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On families
Oct. 26th, 2010 06:13 pmI haven't written anything for a while so I though I'd blather on about my weekend. As it is the last few days for tax returns on paper to be submitted, I had to go up to Mother's to get all the information and start the process off. ![[info]](https://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=1)
apademek stayed behind to do her course work and be harangued by the cat for lack of food. I arrived in Yorkshire an hour later than hoped due to M1 traffic and immediately started on all the jobs that have been earmarked for me. Clearing gutters, tidying in the garage, putting up the hanging rail in the wardrobe [1].
We tidied Mother's paperwork considerably after Dad died but, despiteapademek doing last year's returns, the filing system has not been going well. My brother had a warned me that Mother was getting confused by the finances and was trying to get everything put into one place. Two credit card statements had gone missing and the payment missed and he had found other things misfiled. I retrieved all the files that I knew about and started going through them along with the previous year's tax form calculator so that I had a good baseline. I found various things in the wrong places, including a water bill in the pensions file. After much paper shuffling and refiling I got all the information together apart from a few odds and ends that are missing. Some parts of the tax return will not be as accurate as we'd hoped but...
I have "confiscated" all the historical financial paperwork and I'll get everything filed correctly and start her off on a much simpler system that uses one lever arch file. Maybe nest year's return will be less fraught.
Whilst I was there, Mother showed me a bag of Smith family historical papers that my cousin Hilary had loaned her. This was a collection of documents, photographs cards etc. that came from my grandmother and also Hilary's Mum (my Aunt Dorothy). Amongst all this were photographs of my grandfather who died in 1941. I don't remember seeing a picture of him before although Mother said that there had been one at Grandmother's house. Amongst the pictures was this one of a family outing to the East Yorkshire coast (Bridlington I think) back in the 1930s.
This shows my father as a young boy, grandfather Charles, grandmother Nellie and Aunty Dorothy. I'm guessing that Dad would have been about 10 years old, so that would have been taken around 1933. I remember Dad talking about this outing because when they came to get the bus/train back, Dad realised that he had left his boat back in the café where thay had stopped for refreshments. He and grandfather had too rush back for it, much to grandfather's disgust. They were in time for the transport home though.
Amongst the letters in there was one addressed to Charles at:
167708 Gunner C. Smith
RGA
Heugh Battery
17 Fire Command
Hartlepool
RGA stands for Royal Garrison Artillery. Heugh Battery still exists, but I cannot find a reference to 17 Fire Command. I did email the contact address on the Heugh webpage, but so far no response. Charles was injured during the Great War. Mother told me he suffered from gas inhalation and Hilary had a photograph of a group of soldiers including Charles at a military hospital. His medal service record is available from the National Archive, searchable here.
[1] I accused her of swinging on it and breaking it.
apademek stayed behind to do her course work and be harangued by the cat for lack of food. I arrived in Yorkshire an hour later than hoped due to M1 traffic and immediately started on all the jobs that have been earmarked for me. Clearing gutters, tidying in the garage, putting up the hanging rail in the wardrobe [1].We tidied Mother's paperwork considerably after Dad died but, despite
apademek doing last year's returns, the filing system has not been going well. My brother had a warned me that Mother was getting confused by the finances and was trying to get everything put into one place. Two credit card statements had gone missing and the payment missed and he had found other things misfiled. I retrieved all the files that I knew about and started going through them along with the previous year's tax form calculator so that I had a good baseline. I found various things in the wrong places, including a water bill in the pensions file. After much paper shuffling and refiling I got all the information together apart from a few odds and ends that are missing. Some parts of the tax return will not be as accurate as we'd hoped but...I have "confiscated" all the historical financial paperwork and I'll get everything filed correctly and start her off on a much simpler system that uses one lever arch file. Maybe nest year's return will be less fraught.
Whilst I was there, Mother showed me a bag of Smith family historical papers that my cousin Hilary had loaned her. This was a collection of documents, photographs cards etc. that came from my grandmother and also Hilary's Mum (my Aunt Dorothy). Amongst all this were photographs of my grandfather who died in 1941. I don't remember seeing a picture of him before although Mother said that there had been one at Grandmother's house. Amongst the pictures was this one of a family outing to the East Yorkshire coast (Bridlington I think) back in the 1930s.
This shows my father as a young boy, grandfather Charles, grandmother Nellie and Aunty Dorothy. I'm guessing that Dad would have been about 10 years old, so that would have been taken around 1933. I remember Dad talking about this outing because when they came to get the bus/train back, Dad realised that he had left his boat back in the café where thay had stopped for refreshments. He and grandfather had too rush back for it, much to grandfather's disgust. They were in time for the transport home though.
Amongst the letters in there was one addressed to Charles at:
167708 Gunner C. Smith
RGA
Heugh Battery
17 Fire Command
Hartlepool
RGA stands for Royal Garrison Artillery. Heugh Battery still exists, but I cannot find a reference to 17 Fire Command. I did email the contact address on the Heugh webpage, but so far no response. Charles was injured during the Great War. Mother told me he suffered from gas inhalation and Hilary had a photograph of a group of soldiers including Charles at a military hospital. His medal service record is available from the National Archive, searchable here.
[1] I accused her of swinging on it and breaking it.
