What is this site about? Well, it started out to be mainly the story of the village of Hooe, in East Sussex, and, indeed, most of the site, still is, and will be, but I decided to add my family history for the benefit of my relatives who have only a small idea as to what I have been doing over the past twenty-odd years! It, also, gives me the opportunity to put down, on paper, so to speak, for all to see, just some of the information I have collected on our ancestors.
Well, I began to research my Family History over twenty years ago and, like, I suppose most people, was interested in tracing both male and female lines back as far as I could - to create the family tree. Being a novice, I tried to find detailed information on the people - information such as where they lived, the type of work they did, and how they lived their lives - in other words, I tried, as it is often said - "to put the flesh on the bones". I found, however, that such information was almost non-existant and it really boiled down to records of births, marriages, and burials.
Then, about ten years ago, an uncle lent me a scrapbook, which my grandfather, born in 1867, had started in, about, 1890. It seemed to be, mainly, odd bits of letters, some photographs, strange lists and notes, and newspaper cuttings - lots of local newspaper cuttings from the 1910s and 1930s. It was all very interesting and, just looking through the scrapbook gave me an indescribable feeling, but there didn't seem to be much that could be done with, what appeared to be, a myriad of unconnected snippets of information; to store it safely seemed to be all I could do.
Very slowly, I began to piece together, from these snippets, the personal history of my grandfather and grandmother. Each piece of information, when really thought about, led to an answer and, as ever, another question - and not all could be answered.
My grandfather's story is nowhere near complete; I'm still putting it together. It's nothing special because he didn't do anything special. He was just a country schoolmaster who got involved in just about every activity in the village - and some outside. What it does do is give a picture of another time and another place of long ago - both of which have now gone into history. In many ways it was a gentler, more honest time, though life could be, and often was, hard.
Anyway, as they say, I digress. I have not yet written the story of my grandfather, as I've said, as that will take quite some time yet. When I have written it, however, and published it on the Internet, I hope it will be a real source of information to those interested in history - national, international, local, and family. I also hope that the people of Hooe are not offended in any way as I have come to regard the village as, well, almost my second home because I have learned so much about it.
My grandfather wrote some small books or booklets on the history of the village and its church mainly from the church records), both of which seem to have been the centre of his life.
Because of the amount of work and the time required to produce my part of this website, I decided to transcribe his books and put those on-line first, adding what I do as I go along.
He would be thrilled, I'm sure, to know that there was at least a possibility that people from all over the world might read what he had written! Perhaps, he does know!
Now, please, use your back button to return to the main page.
