Saturday 24th October 2020 - Rainy Wednesday and Gulls

Such a wet day on Wednesday I used the time indoors to sort through the family paperwork we brought back from my parent’s house at the end of September. This ranged from birth, marriage and death certificates to those for various attainments and my Dad’s time in the Royal Navy. Some time ago my Dad drew up family trees with names but no dates. Using the various certificates I have been able to write the dates in against those relations most close to my parents. I moved on to my Gran’s (Dad’s Mum) postcard album. This contains, amongst others, a number of very decorative cards, sent to my Gran during the 1st World War. As I removed each one it became apparent from the number of cards from her brother Frank that they must have been quite close. There were also some signed ‘Perce’, not a relation but I wonder if he was a wartime sweetheart who never made it home. There was a card letting my Gran know that Frank was to receive a military medal for his service during the Battles on the Somme. Now in our youngest son’s safekeeping, is a letter Frank wrote to his father (my great grandfather), which although not explicit it was obvious conditions were pretty bad in France. His father must have at some point expressed a desire to join up. Frank greatly discouraged this and also asked his father to dissuade someone who was back from the conflicts not to return but to seek employment instead. Frank never made it home; a few days after he wrote the letter to his father, he was killed. In with my Gran’s negatives were a couple of photos of Frank with who we think is one of his brothers, Will. When I move on to sorting the photos, I will make sure these are incorporated into an album.

During the summer months we see little in the way of gulls but now breeding and raising chicks has come to an end, there are plenty about. Not so many as the knots reported on the BBC news the other evening. There were 140,000 recorded as they swirled and swayed in flight at Snettisham. It must have been an amazing sight for those who were privileged to see and film them. Today’s photo is of just two gulls enjoying a rest on Overstrand’s beach.