ROB & VAL HAYWOOD
of Leicestershire & Hull
welcome you
we are from: Griffydam ~ Coleorton ~ Coalville ~ LEICESTER ~ Hinckley ~ Blaby ~ Aylestone . . .connecting the family names Haywood ~ Stevens ~ Bennett ~ Swanwick ~ Fretter ~ Holt ~ Manderfield ~ Ison ~ Smith
view the
SIDE MENU
if not already visible
| Click
for LEICESTER MEMORIES a great site, hundreds of photos of decades past  Mum's dad, Henry Holt, aged 61, in 1954, at his 2nd daughter's wedding in Coalville |
A poor animation of Leicester's Clock Tower, c.1960, and the old BOVRIL sign. Looking back, that was almost a 'welcome to Leicester' sign when walking down Gallowtree Gate towards The Clock Tower. |
Click
for HULL THE GOOD OLD DAYS a great site, hundreds of photos of decades past  Mum's dad, Henry Holt, aged 78, in 1971, at a grandson's wedding in Aylestone |
JACK'S JOURNEY :: The Journey of one Royal Marine
Mne Jack Stevens 1916 ~ 1989
Lyness - Towyn - Durban - Suez MEF - Ceylon - Exton - Dalditch
mostly explaining MNBDO I & II and interpreting an RM service record
The
Royal Air Force
and Military
Mattersthe photos of the late Norman Haywood 1948 - 1952 :: mostly Malta
the story of Able
Seaman Jack Hill
RN
26.6.1921
- 31.8.1942
of Ravenstone
and the loss of
the 'S.S. Jack
Carnes'
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SUCCESS !!
We have found and made contact with the DOYLE family, directly intheir home town of Wexford. Their 'long-lost' photos and docs have now gone
home to Wexford itself. Thanks to all who saw the Facebook messages and helped.
Now, we still need to find the CROSBY family of Coalville
We'll see if Facebook and NextDoor can do the same trick !
The CROSBY family of Coalville, relatives of Beryl Crosby,
her daughters "Sara Jayne Crosby" and "Kathryn Claire Crosby" ....
we have photos for you! I've searched the web for both girls, to no avail.
See more details below .. ..
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A MESSAGE FOR
THE CROSBY
FAMILY
I hold a
small number
of slides of
the CROSBY
family of
Coalville, the
family of
Beryl Crosby
and her
daughters.
There are many
slides of
holidays and
trips in the
1970s that I
feel sure that
younger family
members would
like
'returned' to
them. I really
don't want to
have to 'skip'
them, they are
this family's
heritage. I'm
sure someone
would treasure
them, if only
I can find
them. We
would be keen
to hear from a
member of the
family who
would like to
take
possession of
this small
collection,
being such a
great shame
they have been
lost to them
for so long.
The big
problem for me
has been
tracing them,
and now with
Ancestry, and
the help of
Facebook and
Nextdoor, we
finally have a
chance. I
inherited them
when my father
died in 1997,
as he was
Beryl Crosby's
second
husband, and
they lived for
a while in
Coaville.
Email
me, and tell
me your
connection to
this family,
give me some
assurance you
are the right
people, and I
will arrange
something
suitable to us
all. I
really don't
want to have
to dump these. So
there are
three boxes of
family slides This
message was
first posted
in early 2020 rhaywood@rhaywood.karoo.co.uk |
I can also now
offer help
with interpreting
RAF and RN
records,
as well as
army.
Leicester
City Transport
a personal
recollection
1968 - 1973 -
mostly buses
Includes a
full article,
very long, on
the fine
details
of conducting
a bus.
Carries a
boredom
warning!
Online
Photo Repair
and
Restoration
service
scan and
'repair'
cracked, torn,
faded or
damaged
photos, mostly
b&w,
military as
speciality
RICHARD
III
mostly
nonsense :
can't 'scan
and repair'
him, but we
can make a
shrewd guess.
... his burial
and what
really
happened.
Maybe.
Perhaps. Who
knows.
Genealogy
and our own
family history
-->
An
Admiration for
Vine Weevils .
.
. . word
'admiration' is
not to be taken
too seriously,
but perhaps this
extensive study
and article will
help you.
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. |
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OUR FAMILY 
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FAMILYHISTORY Genealogy is one ofthe fastest-growing hobbies on the world wide web. 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
We are members of the Leicester & Rutland Family History Society. H0789. A firm belief: "EveryEnglishman 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. And he didn't get into bother with 'the authorities' for saying it. No PC brigade in evidence back then. We forget our own history and heritage at our peril ! |
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 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. |
 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 Leicester
to go and live
in Hull. I
always
intended to
offer myself
as an adult
volunteer 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. I still remember the 28th October every year, and last year, 2024, was a special celebration. 1664
is what we
celebrate.
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. (I see now there is also a Sea Cadet unit at Wigston. A quick call to the above number should get you the details.) 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 JACK's JOURNEY is an account, from his memories and his RM service record 1940-45, of my father-in-law's travels to the Middle East and Ceylon by troopship during those dangerous years. It tells how we mangaged to piece his story together, long after I had been told and forgotten a lot of it. Above all, it explains what an MNBDO is. |
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. I
might have
also
recommended a
similar
archive,
called
SCREENSHOTS.
Although that
site has
worked for me
in the past
retrieving
other lost
websites, for
some reason,
it doesn't
work with this
one. By and
large, most of
Tim's
surviving
material that
can be found
is on the WAY
BACK MACHINE,
even if that
is no longer
updated. |
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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, under the bridge and deep in the mud under the river. Shucks! So, now he is re-interred in Leicester St Martin's. Appropriately, that is now the chief church in Leicester, just as the lost Grey Friars had been in medieval times. And as someone pointed out on the very long, ill-informed and frequently ignorant discussion on the BBC blog, it is somehow fitting that the birthplace of DNA fingerprinting should also host the remains of an English monarch only positively identifed by exactly that modern-age technique. And that re-interrment is literally only feet away from where he was originally buried .. and back then, in great haste and lacking some ceremony, I've no doubt. Whatever the rights and wrongs of where he should have been re-interred, this short story is my take on what happened over five centuries ago, and may solve the mystery of what happened to his feet. Maybe. Or not. JUST
TWO FEET -- a
likely tale
Of course, if I'm wrong and an alliance of certain 'distant relatives' find out, it could cost me an arm and a leg ! |
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