By How Michael

Last updated 11:53, Saturday, 22 March 2008

BORED? Never! It’s what I tell those folk who, from time to time, wonder if I ever get bored with fossicking in the past.

It’s all a matter of personal taste, but I’ve always found the past a fascinating place even though, and I’ve said this before, I most certainly would not want to live there. I’m very happy living in the present, thank you very much. I know when I’m well off. Have you noticed that most people who say they’ve been here before, some of them many times, claim to have been priestesses, empress es, generals and the like. I know that if perchance I was around in ancient Egypt, I wouldn’t have been the wealthy nobleman lounging around, being fed grapes by dusky maidens and kept cool by assorted slaves wafting enormous fans.

I’d probably have been one of the poor fools on fan duty.

But I do get frustrated. Continuously! Being a mental grasshopper, I’m always coming across something new, something that needs looking into, something that, and here’s the rub, needs time devoting to it.

Time I haven’t got. Probably because I’ve unearthed something even more fascinating which also needs investigating.

This is why I’m extremely grateful when kind readers contact me with information that I’ve asked about. Information which often exists only in individual human memories.

Valuable inf ormation! Because, come the Grim Reaper, it’s lost for ever.

I know some people think you’re a trifle weird if you’re interested in the past.

A bit of a geek, perhaps. hey’re wrong. My interest in the past is exactly the same as my interest in the present. I think of it as being retrospectively nosey.

Just think of the times when, delayed at a railway station, you’ve taken yourself off to get a coffee. Having nothing better to do, you cast an eye at your fellow travellers.

All those unknown people, some hustling and bustling, some peering expectantly at arrival gates, some arriving, some departing and some just doing nothing in particular.

But they’ve all got a story. Where did they come from? Why are they there?

Why is that shabbily dressed woman of advanced years sat, tears welling in her eyes, in the corner of the refreshment room, toying with a cup of cold tea? If you’re human, you can’t help but wonder.

Of course, you’ll never know the answers, but it doesn’t stop you speculating.

We are, after all, an inquisitive species!

And that, for me, is what being interested in the past is about. It’s all about people! And, more especially, it’s also about one very important word. Why?

For example, why was Robert Jones, a 33-year-old joiner, living at 19 Hodgson Street, Workington in 1881? He wasn’t local.

He’d been born in Rock Ferry, Birkenhead. His wife was born in Chester and they had four children.

The eldest son, aged nine, had been born in Warrington and the others in Widnes.

As the youngest was only two years old, it must have been a recent move.

Also listed in the 1881 Census was Robert Forrester, their lodger, who was born in Penrith. He was also a joiner.

So what brought them to Workington? And what brought John Skillen and Samuel Bairs, both from Ireland, to that town to lodge at number 20 with Joseph Graham, mariner, and his family.

Interestingly enough, Joseph and his family at no. 20 were the only ones on the page born in Workington. The Hammonds at no 18 had relocated from Bolstone, Staffordshire and South Bank, Yorkshire, while the Williamsons, at no. 21, came from Claycross, Derbyshire. All offcomers! Why?

And what brought certificated teacher William Charles John Lewis all the way from Carmarthen to Workington, where he was to be found, in 1901, living at 6 Murraydale Terrace with his three sons, who had all been born in Workington.

There’s nothing exceptional about any of the documents I’ve mentioned, they just happened to be to hand. When the data was collected, it was for governmental statistical purposes, but today it is of interest to genealogists and local history buffs.

When dealing with any aspect of the past there are more questions than answers. And in the very near future I’ll probably be asking you a few.