent Leicester website ...
The local radio station has been going since 1968,
and regularly wins awards.
Not surprisingly, it's in our old home town ...
Where the Red Cheese comes from,
and Gary Linneker !

The first stop for news, sports and features
for Leicestershire and Rutland.

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Holt Pics

ROB & VAL HAYWOOD of Leicestershire & Hull

welcome you

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ROB & VAL HAYWOOD
of Leicestershire & Hull