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Doc
Keeper of the Scrolls
2010 Posts
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 Posted -
02/04/2004
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21:21
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Hello reader, my name is Dave O’Connor but most folk call me Doc (my initials) or Des (my nickname from my navy days), the date is Friday the 2nd of April 2004, time is 9:00pm and currently it’s very cloudy and drizzling outside after the thunder storm.
I’m at present the webmaster for this site, got a bit of spare time and just a little bit bored with the telly. I’m sat in front of my computer and if all goes well this hopefully should be the start of my life story to date, set into the printed word. To be honest, it’s not a thing I ever contemplated doing because I think that I have led up to now, a fairly usual and normal life, nothing monumental or special in it, I guess the reader can be the judge of this. However due to some recent involvement in a local history project about the local weaving industry here in East Lancashire, something as been awakened in this thick head of mine to make me hit the keyboard of this damn computer and try and put down in words my life story, whether it be for historical purposes or something that my kids or grandkids can read I currently don’t know and to be honest don’t care, only time will tell.
I don’t profess to be a skilled writer far from it for this will be my first attempt ever to put anything like this down in writing and the number of spelling mistakes and grammar in this document would make my old English teacher spin in her grave, But thanks to the modern technology such as “Spell Checkers” and such like, hopefully this document will be at least readable, I’m not going to apologise for any grammatical mistakes I will inevitably make because I am what I am – a guy with a average intellect with no air’s or graces. At times I may tend to ramble on to much, this you will have to bear I’m afraid, and also I think I tend to write very much how I speak or think, if this is the case then the grammar will definitely get chucked out the window.
The words that follow are my thoughts of the events and situations in my life as they stand today, they may well change in the future and have indeed changed over the years, I’ll try and recount as accurately as possible but don’t forget that these will be my perceptions (today) of the situation then, and may not be at all factual, time does weird things to your head. So to all my friends, family and individuals who read this and are mentioned in this story or not (whichever the case), please don’t take offence or judge me cruelly for I mean to offer no offence to anyone. This is my story and I’ll tell it how I perceive it.
I’ve not put any thoughts or planned anything into how I’m going to get this done, I guess I’ll wing it a bit till one memory revives another and another and so on, and when they do, get it into this document before it fades away, maybe never to see the light of day again oh well I’ll give it a shot.
Anyways I’m just going to make myself a brew, have a fag then I’ll be back and hopefully the words will start flowing out of my head through my arms and fingers via the keyboard into this document.
Ok I’m back and thinking where the hell do I start, “at the beginning” I can hear you all shout so not wanting to buck the opinions of you all, that’s where I will start.
So hear goes….
The above is the introduction to what I am now compiling into my life story, why am I doing it? I don't really know. However if someone can take enjoyment or learn from it then it will have been worth it. If my kids or grandkids ever read it, then maybe they will understand whom their father or grandfather is/was. All I know is that if I don’t get it down in writing at some stage in my life then all my memories and stories will be lost forever. No time like the present.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, Why don't you give it a go, what have you got to lose. Chat about how you are going to approach it, what method you are going to use and your experiences while you are writing it.
I will post my results on here when each period of my life is down in writing, proof read and spell checked. I’ve just finished the beginning period of my life up to the first day I started school…..Watch this space
TTFN - Doc
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Sues
New Member
46 Posts
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Posted - 15/02/2007 : 20:44
moh I dont think my kids are interested in the research I have done but as you say they may be later, Ive really enjoyed doing it I just wished I had asked my Dad more when he was alive. I always thought all my family were born and lived in Burnley. Then found them in Earby and Cornwall .
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Sue
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Posted - 15/02/2007 : 22:58
I wouldn't know where to start, or what to write
Sue
If you keep searching you'll find it |
Debs
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Posted - 16/02/2007 : 02:02
When my Grandfather was 16, he was living with his family in a tiny row house in South Philadelphia, during the Depression. He would look out the window of his school and felt like life was happening on the other side of the glass. So he took off and headed West. He rode trains across America, hopping on and off of box cars. He said it was the only time in his life that he was really free. Last year I bought an iPod so I could record digitally, and I interviewed him about his time traveling across America. He told about the people during the Depression, who he could trust and who he couldn't, how to sneak on and off the boxcars without being caught, how to find a meal. When my grandfather passed away a few months ago, I edited the interview down to about 10 minutes and we played it at his Celebration of Life Service. It was like he was speaking to us all about what it meant to really live and what he learned from that time in his life. It was so very moving. I would recommend doing an interview like that, so that not only are the stories remembered and the memories live on...but to hear it told in the person's own voice is an unbelievable blessing.
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 16/02/2007 : 07:59
Absolutely right Debs! I have 14 hours of my Dad on tape and listening to him reciting 'The Man From Snowy River' makes me cry still. All the kids have a copy and I also have it on CD. None of us are particularly interested in our parents when we are young, far too much learning to do but anyone who has the resource finds it incredibly interesting in later years. I'd recommend everyone to do something about carrying the accumulated knowlege forward, it's a mark of civilisation.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Sue
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Posted - 16/02/2007 : 09:49
My Dad has told me many tales of when he was in the RAF, I have encouraged them to write them down, and like my father in law I have typped them up for him, but I always feel I haven't done anything of any significance, that people would want to know about
Sue
If you keep searching you'll find it |
Flutterby
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Posted - 16/02/2007 : 10:47
I used to have a hairdressing shop in Burnley! the area was Burnleywood! i knew so many people and it really was a tightly Knit community. I think i should write about these peopleand hilarious times they were then in the late sixties and early seventy,s! |
belle
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Posted - 16/02/2007 : 10:59
None of my kids seemed interested in our family history, it isn't written down , but the most significant part, well it was to my ancestors, was passed down in a kind of mantra. One short sentence, about how a great great great grandfather had crossed from Yorkshire to Lancashire, and "set up a loom in a shed".( in my childhood I always imagined it to be a garden shed!) I was retelling it to my youngest at xmas, when we went to Haworth, where many of the family are buried, and to my amazement, she recited it most of the way home, so that she could commit it to memory, ..at last , someone I can share my love of history with....I guess I'd better put down my history if just for her!
Life is what you make it |
Flutterby
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Posted - 16/02/2007 : 11:06
My daughter is quite interested and has done alot of research for my husband s side! I would like to find out more about the Hartley, Willans who lived in Banoldswick and possibly at Green bank farm? |
moh
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Posted - 16/02/2007 : 12:04
We do not seem to have the same lives as our ancestors - they had no TV, Computers etc. so made their own entertainment - children played out - now everyone is so busy and materialistic. They always had stories to tell. Wars are horrible things but they gave our parents chance to travel and see places they would never have seen otherwise and hopefully lucky enough to come home and tell us about them. My Dad was in the Navy, a Petty Officer dental technician so he was usually sent to safe ports where the other ships docked and the sailors could have their teeth seen to. He visited Rio, Cape Town, the West Indies etc. and he told lovely stories about these places.
Say only a little but say it well |
Flutterby
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Posted - 16/02/2007 : 14:03
Unfortunatley, my Dad started to be very ill when i was young, a lot of his memory,s were lost because of his illness. He was one of only a few survivors on a Dutch ship that was bombed!which did affect him in later years. Sadly he was treated for the illness, which they thought was mental but wasnt ! people today would have claimed compensation for such mistakes ! How time has changed.
He was a good man, people looked up to him! He was a Burnley headmaster who went to Burnley Grammar and won a scholarship to Cambridge, but his mother would not let him go because he had not got a evening clothes to wear! So would not be sociably acceptable!Through all this he still became a headmaster. |
John T
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Posted - 10/05/2008 : 21:43
Love it Sues
The string theory proves that everything is connected, though it may just be in a different dimension.
I wondered where I was going wrong! |
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Writing your Memoirs - WHY?
