More recently, we watched a follow-up series called The Secret History of my Family which traced the family fortunes of the poor and destitute and their wealthy benefactors, which you can see here - my favourite is the Gadbury sisters, one of whose descendents still lives in central London, one who was deported to Australia, a chronically class-ridden society, and the third went to Tasmania which achieved equality by dint of pretty everyone being a criminal - her decendents became respctively Premier and Attorney General. That's real social mobility in action
Illness in Cyprus meant that Grandma in Cyprus couldn't attend something she'd been really looking forward to for the last few years. This is quite a disappointment for her, but with Grandpa in Cyprus recovering from his heart operation, there was no way he could be left alone. There had been a bit of a plan to secretly buy her a flight ticket which provoked much discussion between my brother and I but eventually common sense prevailed and it didn't happen.
So instead The Boy and I went along to Great Uncle Jack's birthday party. He's 100. That's not quite as unique as it might have been a few years ago, but still quite an achievement. More importantly, he's still bright as a button....much sharper than many half his age.
So it was a great family reunion, and as the family tree had been worked on, we discovered there was an Australian branch. That's really quite exciting indeed...it made me think of the Gadbury sisters above...although our ancestor emigrated by choice, and worked for the Royal Mint creating Australia's first coins.
