Memories

Watching the Edinburgh Tattoo on TV this evening reminded me of my Mum. When she was 85 she revealed she had three things she really wanted to do - go abseiling, have a sleigh ride in the snow, and go to the Edinburgh tattoo. She died in 2002 when she was almost 87 and we had managed the sleigh ride, in Lapland, and the tattoo in 2001. My grandfather was a Scot, William Dickie, from Aberdeen - I don't remember him at all - and my grandmother died before I was born. The inset shows two mementos of them The little silver fronted prayer book measures 1¾ x 2 inches and is inscribed to my grandmother, by her maiden name, Christmas Day 1904. on the flyleaf there is my mother's name and the date 1934, and my name and 1994 when it was passed down. The other book is a Forget-me-not Birthday book belonging to my grandfather which must have been started when he was a young man as it records not only the birthdays of my grandmother and the family they had together but also other people with names that only meant something when I started researching the family history. I discovered the sad story revealed on this page of the birthday book - 15th March. The biggest entry is Margaret Dickie - but he had no sisters and none of my aunts were called Margaret. The smaller name on the same date is Carrie Kemp - my grandmother's maiden name, presumably written after Margaret's name. Research revealed that he had married twice - his first wife was called Maggie McBean and his daughter by her was called Margaret. They both died when Margaret was a baby and he married my grandmother a couple of years later. My only remaining aunt was unaware of this - she knew her father had been a widower but not about the baby.
I can't help wondering how much family history will be lost by modern technology - will iPads and digital photographs still exist in 110 years time? there is nothing like handling the actual documents and photographs to get the feel of the past.
Oh, and Mum did not get to do abseiling!