Journey Begins

Sitting in the huge airport in Hong Kong contemplating the enormity of it all - to a modest person from a humble background - I still feel amazed at the reality of such an adventure at this time in my life !

                                      One of many vast walkways at Hong Kong Airport

Having just taken a thin tablet and made a few touches to a screen I was able to speak to my family in Australia. Of course this is nothing remarkable now but taken in the context of history, recent history, within my lifetime this would have been, indeed, was, the stuff of science fiction.

From a basic lifestyle; a home with only the necessities - warm and adequate, with a radio but television just a curiosity, a telephone way out of our reach, and still no bathroom, the milestones achieved are remarkable
.
From the industrial revolution and the dreadful conditions endured by the working class, to the atrocities of two world wars, within the last half century life has become unrecognisable with phenomenal developments in numerous areas.

Enough rumination!
 I left Wales Friday morning for Manchester, then on to London and boarded for Hong Kong. Very pleasant journey and the eleven hours passed more easily than the last time I did this. Perhaps I am becoming complacent - dictionary definition of complacent, 'smug and uncritically satisfied with oneself or one's achievements..'  Sounds about right !

Spent a few hours in Hong Kong then on to Cairns, north east Queensland. Most of the journey is over sea and it was very turbulent for roughly seven hours, which was quite unnerving - the thought of crashing down into the tempestuous, freezing water was positively scary, but in the end what will be will be !

Arrived in Cairns at 5-00am and met Alexander, we were both so hungry and eager to talk so we sat by the sea on the Esplanade until dawn and and an open cafe for breakfast.

Now for the absolute best part - off to meet Little Lady !

     

                                                                    Baby Ama-leigh

The South Yorkshire (England) Branch

Hinchliffe is a typical Yorkshire surname and great granddad Hubert was born into a coal mining background. He had an extremely stern, dogmatic father and then he himself displayed similar characteristics as an adult.

Hubert did not wish to work in the mines and at the time of his marriage to Eileen Hanson, in 1946, he was a rag sorter – sorting materials for re-cycling.  Eventually he developed his own business collecting and selling waste products and then he and his wife bought a milk delivery business.

Hubert and Eileen with their first child

Life was not easy and the family (children included) were required to work long hours to secure a reasonable living.

Alan was born in 1949 and when he was eleven years old he won a place at an esteemed grammar school.  Previously none of his relatives had had this opportunity and it was rare within his community. Wearing a grammar school uniform and travelling on two buses to the other side of town each day did single him out amongst his peers at home; also he was subjected to a majority of children from a middle class culture, at school - as well as having red hair! However he had strength of character! 

He was thriving at school learning subjects which otherwise would not have been within his experience – Latin, literature, higher maths etc., when his parents decided to emigrate to Australia as ‘ten pound Poms’ – the Australian government were encouraging families to migrate and settle there for the sum of 10 pounds! ‘Poms’ was, and still is, a nickname for the English.

                                                     Great Granddad Hubert and Granddad Alan

This was an exciting prospect for the family, however not for Alan who simply could not fit into or equate with the secondary education. He left school at the earliest opportunity and eventually joined the Australian Army.

                                                                          Soldier Alan 

Hubert developed type 1 diabetes and became unable to work, which was devastating to a man who never stopped being involved in one project or another; also the climate was becoming unbearable to him. The family returned to England whilst Alan was in the army and actually served in Vietnam.

                                                                          Alan 1970

Alan left the army and returned to Sydney doing menial work. He could not settle so returned to England where he found he was just as unsettled so he returned to Sydney and became a taxi driver.

The influence of his school never really left him so he came to the conclusion that he must continue what he left – education. He returned to England and decided to train as a teacher.

At college he met and went on to marry Pauline.

Their son Alexander, father to Ama-leigh, studied Biochemistry and then Ecology. He trained and practised jungle leadership and mountain leadership and after working in Borneo he finally settled with Charity in Australia. He is currently teaching indigenous children, from an outdoor perspective.

Great Grandparents

John Mullaney married Elizabeth Bourne when she was nineteen years old and he was twenty five. It was a very unlikely match, but Elizabeth was trapped into the care of her father and brother, and John recognised in her a stability and social standing lacking in his own family. He persistently pursued her and she succumbed, much to the disapproval of relatives on both sides.

                                                                      Elizabeth and John

However, father James and brother Martin came to live in the marital home and life continued much the same except Elizabeth had to endure a physical relationship she found abhorrent. Together John and Elizabeth had four children, although Elizabeth was not very maternal or suitable for domestic duties. She always insisted she should only have had one child – her ‘golden boy’ Terry.

Terry and Dad

Family members were aware of her cold and demanding behaviour towards her brother Martin and she finally manipulated a situation, when he was old enough, whereby he felt he had no choice but to move away.

All of the children went to grammar school but none were allowed, by their mother, to stay through the sixth form. They were all expected to work and relinquish their earnings to mother. Her daughter, in fact, was bought (a fine for wasting a grammar school place) out of school before final exams at 16 – the reasoning behind that decision by mother was because mother had not completed her education so neither should her daughter.

Terry was subjected to the ‘call up’ system – compulsory training in the armed forces at the age of eighteen, however within that training he was sent to Cambridge University to study Russian.

Terence Mullaney

The remaining children all eventually, independently, continued their education for professional careers.

Martin and Elizabeth were reunited in the 1980’s when Martin was dying of heart disease. He confessed that he had found his father’s family when he left Elizabeth’s home and he claimed the remainder of his father’s inheritance which had originally been refused by James. Martin subsequently left all his possessions and money to Elizabeth in recognition of her fulfilling her duty towards him.

The English Connection Continued

After two years Florrie gave birth to a boy, Martin, but sadly at the age of 41 she died.  Her son was three and her daughter Elizabeth was fourteen and attending a grammar school. Without her mother to encourage her Elizabeth (known as Betty) lost enthusiasm for school. Her sisters had long left the home, and her father allowed her to leave school and take the role of housekeeper and surrogate mother to the child Martin.

This was a dreadful waste of a young life; a teenage girl with such potential, grieving intensely, cut off from her peers to become a domestic servant to a father who had raised her to believe she was born to better things - to middle class aspirations, a life of opportunity and considerately more wealth than she had experienced. It was her birthright, he had insisted!

 

James Bourne had told his daughter Elizabeth many stories about his background and although he shunned family ties and traditions he made sure Elizabeth was aware of her inherited social status in life. He never took his wife and children to meet his relatives.

                                                                     Sister and niece

He was in his fifties when he met her mother and had spent most of his adult life wandering and working from place to place. He more or less turned his back on his family at an early age when he was attending a boarding school. Apparently he had made several attempts to ‘escape’ – not back to his home but to his travels and independence.

At some point when he was young he did marry a woman named Elizabeth, but she died. Daughter Elizabeth did not know this until very late in her life.

James became a skilled brickmaker and considered money was simply a means of living a modest life so when he was informed that he was the sole beneficiary of his family’s estate he refused it. Probably because it might have made demands on him.

                                                      James Bourne second from left

He continued to deny his wife even the basic financial means to provide for her family, except for Elizabeth, so Florrie had to persuade her daughter to cadge from her father so he might contribute as a husband.

The English Branch

In 1913, in Sheffield, South Yorkshire a young woman from a solid working class family had launched, in a modest way, a newsagent business situated in the ‘front room’ of her parents’ house. Being a rather independent, intelligent woman who could master many skills she became a sort of councillor and advisor to people within her locality. Most unusually she commanded great respect even though she had two young, illegitimate children fathered by two different men and was married to neither.

Her family obviously supported her emotionally and practically, even though at this time in history being in such a position would have caused a woman shame and disrespect from at least her friends and neighbours if not her family.

Florrie Westlake  (far right)

It seems Florrie’s first child was conceived when she was in service to a wealthy family, far from her home town, and could possibly have become pregnant by a member of that family if later clues are to be believed. Little is known how she found herself in the same situation a second time but unbelievably she actually had a third illegitimate daughter to yet another man.

The father, this time wished to marry her but she was very reluctant to lose her independence and waited until after the birth to decide. She did marry James and tragically became a very controlled wife, deprived emotionally and financially, and suffered much mental cruelty from James Bourne.

  

                                                  

His daughter Elizabeth was indulged by him and he never failed to remind her that through him she came from a wealthy family unlike her sisters whom he also deprived. His daughter Elizabeth was a ‘pedigree’, whereas her sisters were ‘mongrels’ according to James.

                                                            Elizabeth and Roseanna

After some years there was another daughter and a further tragedy was the death of that child from Pneumonia at the age of two, which was completely devastating to Florrie – she took to going and lying upon the baby’s grave, distraught.

  

                                                  Barbara    July 1920 to March 1923

     

The Irish Connection - continued

Obviously our Irish family survived the famine and remained in Ireland until the early 1900's when they emigrated to Yorkshire, England.  To Bradford in fact, a northern, dreary, woollen mill town.

Great granddad John was one of eleven children, born in 1907, and the family were financially extremely poor but doggedly hardworking and fiercely loyal to each other.

                                               Illustration of a large, impoverished family

             Downtrodden Bradford woolcombers going home from work in the early morning

Typical of this Irish family was a charm and sense of humour that people found hard to resist, but also a darker side of recklessness, friction and drunkenness.

John was a rare man who was devoted to family and would have parted with his last penny to anyone worse off than himself. He was intelligent and won a scholarship to a Grammar School - selected for potentially academic achievement - but there was of course no way that place could be accepted as his only option was to leave school and earn money at the earliest possible time.

He became a baker and that was his only chance in life as a man whose simple mission was to remain employed and able to provide for his family.

                                                                  John Mullaney

He had an uncanny appeal to children, just a natural understanding and way with them and because he used to cycle to work in the very early hours to bake for the day he returned home in the late afternoon. For some reason there would be a trail of children following him, laughing and chatting, always happy to see him. The Pied Piper of Bradford !